Ether Review #69 - IOTA & the Post-Blockchain Era

David Sønstebø, co-founder of IOTA, discusses this next-generation post-blockchain platform designed to serve as the backbone for the Internet-of-Things (IoT). IOTA is a groundbreaking new open-source distributed ledger that does not use a blockchain. Its innovative new quantum-proof protocol, known as the Tangle, gives rise to unique new features like zero fees, infinite scalability, fast transactions, secure data transfer and many others. Because the Tangle uses a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) instead of a blockchain, users automatically act as validators, allowing transaction validation to become an intrinsic property of utilising the network. Each transaction requires the sender to verify two previous transactions, resulting in infinite scalability while avoiding the validation centralization that is common with existing consensus mechanisms. IOTA is also developing a novel standard for embedding minuscule ASIC chips in all IoT devices. These chips perform nominal proof-of-work hashes in order to prevent spam and Sybil attacks, and because the network is partition-tolerant and only eventually consistent, brute force hashing attacks are prevented. With a transaction volume limited only by the speed of light, IOTA is a promising new solution to the limitations presented by blockchains. iota.org twitter.com/iotatoken twitter.com/davidsonstebo consensys.net consensysmedia.net etherreview.info https://itunes.apple.com//podcast/the-ether-review/id899090462?mt=2 IOTA white paper: iota.org/IOTA_Whitepaper.pdf Directed Acyclic Graph: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*F-rjJqQ1PyF8dOnjOaiLFg.png