IOTA is a cryptocurrency that is similar to other cryptos such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum. However, it has a few major differences. For starters, IOTA does not use blockchain technology, which most other cryptocurrencies use for transaction validation. Instead, it uses something called “the tangle.” The tangle is a distributed ledger that runs on a mathematical concept called directed acyclic graphs.
This setup is very unique and is revolutionary because it eliminates the need for miners. With the tangle and with directed acyclic graphs, each user participates in the transaction validation to preserve the integrity of the network.
Because miners are not required to validate transactions on the IOTA network, IOTA transactions are completely free. This makes IOTA the cheapest cryptocurrency to use for transactions. This is highly significant.
IOTA is also incredibly fast because the more people who use the network, the faster the network actually becomes, and the more transactions per second can occur. This makes IOTA ideal for micro-transactions.
In the near future, micro-transactions will most likely start to be used more and more in the internet of things (IOT). This is why IOTA is positioning itself to be the go-to coin for the internet of things economy.
The team behind IOTA wants IOTA to be used when transactions are being made between different IOTA devices. In other words, IOTA could be used more and more for computers and inanimate devices to pay each other.
However, humans will also most likely use IOTA more and more because it is so cheap to use.