The Evolution of Blockchain Technology

Cryptocurrency

Over the past decade, one of the biggest technological and financial innovations has been cryptocurrency. A lot of people have heard this term before, but few of them know what it means. Basically, cryptocurrency is any form of encrypted digital currency that is traded or exchanged. It is not regulated by any national government agency, which opens the door for international investors and consumers to use them for trading and financial purposes. Cryptography is used to create all forms of cryptocurrency and their coins.

The most popular and valuable cryptocurrency in the world is Bitcoin. One bitcoin went from being worth just a few dollars to over $7,000 (as of now). At one point, it was worth almost $20,000 but the value continues to fluctuate drastically on a weekly basis. The value is based on the demand for the bitcoin and how many bitcoins currently exist. Right now, there are 16.7 million bitcoins out of a possible 21 million that can ever exist. Once that last 4 million bitcoins end up in digital circulation, no more new bitcoins can be generated. This is when you can expect the value to increase drastically.

All cryptocurrency transactions are required on an encrypted and secure ledger. The technology that manages the ledger is called blockchain. When people trade bitcoin or other types of cryptocurrency on a cryptocurrency exchange, the transaction gets recorded in the ledger. That way, proof of the transaction will exist so that ownership of people’s cryptocurrency coins can be accurately calculated in the future. The records of the transactions are known as blocks. The blocks are linked together on a chain throughout the web, hence the name “blockchain.”

IOTA

Blockchain technology has been criticized for quite some time now. Even though it is supposed to keep cryptocurrency transactions secure, it has failed at times to prevent hacking. There have been numerous cases around the world where hackers have bypassed blockchain security and stolen people’s cryptocurrency transactional information. It is easy for them to do this because a decentralized ledger is open to the public. With no government regulation to monitor these transactions, hackers have fewer security barriers to worry about.

Fortunately, there is a new piece of ledger technology which fixes all these problems found in the blockchain design. This new technology is called IOTA. Instead of requiring miners to confirm transactions on a blockchain, anyone who creates an IOTA-based transaction must confirm 2 other transactions that have already occurred on the network. In exchange, there are no fees charged for transactions made in IOTA. As a result, micropayments (or nano payments) can be made by users. This is highly beneficial to the “Internet of Things” economy where create transactions with one another through various devices that connect to the internet.

IOTA Price

Aside from being an advanced digital ledger, IOTA also has its own cryptocurrency called MIOTA. Even though IOTA accepts other forms of cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin, you can also conduct transactions involving IOTA (MIOTA) coins as well. Right now, IOTA price is only about $0.72 per coin. The circulating supply and maximum supply of MIOTA is close to 2.8 billion each. The current market cap is about $2 billion. With the price so low, this is the perfect time to invest in MIOTA because the value fluctuates rather quickly.

There are a lot of different cryptocurrencies to choose from. However, MIOTA is still in its early stages and it may very well become more popular as the IOTA technology gets used more. If you invest in MIOTA now, it could end up boosting rapidly in value just like bitcoin did. Only time will tell.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.