Cryptocurrency
IOTA, The Sleeping Giant
[Photo: IOTA Tangle]
Let me begin this piece by asking if you know about IOTA?
If yes, you are ahead of the curve.
If no, let me share the little information that I have about IOTA and explain why you might have not heard about the coolest Cryptocurrency out there that is cooler than any of the major coins.
What is IOTA?
IOTA is the next generation of Blockchain Technology.
According to Wikipedia, it is an open source distributed ledger focused on providing secure communications and payments between machines on the Internet of Things.
IOTA uses a technology called Directed Acylic Graph or what IOTA simply calls The Tangle.
Through this Tangle, any financial transactions are free. This gives IOTA an added advantage over the bigger coins such as Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin. Think of all the possibilities that can exist with fee-less transactions. Every time you send IOTA coins to your wallet or that of another person, there is no transaction fee to a miner somewhere.
In simple terms, you do not lose a portion of the coins sent.
The same Tangle allows for seamless, secure and authenticated data communication between devices. Their website claims that the data is tamper proof and safe from the so called notorious hackers.
From the above capability of IOTA, one can only imagine the possibilities of secure data transfer in financial services, government communications and even voting.
By using the Internet of Things, any connected machine can act as a node for its network. This means machines such as appliances, tools, drones, autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, cell phones, smart watches and even eBikes.
You can clearly see that there is no need for mining equipment or even exorbitant transaction fees since any device can be set up as a node in the Tangle network. All you have to do is connect the device to its network.
What I am trying to say is that IOTA has far more superior technology than the regular Blockchain technology found in Bitcoin. You do not need expensive Antminer equipment to verify transactions and if you are like most of us who mind paying exorbitant Electricity bills, this is a welcome relief.
We all know that mining consumes a lot of energy. Bitcoin mining has been declared to consume more energy than all the electric cars in the world combined. A good analysis of Bitcoin mining energy consumption can be found here.
So why is IOTA not well known?
Let me highlight a few instances to show the little or no buzz surrounding the coin.
To start with, IOTA’s Telegram group only has 5,169 members at the moment of writing this. When you compare it to other coins such as Tron with over 13,000 members in just the main Telegram group, and other additional Tron groups for the numerous global languages, you can clearly see that IOTA is a sleeping giant.
Other social media websites such as Twitter, do not show any major buzz or noise surrounding the coin in comparison to the heavyweights of Tron, Bitcoin, Verge, XRP just to name a few.
When you google for any major partnerships IOTA has made with any major company, what comes up is a simple Reddit post that lists about 24 partnerships that no one has heard about on Twitter, Telegram or any major sensational social media outlet.
By now, you have caught on that IOTA is a sleeping giant with all the technological advances and partnerships that go unannounced.
It might be intentional by the IOTA team or it might not be.
One thing I have learnt about computer scientists and engineers is that they do not spend too much time on marketing. They believe that the product will advertise itself via how ‘cool’ or advanced it is in the market.
However, this is not usually true in the technological world. Any new technology product has to be advertised in a manner similar to any consumer product such as Air Jordans, Breakfast cereal or even Disney World.
The consumer needs to be made aware of what is available in the market. The technology maker bears this responsibility. The same way Apple makes headlines with any new product launch. It might be a hypothetical new pair of branded Apple socks, but Apple will advertise it as the best pair of socks out there. This leaves the consumer wondering and wanting the Apple socks so much that he lines up for days outside Apple Stores waiting for the socks to be made available in the store.
IOTA needs to market itself. This will probably send the value of the coin soaring past The Moon and probably to the abandoned planet of Pluto.
I hope that by writing this article, you will go out to the various online Crypto exchanges and buy yourself some IOTA.
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