Review on IOTA by Tam Pham Duy

Name: IOTA
Item: IOTA
Rating: 5

September 01, 2018

There are many options for investors and users to choose from in the…

There are many options for investors and users to choose from in the cryptocurrency space. However, once a user starts listing their requirements, the list starts a shrink. If you want a network that has no fees, strong censorship resistance, quick confirmations, and scalable throughput, your options are truly limited.
IOTA naturally has all of these qualities, and those are just the most obvious use cases. For linking the disparate uses of the blockchain together, ones that have become unrealistic with the reality of high fees and confirmation times, IOTA stands alone.
IOTA is truly the next step in the development of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency
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Pros

IOTA joined the crypto world in 2015 with the work of David Sønstebø, Dominik Schiener, Dr. Serguei Popov and Sergey Ivancheglo who still are running the show in the most important parts of IOTA’s team. Despite the fact that the concept and idea of blockchain in general is loved and much welcomed as it sums almost all up what the cryptocurrency ecosystem is made of – IOTA, like no-other, introduced a coin that is not utilizing blockchain tech to function. It is designed to run on a network called Tangle by Dr. Serguei Popov, which brought to us a way to fix almost all existing issues that digital currencies of the first and second generation are facing. Various benefits are packed in the Tangle-package that has been delivered, like: very fast transactions, no limit to scaling, no-fees and secure data/info transfer. Blockchain platforms like Bitcoin do demand transaction fees to push away those individuals that are using the network from spamming it. On such a network [like Bitcoin’s], fees/per transaction could go up to $0.50, which is very high for what mainstream utilization accordingly with widespread use would ask for. IOTA brought its solution of being zero-fees for transaction. For the system to function properly, there is no need for miners to complete transactions as the network is planned in that way that every time a new transaction is issued, it is confirmed by the next one as the present one confirms two prior itself being requested. Accordingly, the system-network Tangle can handle infinite amount of transactions at zero-cost.

Cons

Quantum Secure Another main selling point of IOTA is that it claims to be quantum-secure, meaning that its cryptographic security won't be breakable by quantum computers. What does that mean, and why does it matter? Basically, traditional cryptography is built on the idea that some calculations simply take too long for a traditional computer to solve – if you don't already know the answer, running the math to determine the answer would take years, even with a supercomputer. But quantum computers – computers that store and measure data using quantum bits – will break a lot of traditional cryptography once they're available, because for certain kinds of calculations they'll be many millions of times faster than traditional computers. Quantum computers aren't available yet, but they're on the horizon. IOTA preemptively deals with the quantum threat by using a its own form of cryptography that integrates Winternitz signatures (PDF link). This approach is thought to be quantum-resistant, although it's not battle-tested since quantum computers don't actually exist yet.