by Martin on December 6th, 2017

IOTA cryptocurrency 2017 highlights and analysis for 2018

Among the obscure cryptocurrencies that have had a huge impact is IOTA. The development of IOTA cryptocurrency started back in 2015, but the tokens were only available from the 12^th of June this year. Since then, it has risen from a value of about $0.54 to the current price of $3.24 – about a 500% gain. There are other cryptocurrencies that have showed even greater growth, but none that are as ‘young’ as IOTA. In fact, most of the growth in IOTA has just been in the past month, where prices shot up from $0.35 at the start of November.

What is IOTA, exactly?

IOTA cryptocurrency is very different from any other cryptocurrency we’ve seen so far. Typically, a cryptocurrency stores all transactions on a public ledger and that ledger is distributed over the blockchain to numerous nodes for mining/hashing. Instead of a blockchain, IOTA cryptocurrency uses what they call ‘Tangle’, which is a Directed Acrylic Graph (DAG). You see already, complicated.

Basically, what the Tangle does not require dedicated nodes for miners to process transactions, since the sender is the miner… so to speak. Where on, say, bitcoin, you would have to wait for a miner to process the transaction and record it on the blockchain, Tangle makes you perform the proof-of-work algorithm thus verifying two past transactions on the spot. By doing so, IOTA cryptocurrency becomes fully decentralized and does not require any miners dedicated to processing transactions.

The impact of IOTA’s no-miner structure is that the greater the number of participants, the faster the network becomes. Additionally, there are no fees in the transactions because there are no miners who require a reward. Therefore, the applications of IOTA cryptocurrency are huge, and hence its use in the Internet of Things (IoT) where there are expected to be about 50 billion devices.

What’s going on with IOTA?

The greatest highlight in IOTA has been the recent announcement of its Data Marketplace. One of IOTA’s co-founders announced that they had just partnered with several industry giants including Microsoft, Samsung and Cisco. The data marketplace is a platform where data is shared, but the project is still in its initial phases. The news came just 2 days ago, and since then the value of IOTA cryptocurrency has shot up to $3.35, adding more than $3 billion to its market capitalization.

What about IOTA cryptocurrency future in 2018?

Following this recent price surge in IOTA, the markets are optimistic about the cryptocurrency. For a long time since it was launched, several experts had assumed it was just another pump and dump scheme, but now with the backing of institutional investors, the possibilities have become real.

Already, some experts are predicting IOTA cryptocurrency will reach $5 by the end of the year. Come 2018, as the applications of this revolutionary cryptocurrency are discovered, we may see even more growth.

By Martin

Martin is a professional trader with 3 years of working experience in a Cyprus-based brokerage. After the experience, he moved to the UK where he became a financial news reporter at a local news outlet. His years of trading experience help him deliver the most quality news, while also analyzing its impacts on various markets.

Comments (6 comment(s))

HybCZ

Gradually leaking information on the surface of IOTY becomes a reality. This start-up train also begins with the initial mistrust, who have now found that it is not a pump and dump, but a solid project with great potential, with the prospect of a nice compromise on long-term storage. GO on IOTA

Ganeshra

IOTA has many advantages. Partnership with a big players on the market, it uses new DAG-technology, which in fact makes from IOTA next-generation cryptocurrency. It has chance to replace many (what in fact already did) cryptos based on blockchain. I am pretty sure that is not going to replace Bitcoin itself, but it could be new Bitcoin, because it is first coin from next-generation cryptocurrencyes, ehich has a succes in this size.

Crystopferos

IOTA price will continue with rising his value just because of has been listed on Coinone exchange and his partnership with big companies like Microsoft, Fujitsu etc. It will attract big investors with big investments.

Netscout

IOTA is backed up by very strong technology foundations as well as by strong support of all major companies involved in IoT. It would be multi-billion market in 1-2 years and IOTA is the firts DAG currency on the market which offers great solution for the number of transactions needed for IoT devices. The supply od IOTAs is fixed - no additonal coins would be issued so with growing adoption of IOTA, it would drive the price significanlty up. I expect 5 USD would be reached again within 1 week, end of year, we would be above in range of 7-8 USD.

Kolobot

Fully decentralized ? May be. But for sure IOTA has big future. Biggiest advanteges: Fast transaction No fees !!! Internet of Things (IoT), requiere some high speed curency like IOTA which is prepared for huge amound of micro transactions and does not have fees. Paralel with market of IoT will grow also IOTA. For me IOTA will be in future "paypall" on IoT market.

Wertram

220 000 unconfirmed transactions (114 000 now) And this is not even beginning. Goodbye blockchain, welcome Tangle.