IOTA To Remove The Coordinator And Become Decentralized Sooner

In the world of cryptocurrency, IOTA is considered to be entirely different from its competition in various aspects.

About IOTA

First, IOTA is open to the fact that its current setup consists of a system that is centralized. It has a coordinator that serves as security against any attacks. However, if the Coordinator is removed, the system is bound to have some severe consequences as they would be prone to get attacked.

On the other hand, IOTA is also capable of working minus the coordinator. Once removed, it will get faster and scale better. It is because, with the current iri and coordinator, the tangle is unable to effectively scale more than thousands of transactions per second.

BTC and LTC are some examples of cryptocurrencies that have been using “checkpoints” as security coordinators. Currently, Bitcoin Cash still uses it effectively.

Among the requirements for double spending in IOTA is adequate hash power. In addition, a link to a larger number of neighbors (Omnipresence) and the view of the network topology (omnipotence) is also necessary to double spend.

Achieving these requirements is quite costly and not easy to quantify. None the less, it undoubtedly escalates the cost of attacking the network.

The COO Node

The IOTA foundation runs a coordinator node which protects the network from at least 34% of the attacks. This is not an indication that it’s a centralized system. Any knowledgeable programmer is capable of bypassing entire node during transactions.

In as much as the COO’s role is to prevent any attacks, the node is still under keen observation by every single node. There is a limited range of influence over the network and as a result, the system by itself cannot be considered overcentralized.

Meanwhile, the COO Node will still be in existence until it is capable of securing itself. An excerpt from the article on the blog states,

“The short answer is that the Coordinator can and will be removed when our research team is satisfied that we understand the coordinator-free Tangle sufficiently.”

Even after the statement, there is no exact timeline for the COO removal. The IOTA Foundation believes that to ensure a long-standing and effective framework, eliminating the COO would at least, in theory, allow the Foundation to prioritize their transactions.

It also issues instructions to the Foundation to freeze user funds or any other transactions that involve them.

IOTA To Decentralize Sooner

A high-level team member from the IOTA community, Hans Mogg, tickled the IOTA followers’ thoughts by saying that “once it is gone, tangle will FLY”. He also indirectly announced the removal of the coordinator (“coordicide”) for 2019.

According to Tangleblog, a website that tracks the IOTA ecosystem, IOTA may achieve its decentralization earlier than anticipated. The blog tweeted,