What is IOTA?
IOTA is a cryptocurrency that uses a unique system and that has been designed for the Internet of Things. IOTA is a cryptocurrency that is scalable, decentralized, modular and fee less. It is one of the few systems that manage to exclude miners from the functioning of the system and that is due to a unique structure of the ledger. As its co-founded said, the IOTA cryptocurrency will enable the exchange of data between sensor-equipped machines that populate the Internet of Things. IOTA is truly one of the cryptocurrencies with high potential and the features that we will describe later in this material will prove that point. Currently, it is one of the most important coins by market cap, exceeding $11 billion.
How did IOTA start?
IOTA was launched back in 2015 and its founders are David Sonsteb, Sergey Ivancheglo, Dominik Schiener and Serguei Popov. IOTA has a SHA-3 hashing algorithm and the programming language of implementation is Java. IOTA had an astonishing performance in the last four months of 2017, reaching a market cap of almost $16 billion and a price for a coin of 4.8$. We believe that its unique features made people invest and drive the price upwards so aggressively. The IOTA system managed to gain trust and it is currently among the most popular cryptocurrencies, having some brand new and interesting features.
How is IOTA different?
IOTA uses a different blockchain architecture to maintain its ledger. The technology used is called the Tangle which is a Directed Acyclic Graph or DAG. This unique system solves the issues that Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and many other coins have. Scalability and transactions fees are dramatically improved. Miners are being excluded from the system as their work is no longer needed. This way, the system is fully decentralized and the users are the only actors that can affect the system. Another interesting thing that happens due to this unique structure is that in the case of IOTA, the network speed increases as there are more people involved in the system. In the case of the other popular cryptocurrencies that is a problem. More people using the system means a lot of problems, the speed is decreasing and the ledger is unsustainable at a certain point in time.
Can you mine for IOTA? How is IOTA mined?
Due to its unique structure, IOTA is one of the few cryptocurrencies that cannot be mined. The Tangle makes miners useless and that is why you can’t generate coins using your computational power. At the time of writing, IOTA had a circulating supply of 2,779,530,285 coins and the price per coin was 1.76 US dollars. The price is down more than 50% from its 2017 peak, but still, it is at a high point. If you are interested in the mining process, you will need to find other cryptocurrencies that are easy to mine, since IOTA is not available for mining.
Where can I buy IOTA?
The safest place where someone could buy cryptocurrencies is an exchange broker. These are specialized websites that offer exchange services and you are able to change fiat money for cryptocurrencies. Also, you can buy a certain cryptocurrency in exchange for other coins that you already have. In the case of IOTA, some of the exchanges that currently have support for it are Bitfines, Binance, and CoinSpot. If you want to find out more about exchange brokers, feel free to check the dedicated section on our website. There you will find reviews for some of the most popular exchange brokers. Feel free to check that material as it can help you to find out a lot of interesting information.
How can I sell my IOTA?
If you already have some crypto coins and you want to sell them for cash or to sell them in order to buy other cryptocurrencies, the exchange brokers represent the most reliable solution for that, as well. You need to do this process in a safe and trustful environment and exchange brokers meet those requirements. We’ve already mentioned a few names above and you can use those exchanges in order to sell IOTA. If you want to find out more about other popular exchange brokers, feel free to check the exchange brokers section on our website, where you can find more about other popular exchanges.
Which IOTA wallet should I use?
If you want to own cryptocurrencies, you will definitely need a wallet to store your private keys. Wallets are essential and need to ensure a high level of security, so you will not be vulnerable in front of a hacking attempt. There are two types of wallets that you can use: hardware wallets and online wallets. Unfortunately, in the case of IOTA, there is no popular hardware wallet provider that currently has support for it. In the case of online wallet, iota.org seems to be the most reliable wallet. If you want to find out more about wallet providers and reviews for them, feel free to check the crypto wallets section on our website.
Can I trade IOTA?
If you don’t want to get involved in this kind of stuff with wallets and exchanges, but you still want to get involved in cryptocurrencies, there is an alternative for you as well. Online brokers have already included cryptocurrencies on their instruments list and now you are able to trade them just like you are trading stocks, forex or any other assets. In the case of IOTA one of the brokers that included it on its instruments list is IQ Options. We’ve already reviewed it in our crypto trading section. There you can find more reviews for online brokers that have already included cryptocurrencies on their instruments list. Feel free to check those articles in order to find out more.
