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IOTA Creates Payment System Compatible With Any App or Game

A developer has revealed that IOTA, a distributed ledger protocol created by the IOTA Foundation, has been integrated into a payment system, which can be utilized in any app or game.

Expressly, it functions seamlessly on all platforms, cush as Xbox one, WebAbb, Windows, Android, Playstation 4, Linux, and iOS, among others.

IOTA’s Progress

IOTA was developed as a protocol to propel the innovative machine-to-machine economy that involves the internet of things (IoT). It was to offer a highly scalable and royalty-free asset transfer network.

For instance, at the beginning of 2019, it took part in one of the most notable smart city projects in Texas, United States, whereby it was to offer interoperability solutions in the transportation sector.

The payment system presented by IOTA comes at a time when the gaming industry has reached unprecedented heights as it seeks to be a force to reckon with.

It has been stipulated that this initiative can be theoretically utilized as a payment system on fifteen distinctive platforms. Additionally, it does not have any complex functions as it permits users to send and receive IOTA, as well as survey their wallets.

IOTA’s co-founder, Dominik Schiener, praised IOTA developers called Marlon Morales. He acknowledged that the payment system was a reflection of commendable work.

Image via Shutterstock

IOTA Network Increases its Speed by 20x Following its Relaunch a Few Months Prior

The IOTA Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on blockchain and open-source development has announced the latest version of its node software, Hornet together with the IOTA community.

The IOTA community has conducted a stress test that illustrated a stable network of over 150 nodes with over 650 confirmed transactions per second (TPS). This shows an increase in transaction throughput by a factor of 20, while Hornet is able to consume 10 times less memory under normal operations compared to its previous node software.

This new node software is paving the way towards IOTA 1.5, also known as Chrysalis, which includes protocol enhancements that will lead to “a substantial increase in network speed.”

In a release shared with Blockchain.News, Luca Moser, Software Engineer at IOTA Foundation said, “Due to IOTA’s parallel architecture and feeless transaction model, developers can build real-world applications without the constraints imposed by traditional blockchain technology.”

“IOTA’s focus on regulatory compliance, standardization, and industry collaboration are key pillars of its adoption strategy. Many of the upcoming protocol upgrades were developed in partnership with our community and network of partners in industry and academia.”

The IOTA Foundation has been working with partners in academia, government, and business to create develop safe and secure open-source technologies in the digital ecosystem.

Iota Network has seen a massive hack in February, on the platform’s Trinity Wallet software. The network was shut down on the same day to prevent any further security breaches, however, 8.55 million MIOTA, approximately $2 million was stolen from 50 digital wallet users.

The Foundation announced that the network was back online after almost a month after the attack. As the person or persons responsible for the February breach was not found, Iota said it will “continue to work with the FBI, as well as the UK, German, and Maltese police to identify and track the attacker.”

To prevent future additional attacks on the network, the IOTA Foundation has made changes to its software security practices, to improve its security capabilities and resources.

IOTA Foundation Releases Testnet of Fully Decentralized Network Pollen

The IOTA Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on blockchain and open-source development has announced the launch of its testnet of a fully decentralized network, Pollen.

The release of the testnet marks the first time where it enables developers and other parties to test the capabilities of a fully decentralized IOTA network.

IOTA 2.0, starts with its first phase, Pollen, and the next two phases, called Nectar, its second testnet, and Honey, its mainnet.

IOTA’s team of researchers, developers, and academic institutions have spent the last year researching a solution that will replace its current network by H1 2021. The new network has developed a distributed ledger network that can scale to meet the demands of the industry without leaving out the considerations of speed, security, and decentralization.

The IOTA network has developed a new architecture made up of three layers, including the application layer, communication layer, and the network layer. These three layers will enable support for features such as tokenization, scalable smart contracts, feeless Dapps, and sharding in the future.

Phase two, Nectar involves releasing the remaining components on the IOTA 2.0 test network, where rewards will be distributed to node operators or attackers to test the resilience of the protocol. Phase three, Honey will be the official release of IOTA 2.0 and will be the production-ready version of the protocol.

In a press release shared with Blockchain.News, Jakub Cech, Director of Engineering at the IOTA Foundation said:

“The community has always been an important part of IOTA’s development. With this release, we look forward to allowing our research and developer community, along with others to test out and validate the Coordicide components. We look forward to continuing to build the future of the IOTA protocol together with the community and our academic partners towards its production-readiness.”

IOTA increases its speed by 20x following its relaunch

The IOTA Network has seen a massive hack in February, on the platform’s Trinity Wallet software. The network was shut down on the same day to prevent any further security breaches, however, 8.55 million MIOTA, approximately $2 million was stolen from 50 digital wallet users.

Image source: IOTA Foundation

IOTA Foundation Announces Release Date of IOTA 1.5 Network Upgrade Chrysalis

The IOTA Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on blockchain and open-source development announced today that the first phase of its Chrysalis upgrade will be live on August 19.

In the first phase of Chrysalis, IOTA’s 1.5 network upgrade will be live on the IOTA Mainnet next week. IOTA 1.5 is critical for the network’s transition to IOTA 2.0, to enable its enterprise-based full decentralized network.

According to a press release shared with Blockchain.News, IOTA 1.5 features a substantial increase to the current mainnet’s transactions per second (TPS); the network will process over 1,000 TPS during phase one.

The users of the IOTA network will also see improvements including the reduction of milestone insurance rate from the current 80 seconds to 10 seconds, witnessing an 8-fold increase in transaction confirmation times.

The new phase would also be introducing autopeering, a feature that allows nodes to find its peers without the intervention of a node operator, which simplifies the process of setting up new nodes.

Performance and reliability improvements for node software will also be a feature for IOTA 1.5, and the majority of transactions would reach their destination on the first try. Jakub Cech, Director of Engineer at the IOTA Foundation said:

“We are thrilled to announce the completion of our first of two phases of IOTA 1.5. The culmination of these will become the Mainnet’s intermediate stage before the removal of the Coordinator. The substantial TPS increase and speed of the network are clear indications of the progress we’ve made and will continue to make as we move towards Coordicide.”

What to expect after the first phase of Chrysalis

As announced by the IOTA Foundation, the second phase if IOTA 1.5 is expected in the second half of 2020. The second phase plans to introduce the functionality of unspent transaction output (UTXO), atomic transactions, reusable addresses, and a transition to a binary transaction layout.

These features would enable the users on the IOTA network to simplify the building of solutions for the IOTA protocol and would allow users to utilize the protocol on a day-to-day basis and for partners to build custom solutions.

The IOTA Foundation announced the testnet of its IOTA 2.0 network’s first phase Pollen in late June 2020. The release of the testnet marks the first time where it enables developers and other parties to test the capabilities of a fully decentralized IOTA network.

IOTA 2.0, starts with its first phase, Pollen, and the next two phases, called Nectar, its second testnet, and Honey, its mainnet.

IOTA Launches Chrysalis Phase 1, One Step Closer to an Enterprise-Ready Blockchain

IOTA has successfully launched phase 1 of Chrysalis, reaching one of many important milestones in its development. Chrysalis, also known as IOTA 1.5 is designed as an intermediate phase before its transition to IOTA 2.0, Coordicide.

With the completion of the deployment of Chrysalis phase 1, the network is not witnessing 1,000 transactions per second, with an average transaction confirmation time of 10 seconds. Performance and reliability improvements for node software will also be a feature for IOTA 1.5, and the majority of transactions would reach their destination on the first try.

Before the network upgrade, IOTA was only able to handle 5 to 20 transactions per second, struggling to even reach 40. The network has now upgraded to Hornet nodes, allowing the improvements of tip selection and milestone selection algorithms, supporting over 1,000 transactions per second.

With the new improvements seen in the Chrysalis deployment, the network is now capable of serving a significantly larger number of use cases, taking it one step further towards an enterprise-ready network.

The IOTA Chrysalis launch also allows users to run a node “easier than ever,” and the latest IOTA blog said:

“Node set-up and maintenance has never been easier. Running a node can be done with 4 commands via APT, or through Nuriel’s playbook. With autopeering, officially part of Chrysalis but released in Hornet a few months ago, you do not need to look for manual nodes to peer. We still recommend setting up manual peers if you run a node in a production environment.”

As announced by the IOTA Foundation, the second phase if IOTA 1.5 is expected in the second half of 2020. The second phase plans to introduce the functionality of unspent transaction output (UTXO), atomic transactions, reusable addresses, and a transition to a binary transaction layout. Phase 2 of Chrysalis will conclude the development of IOTA 1.5. IOTA outlined its current progress towards Phase 2:

“Work on Chrysalis Phase 2 began several months ago as RFC specifications. And development already began on some of the components, like the new wallet and client libraries.”

MasterCard Asia Files Device Billing System Patent Compatible With Iota’s Tangle Network

MasterCard Asia has filed a patent for a device billing system that aims to help shared device users and merchants avoid fees associated with legacy payment systems of maker spaces. The patent file specifically mentions compatibility with Iota’s (MIOTA) Tangle distributed network.

MasterCard Asia, the payment giant’s Singapore-based subsidiary recently filed a patent with the US Patent Office for a payment system for shared hardware devices that aims to eliminate unnecessary fees for users and merchants.

As outlined by the patent published on Aug 20, the billing system is a proposal for a pay-as-you-go system based on the Tangle network. Citing copiers and 3D printers as examples—the paten outlines that using the system merchants and users only have to provide their credentials to access a hardware device and through transparent “data storage and aggregation” the user is billed only for what they have used.

The patent states that legacy systems and traditional payment methods often leave users of “maker spaces”—businesses that operate by making uncommon or expensive hardware available—being forced to pay a flat membership fee despite their intended use. Additionally, typical forms of pay-per-use schemes often only accept “physical currency to operate” and pre-paid services also lock users into standard amounts that they may not necessarily need.

MasterCard’s proposed billing system concept would create a higher degree of transparency and trust, as well as the ability to monitor usage in real-time while eliminating associated extra fees of credit cards and traditional payment systems.

According to the patent, the proposed data storage systems are compatible with the Tangle network but could be used by a generic blockchain—the filing makes no direct mention of Iota network or, Miota token. However, as the transactions are recorded on distributed ledger technology (DLT) it is likely that some cryptocurrency or tokens will be leveraged.

MasterCard’s Crypto Mission

Mastercard has committed to applying its innovation, experience, and scale to emerging cryptocurrency and digital currency partners, building global ecosystems to modernize payments and transform the way people and businesses transact.

As reported by Blockchain.News in July, MasterCard recently granted Wirex a principal licensing membership, making it the first native cryptocurrency platform to allowed to directly issue payment cards.

According to recent research from Statista, consumer interest and investment in digital currencies are growing, with data showing that up to 20 percent of the population of some countries are holding cryptocurrencies, and an increasing number of merchants, digital players, and financial institutions are exploring crypto payments.

“The cryptocurrency market continues to mature, and Mastercard is driving it forward, creating safe and secure experiences from consumers and businesses in today’s digital economy,” said Raj Dhamodharan, Executive Vice President, Digital Assets and Blockchain Partnerships, Mastercard. “Our work with Wirex and the wider crypto ecosystem is accelerating innovation and empowering consumers with more choice in the way they pay.”

Tone Vays and Blockstream CEO's "Shitcoin List" Includes Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and EOS

Updated 12 September 2020, 11:12 am UTC

Derivatives trader Tone Vays announced the new altcoins that just entered the Market Cap top 10 list, calling them “shitcoins,” which prompted a retweet from Blockstream CEO Adam Back, who seemed to agree.

Vays tweeted:

“As new shitcoins enter the Market Cap top 10 list, here is a historical list of every coin, how high it was on the list and when it last achieved this feat. My All Time Favorites are Highlighted”.

The tweet from Vays could come off as controversial, as it listed a lot of popular cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Tether, Steem, EOS, Dash, TheDAO, Cardano, Bitcoin BSV, IOTA, Chainlink, and Monero. Therefore, for most in the crypto community, listing Ethereum among the alleged “shitcoins” could come off as unacceptable for many in the crypto community. On the Market Cap top 10 list tweeted by Vays, it appears that all current cryptocurrencies are deemed as shitcoins except for bitcoin.

The derivatives trader also highlighted 4 coins in yellow, that were part of Ponzi schemes and crypto scams: Auroracoin, Paycoin, TheDAO, and Bitconnect. The reasons for why he highlighted DAO as well are unknown.

Source: Tone Vays’ Twitter

According to the list and context, the new “shitcoin” he was referencing was Polkadot. Polkdat is the latest coin that surged into the top 10 market cap in September. Polkadot consists of a superstar project created by Gavin Wood, the co-founder and former CTO of Ethereum. According to the official website, Polkadot is a decentralized Web 3.0 blockchain interoperability platform. It should be no dispute that Blockchain CEO Adam Back agreed with the list, implying his support by retweeting Vays. Recently, Back tweeted a few times as well criticizing some famous projects like Ripple, Litecoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and SushiSwap.

On Aug 5, he tweeted:

“Bitconnect, Charles Ponzi, Ethereum, Onecoin, Cardano, Ripple, Bernie Madoff, Stellar, Dan Larmer. All looking very similar grade to me.”

On Sep 6, he added, “XRP ripple: swift network but blockchain, 100% premine, affinity scam pump, dump on retail & repeat.” He then said, “This is fun: Sushi: loan, airdrop, pump, dump Litecoin: silver to bitcoins gold, early mine/buy, coast, sell the top.”

Since its inception, Bitcoin holds the dream of removing “trusted third parties”, especially in the monetary and financial industry. What is abusrd is that the convenience of issuing new token or cryptocurrency, with hard fork, codebase resue and smart contract, introduced unlimited credit based cryptocurrencies, of scams or shitcoins. For example, besides some modification of parameters, Litecoin seemingly has nothing innovative, and the rest is marketing and propaganda, then become a billionaire with time. To compare Bitcoin and Litecoin, read “Litecoin vs Bitcoin”.

Currently, fiat money is issued by the central bank exclusively. The power of money issuance is an extension of power and remains in absolute control of a few people occupying positions of dominance within society. The fiat money is issued based on credit, a measure that may sometimes not be trustworthy at all. Bitcoin introduced a new money issuance standard, the Proof-of-Work (PoW), which is based on the spending of computing power, to replace trust-based issuance standards, and to save society from devalued currencies.

What is sad is though Bitcoin holds many advantages, it has also been leveraged for illicit purposes. Since the issuance of Bitcoin, Ponzi schemes for one have become increasingly popular. In addition, there are many cryptocurrency scams like Bitconnect and Plustoken that have risen to notoriety.

Even for star cryptocurrency projects, when faced with a potentially huge monetary gain, assets could be leveraged to conduct illicit activities. For the time being, it appears as though the only cryptocurrency touted by Tone Vays and Blockstream CEO Adam Back is Bitcoin, which is considered by many in the crypto community as being “digital gold” and a “safe-haven asset.”

At the time of writing, it is unsure whether Tone Vays and Blockstream CEO’s critics simply echo the visions of Bitcoin enthusiasts for the cryptocurrency, or whether it serves as a call to inflation.

Collaborated with Shine Li.

IOTA Foundation Announces the Alpha Release of IOTA Streams for Users' Ultimate Control Over Their Own Data

The IOTA Foundation has continued to aim for the publication of Coordicide in its mainnet by the first half of 2021, as the foundation will work with international bodies to promote clear regulatory guidelines and frameworks.

Today, the open-source non-profit foundation, IOTA has announced the final Alpha release of IOTA Streams, the framework to enable users to control the data collected from their internet of things (IoT) and connected devices.

IOTA Streams is an open-source decentralized ledger technology (DLT) framework for decentralized data streaming and encryption for use in embedded systems. This framework allows granular levels of data access and to enable sharing capabilities directly into connected devices.

Currently, IOTA Streams is still in its Alpha phase, as the IOTA Foundation believes that its new products will stay in this phase until they have transitioned to be compatible with the upcoming Chrysalis phase two integrations.

IOTA Foundation has continued to take the layer two technology approach with IOTA Streams. According to the official press release shared with Blockchain.News:

“This approach is highly important when it comes to the future of IOTA Streams, because to secure data from a device, structure it in an easily consumable fashion, and share it securely, requires these operations to be done on device, on prem, or on chip depending on the use case. By enabling these functions as an embedded integration, something important is created. The reality of the “Own your own data” movement can be realized.”

Although European citizens have their data in good hands with the General Data Privacy Regulation being in place, other parts of the world may have more privacy issues with their data. IOTA’s vision is to solve the issue of how data is stored, especially within existing centralized systems.

The IOTA Streams approach takes the storing and management of data away from a centralized system, allowing the structuring and process of the data in a granular way. This framework creates an intrinsic level of trust, for a fair system to be put in place. The official blog explained:

“For big businesses and enterprises there are a host of other concerns around data. Their employees’ data is being consumed which puts the products and services their business offers at risk. Reducing their ability to protect their intellectual property. They need ways to verify that their business efforts are being protected which puts privacy as a core requirement.”

IOTA is welcoming feedback on the specification for the improving IOTA Streams.

IOTA Foundation Partners with the Japanese Government to Create Digital Infrastructure with DLT and AI

The IOTA Foundation, a non-profit distributed ledger technology-focused foundation announced its partnership with a Japanese national agency to strengthen the security, longevity, and durability of the critical infrastructure in the country.

The project was funded by a national research and development agency, New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), which the IOTA Foundation partnered with Best Materia and IMC, Japan-based maintenance companies. NEDO is an independent agency under the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industries jurisdiction, which allocates $1.38 billion to domestic and international research and development projects in the country.

With IOTA’s technologies, the project will develop cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) with the capabilities of a decentralized database. The project aims to develop technology to enable higher security, longevity, and durability of critical infrastructure assets in Japan and overseas.

Artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technology will be used for the Risk-Based Maintenance (RMB) systems, which will be used in power plants, energy plants, industrial plants, petrochemicals, and oil refining plants. Valued at 170 trillion yen ($1.5 trillion), this type of maintenance system aims to be the first to share industry data using a distributed database. In a press release shared with Blockchain.News, Holger Kother, the Director of Partnerships at IOTA Foundation said:

“Creating a decentralized, open source and free distributed ledger technology to ensure data integrity has always been our driving purpose. As a non-for-profit we are honoured seeing the IOTA protocol being utilized to secure a wide variety of data points in this project. Digitalizing the risk based maintenance (RBM) systems for safer and more efficient industrial plants is only one of many applications where IOTA will be used in the future.”

Capabilities of the SaaS software using IOTA

As centralized databases are susceptible to accidents, tampering, and leakage, the RBM system being built using IOTA will provide a cyber-attack resistant solution to infrastructure partners. This could be done all while protecting sensitive data.

With the artificial intelligence system, the risk of information loss when employees retire due to the aging population in Japan is solved, as the information is captured, shared, and acted upon by teams distributed around the world.

Currently, data for plants in Japan are manually stored and not digitized, which causes a lot of issues with the integrity and the sharing capabilities of data. The digitization of infrastructure data by IOTA makes it more efficient for companies across the supply chain sector to collaborate and share data in a secure and efficient way.

IOTA’s Next Generation Wallet—Firefly: What New Features to Expect

Recently, Charlie Varley, the technical lead at the IOTA Foundation published the details of IOTA’s next-generation wallet—Firefly. This new wallet comes with a range of improvements that will transform IOTA into an enterprise-ready protocol.

Varley explained that for most people, the primary gateway to interact with a blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) protocol is through a wallet. Cryptocurrency wallets allow users to be able to secure their private key when sending and receiving cryptocurrencies. However, many wallets have limited their functionality to making basic payments. Currently, wallets are expanding their use case and have become platforms for more innovations within blockchain and DLT.

IOTA’s primary wallet—Trinity

IOTA’s primary wallet has been Trinity, which has already set a high standard in the DLT industry, which allows for a seamless and simplified user experience. Varley added that although IOTA’s Trinity wallet has made one-time signatures safe for users, it will remain in IOTA 1.0.

What are the new features of the Firefly wallet for IOTA 1.5?

IOTA’s new wallet, Firefly was built with the context of the addition of tokenized assets, chat, and contact management. Although these features are expected to be launched later on, the Firefly wallet “has been built with the future in mind.”

Major steps taken in Firefly’s first version are based on security, core user experience, and expandable architecture. Developers behind the Firefly wallet have focused on perfecting the core of the platform.

1. Profiles and Accounts

The new features of the wallet include profiles and accounts; where profiles enable multiple people to use the platform on the same device without access to each other’s wallets, and accounts meaning that a user is able to separate their funds.

2. New user experience features

For the Firefly wallet, many undesired user experience issues have been resolved, while other minor features have been added. The IOTA Foundation has also added a network indicator to give users information regarding the health of the IOTA network.

3. Expandable and exportable app core

The Trinity wallet faced a limitation where, as Varley explained, a “tight coupling between the logic and application itself.” He added that with Firefly, the developers have followed an approach where all the features are reusable by other developers in other applications.

4. Leveraging on the benefits of Chrysalis

The Firefly wallet is also able to enjoy the benefits of Chrysalis, which includes 24-word recovery phrases, improved network performance, and reusable addresses. IOTA has successfully launched phase 1 of Chrysalis in August this year, reaching one of many important milestones in its development.

What’s next for Firefly?

Varley explained that Firefly will integrate many upcoming features of the IOTA protocol, including tokenized assets and Dapp interaction. He concluded:

“Firefly will also see new features that enhance IOTA’s user experience as a payment protocol, such as a contact system and an accompanying browser extension. Our priority is first on releasing the desktop version, before attention turns to mobile, and later, the contact system and chat.”

Firefly’s desktop version is already in advanced stages of development, and the first alpha is aimed for launch later this month.