IOTA

IOTA is a distributed ledger project built specifically for machine-to-machine payments and data exchange in Internet of Things networks, rather than for general-purpose crypto trading. Its native token, also called IOTA (formerly traded as MIOTA), underpins a ledger called the Tangle, a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) in which each new transaction confirms two earlier ones instead of being grouped into sequential blocks. This structure was originally designed to let the network process transactions in parallel without traditional mining fees, making microtransactions between sensors, vehicles, and industrial devices economically viable.

The project, launched in 2015 and stewarded by the German-based IOTA Foundation, initially relied on a centralized "Coordinator" node to protect the network while decentralization research continued. In May 2025, IOTA replaced that model with the Rebased upgrade: a Delegated Proof-of-Stake consensus called Mysticeti, run by up to 150 permissionless validators, paired with Move-based smart contracts adapted from the Sui blockchain. The change removed the Coordinator, added native staking rewards, and introduced small transaction fees to compensate validators and deter spam, a shift from the network's original feeless design.

Post-upgrade, IOTA reports sub-second transaction finality and throughput advertised above 50,000 Transactions Per Second (TPS), aimed at improving its scalability for enterprise and IoT use cases. The IOTA Foundation has pursued real-world pilots with organizations such as Bosch, Volkswagen, and European supply-chain initiatives, though broad commercial adoption remains limited and the token's market value has stayed well below its 2018 highs.