Hello guys. Welcome to another review.
I plan on doing one of these really in depth reviews at least once a week.
So today's review is based on IOTA.
If you missed last week's review on Cardano(ADA), check it out here.
Ok, let's review IOTA.
So I will be breaking this post down into the following sections:
- What is IOTA?
- How does IOTA work?
- Where can I buy IOTA with my fiat?
- Where can I safely store my IOTA both offline and online?
- To hodl or trade IOTA?
But first, some IOTA stats courtesy of the amazing CoinGecko plug in.
WHAT IS IOTA?
If you have a sharp eye, looking at the word IOTA would, you would see that it starts with IOT. And we all know that IOT means Internet if Things. And that is exactly what IOTA is all about.
IOTA is simply a distributed ledger created specially for the internet if things, and it doesn't operate on a blockchain.
So basically, we can deduce that IOTA is both a coin(the tradable kind that owns the stats I posted above) and a platform also.
The IOTA platform aims to make transactions and general life easier.
Imagine this scenario: You go to the store to buy some groceries, a new TV and some heavy mechanical items. The conventional way of taking these away is that you pay for them and you do some heavy lifting to get them to your car and out if the store.
Well, the vision of IOTA is for you to do all the ordering and paying on your phone, and once the transaction has been completed, a robot automatically takes all your products to your car for you. This is the vision of IOTA.
IOTA also aims to provide feeless money transactions. So if you wish to send $100 to a friend, you only have to buy $100 worth of IOTA and send it to the other person. There is no transaction fee involved.
Brief history of IOTA.
IOTA was founded in 2015 by David Sonstebo, Sergey Ivancheglo, Dominik Schiener, and Dr. Serguei Popov.
It launched it's ICO in 2015 and raised a total of 1337 BTC in donations.
IOTA is managed and improved by the IOTA foundation, which happens to be a non profit.
IOTA has gone on to sign some really big deals with big companies like Volkswagen and Fujitsu.
In 2017, IOTA went on to launch on the biggest exchange at the time(and my personal favourite) Bitfinex as MIOTA.
HOW DOES IOTA WORK?
We all know that conventional cryptocurrencies require a blockchain if some sorts to validate transactions, store transaction history and do other important stuff that is required to aid in the day to day use of the cryptocurrency.
Well, IOTA doesn't have a blockchain.
"That's not possible" you say.
Well, it totally is. Here is how IOTA works.
IOTA uses what is called a tangle log based on the DAG-directed acrylic graph.
What? You say.
Here's an explanatory of the terms.
D- Directed. It is directed because all the reference pointers point to the same direction. Or, the initiated transaction.
A- Acrylic. There are no loops in the transactions. This means that you can't follow the path from one transaction and end up at the same transactions end.
G- Graph. All the transaction pointers come together to form a graph eventually.
Ok. Now we know all that.
But remember that there isn't a blockchain. So how are all the transactions carried out on the IOTA platform recorded?
There is of course a special network for that too.
In order to make a transaction in the Tangle network, you have to validate two other transactions.
This is IOTA's own form of mining, bit it is extremely efficient.
There is also no room for errors and there are no problems with scalability. Just like Ethereum, IOTA is perfectly scalable.
WHERE CAN I BUY IOTA WITH MY FIAT?
WHERE CAN I SAFELY STORE MY IOTA BOTH OFFLINE AND ONLINE?
IOTA can be stored safely both offline and online.
To store it online, the safest wallets are:
- Trinity (IOTA's official wallet available on all platforms)
- Coinbase wallet
- Trust Wallet
- Coinomi
To store it offline, the safest wallets are:
- Ledger Nano S
- Trezor
TO TRADE OR HODL IOTA?
This is quite a serious point of contention to most traders and investors alike. Here is my own take on it.
IOTA is a very advanced and sophisticated platform that can allow for some great things. It's efficiency is amazing, and it's scalability ability is off the charts with no problems with scalability.
This makes it a champion for long term holding. Anything that has this much intrinsic value only needs a little time to be mass discovered, and have an explosion in price.
On the other hand, it is a really cheap coin for what it does. And it ranges very very well. Here is a chart of IOTA from yesterday. It's a 1-hour chart.
As we can see, there is a clear defined range, and the price is held about 95% within the Bollinger bands. This is a great sign of a predictable coin.
There is also the volume to back it all up, and the fact that many traders are watching this coins key levels of support and resistance
This also makes for a great trading coin.
So to trade or to hold?
Well, in my opinion, it's great for both. So I suggest that if you're an investor, you can hodl this coin, and if you're a trader, there are profits to be made in this coin also.
Thank you very much for reading my review!
