Quick Answer:
IOST Coin is the native cryptocurrency of the IOST blockchain platform, which stands for Internet of Services Token. The IOST platform aims to provide a scalable and secure infrastructure for online service providers, with a focus on high transaction throughput and usability.
Using a unique consensus algorithm called “Proof of Believability” (PoB), IOST addresses the scalability trilemma, offering a balance of decentralization, security, and scalability. The IOST token is used for transaction fees, governance, and rewarding network participants.
Developers can build decentralized applications (dApps) on the IOST blockchain, and the token facilitates transactions and smart contract execution within this ecosystem. IOST also supports the development of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and various blockchain services.
The acronym IOST incorporates the initial letters of both the Internet-of-Service (IOS) platform and the word ‘token’ (T). The Internet of Services Token is an Ethereum-based blockchain platform intended as an ultra-fast, decentralized, and scalable blockchain network based on the Proof of Believability (PoB) consensus algorithm and smart contract processing.
The IOST’s ecosystem consists of self-contained nodes, cryptocurrency wallets, as well as a consensus protocol. Like Ethereum and its ERC20 tokens, the IOST platform offers its own token labeled as ERC20 that’s used for developing tokens on the IOST blockchain network.
The PoB algorithm is a technically advanced digital solution that is extremely scalable and responsive, which makes the IOST blockchain suitable for both online service providers and dApps developers, as well as for other entities in the IOST ecosystem.
Who’s Behind the IOST Blockchain Cryptocurrency Project?
Jimmy Zhong, Terence Wang, Kelvin Tan, and Ray Xiao are the main founders and leaders behind the team of Harvard and Princeton PhDs and grads who have joined their creative forces and professional knowledge to create the IOST currency.
The main idea of this team of developers with impressive education and work experience was to construct the world’s best and fastest platform for online services. According to them, blockchain technology has the potential to become a cornerstone of the decentralized economy, which makes it great for managing online services.
In addition to Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul headquarters, IOST maintains offices in Spain and Singapore, as well as in other locations across the world.
The Blockchain Technology Mechanism Behind IOST
Following their vision for developing the world’s best and ultra-fast digital solution for online services, the creative minds behind the IOST cryptocurrency project implemented several breakthrough technological solutions.
The IOST developers appear to have made the ultimate improvements to the underlying blockchain technology by building and implementing the sharding technology together with the Proof of Believability consensus method.
What Is Sharding?
In the case of Bitcoin and Ether, scalability has been acknowledged as a significant problem. If a blockchain was to strive for the top place among the other blockchain platforms, then the scalability problem needs to be prioritized.
In order to address this issue, the IOST developers used the Efficient Distributed Sharding Technology (EDST) to create database architecture for the IOST blockchain that was built from the ground up.
Sharding refers to a popular practice among blockchain programmers. It’s utilized for rolling out the network’s load of computational tasks over all nodes across the entire network. As a result, no node is overburdened by processing or keeping all data entries, because it only keeps the data relevant to its shard. (i.e. individual blockchain ledger). The information stored in the particular shard can still be shared among the nodes in the network, which preserves the decentralized character of the public ledger.
What Is Proof of Believability?
The Proof of Believability (PoB) is a consensus algorithm implemented on the IOST blockchain. Because shards vary in size, this protocol guarantees that nodes have a low margin of failure to enable the high trading volume that is necessary for mass adoption of the blockchain.
Basically, Proof of Believability refers to a mechanism used to assess the node’s believability before it validates the encrypted transaction-data blocks. This is achieved by analysing its behaviour and prior contributions to the blockchain network. Thus, the blockchain maintains the decentralized character whilst ensuring safe and scalable validations of the blocks.
The PoB consensus mechanism also takes into account the number of times a node’s solution was accepted by the network in order to assess its previous performance.
Where and How To Buy IOSTokens?
The IOST tokens are available for purchase on cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, Huobi, OKEx, and HitBTC. After registering an IOST main net account via TokenPocket, users can start trading with the IOSToken. IOSTokens can be purchased via PayPal, credit card, or with fiat currencies.
According to CoinMarketCap, the circulating supply of IOST equals 16,454,275,775 IOST digital assets, with a total supply of 90,000,000,000 IOST coins. In addition, the market cap of all publicly traded IOST tokens exceeds $700 million USD.
Another DeFi Token Worth Considering: the IOST Price Forecast
While prominent cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether (XRP) are more likely to hit all-time highs, it’s more common for smaller and less popular altcoins and similar crypto projects to face a downfall. Luckily, this doesn’t seem to be the case with the IOST coin.
Since the introduction of its main net in 2019, IOST coin enjoys ever-growing popularity with a community of over 500,000 members in more than 20 countries, a top-staking economy, as well as productive partnerships with companies worldwide that continuously pave its way toward success.
One of the platform’s partner companies is Moonstake. This popular SaaS staking and enterprise wallet solution has integrated the IOST staking capabilities into its wallets, thus contributing to the platform’s growth.
The ability to forge such symbiotic partnerships successfully certainly helps the IOST coin to maintain a stable price on the cryptocurrency market, and maybe even compete against the more popular coins.
A Few Words Before You Go…
Due to the Ethereum network bottleneck and hefty gas expenses, cryptocurrency traders started looking for alternatives. The IOST coin was created with the intention to offer more practical and innovative solutions to these issues.
While the EDST may not be the ultimate solution to the scalability issue, its developers certainly made a huge step forward. Namely, by integrating the Efficient Distributed Sharding Technology and the Proof of Believability, this group of developers made a bold effort to address and solve the major blockchain problems. At the same time, they have developed an ultra-fast, decentralized, and scalable blockchain network.
With the current technical solutions, the IOST network is expected to attain a transaction rate of up to 100,000 per second. As a result, this blockchain platform would become more responsive and would be able to verify the transactions on its blockchain faster than the more popular blockchains, which is the ultimate goal of the IOST developers. In turn, this would increase the price of the IOSToken on the crypto exchanges.
About The Author
James Page, previously the lead writer at Crypto Head and a registered psychologist, brings a unique perspective to the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency.
His extensive experience in the industry and ability to present complex concepts in an understandable manner make his articles a valuable resource for readers seeking to navigate the ever-evolving crypto landscape.
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