IOTA's Rough beginning of the year

IOTA's Rough beginning of the year

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Out of all the cryptocurrencies, IOTA is probably among the ones that people have always had the highest expectations for. Throughout the years, it was being hyped up to the point of it being unreal. People had - and still do - believe it to be one of the most revolutionary and ground-breaking projects out of all the cryptocurrencies.

The internet of things is one of the subjects that is bound to become more and more actual and relevant as time goes by and as technology develops, and some believe that IOTA will be at the forefront of all of this.

One of the main attractive points for more technical crypto enthusiasts is the fact that IOTA has its own dedicated engine. They have basically thrown blockchain into the trash, and created their own engine called Tangle. Unlike blockchain, the way Tangle works, is that you’re able to send your tokens by confirming two other, previous transactions. This means, that with every new confirmation, the system gets faster and faster, in contrast with blockchain where the opposite is the case. If it develops as planned in the future, The applications for IOTA are 

limitless, to the point where some have touted it as “the real-life Skynet” of the future.

IOTA’s Rough Patch 

The community and following of IOTA are probably one of the most vocal supporters of the technology as compared to the supporters of other cryptocurrencies. However, this does come with its own price, as the bar is set significantly higher for IOTA and its team, and the stakes are much higher.

The past year, and especially the past few months, have been very rough for IOTA. Following a hack that occurred on February 12, 2020, the IOTA foundation had to shut down its entire network. The hackers exploited a certain vulnerability of the wallet and stole some of the users’ funds.

According to the IOTA foundation’s status page, about 25 minutes into the accident, they have shut down the “Coordinator”, the IOTA network’s node that gives out the final approval for every IOTA transaction. 

This was a very drastic move, that although ensured the stealing was stopped, effectively put the entire network on halt, which caused a massive uproar in the community.

What exactly happened

According to the report, the exploit that the hackers used was in “a third-party integration” of IOTA’s wallet Trinity, which is a mobile and desktop app.

The team believes, that at least 10 high-value accounts were targeted using the exploit. The exact amount stolen was not confirmed by IOTA, but it’s estimated to be around $1.6 million’s worth of IOTA.

Iota has been communicating with law enforcement regarding the issue and stated that the hackers are being actively searched for and tracked down.

After the incident, IOTA started to work on the update for the Trinity wallet apps, with the goal of removing the vulnerability. They have, in the meantime, cautioned everyone not to open up any new wallets until the patches are put in place.

What’s next for IOTA

As already stated, stakes are really high for IOTA, and its followers, just like they love them twice as much for everything they do, will be disappointed by just as much. IOTA is actively working on removing the vulnerabilities and getting back on track, but it’ll likely take some time.

Iota’s rank on various exchanges is about #23, and it has always been very slow with advancing. With the events that developed, its price fell down from $0.35 per IOTA to about $0.21 as of this writing.

This has not been the first time IOTA has been a “victim” of such hacker attacks, and the repetition of hacks of such scale put IOTA’s trustworthiness and credibility to a question. How well IOTA recovers will be entirely dependent on them, in how they act moving forward and how much of a viable solution they put in place to ensure security and prevent attacks of the same sort from happening again.

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