Contrary to popular belief, IOTA has been slower to adopt smart contracts than platforms like Ethereum.
It was recently announced that IOTA, an open-source cryptocurrency and distributed ledger, will be launching its smart contract beta. Users of the IOTA network may now make use of the high-speed, zero-fee transactions feature that is available through the network’s infrastructure.
Smart Contracts on the IOTA Blockchain
According to a report published on Thursday, the beta version features an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which allows ERC-20 tokens to be used in conjunction with the platform. Aside from that, smart contracts may now be written in solidity (Ether’s programming language) and anchored in IOTA’s tangle language, which was previously unavailable.
In addition, complete network sharding has been included in the project. Smart contracts are wrapped around the foundation layer of nativized coins, allowing for a high degree of interoperability to be achieved.
Notably, all smart contracts enable their creators to determine their own execution fees, letting various blockchains to compete with one another to reduce these fees.
While some may argue that IOTA has been slow to incorporate smart contracts when compared to other platforms such as Ethereum, this is not the case. Dominik Schiener, the CEO of the International Telecommunications Union (IOTA), had a different take on the situation.
He said that by taking their time, the non-profit was able to develop a smart-contract solution that circumvents the shortcomings of rival blockchains. When compared to other blockchains, Cardano appears to have a restriction on smart contract throughput, whereas IOTA appears to have virtually infinite scalability.
He also points out that the platform does not charge any fees, which he believes is a significant competitive advantage:
“We believe that a vast amount of our partnerships with multinational entities, governmental agencies, as well as the interest we receive from startups, SMEs, and crypto dApp operators are due to the fact that IOTA is feeless. Fees themselves, and especially their volatility, put a strain on business models and are the diametric opposite of an economic driver.”
dApp development and ecosystem expansion will be the primary emphasis of IOTA in the future, as will project finance.
Revival of IOTA
It was created during the initial coin offering (ICO) craze of 2017, with the goal of facilitating the “Internet of Things,” which would integrate real things into the digital and internet worlds. Throughout 2018, however, people’s enthusiasm for the token waned dramatically, and it was mostly written off as a fad.
Schiener opted to redesign IOTA earlier this year, refusing to give up on the project and proposing a significant new improvement.
In the current state of affairs, the price of IOTA has a long way to go before it regains its former prominence. In spite of this, the coin was selected by the European Commission to participate in its blockchain infrastructure initiative, which suggests that there is still a possibility for further expansion.
