Some months ago, the whole crypto scene wondered about the crazy rocket which IOTA had launched in terms of price (more than 5 dollars worth at the time). But now we are struggling with one dollar. So is this coin any good? I shall argue that it is absolutely worth buying and that it has increased its value — even though the price has dropped.

I. The team

I have been around the crypto scene since 2013 and I have to say that I have never seen a team around a project such as this. Everyone who has worked with them is impressed by the way they do their work; even Jesse Babbra said after leaving the team:

Ralf Rottmann, who co-founded Germany’s largest system integrator for IoT/ IIoT/Smart Products and is one of the newest members of the IOTA Foundation, has put it this way:

The focus has always remained the same:

David Sonstebo, IOTA Co-founder

Unfortunately, the new website with an overview of the whole IOTA Foundation has not yet been released; the Foundation is hiring a lot of developers at the moment so it can be hard to keep track of the people working for IOTA. This is why I have written about some of the more than 40 persons working for and advising IOTA:

Rolf Werner, Head of Europe at Fujitsu

Johann Jungwirth, CDO at Volkswagen

Julie Maupin, Board member of the Fintech Advisory Board of the German Ministry of Finance and the G20 Digital Economy Experts Task Force, as well as a resource person for the UN Internet Governance Forum

You should read this article about her.

Gur Huberman, Robert G. Kirby Professor of Behavioral Finance at Columbia Business School

Oliver Bussmann, President of Crypto Valley Association and Ex-CIO at UBS, held top tech jobs at companies such as IBM and Deutsche Bank

That’s just roughly 10% of the IOTA Foundation members — and all of them are highly skilled people. With the new homepage, it will be made clear which position each of them holds within the Foundation. You may have a look at the official IOTA Twitter account for more information on Foundation members.

None of these renowned people would join a scam-project or anything like that. As I have shown in another article, all of them have their respective area of interest where they can make use of their connections and expertise (e.g. finance, health, law, different industries…).

II. The Future

The IOTA community is currently waiting for announcements among which the following play an important role (and thus will also affect IOTA’s value):

Q (one of the — if not THE- most important projects for IOTA (according to David Sonstebo; due soon (yet there had been delays in the past, we’ll see)

new homepage (completely redesigned, much information, new roadmap etc.; due in April)

Trinity (new wallet which is supposed to be the best on the market plus security audited; due in May)

basically all of the big exchanges listing IOTA (due very soon once IXI Hub is released, which is an extension making it easy for exchanges to list IOTA)

marketplace (the experiences of the first round’s collaborators will be made public, more persons and companies will gain access; due soon)

hardware (IoT chips specifically designed for IOTA; no ETA yet)

Come-from-Beyond’s 1000th tweet (he is the inventor of NXT and one of the “founding fathers” of IOTA)

However, there are also many meetings lined up which will be important for IOTA’s next steps:

This meetup took place in February 18 near Stuttgart, Germany

Again, these are just some examples of what is going on — there will be alot more in the coming weeks and months.

Like it or not, this alone shows that IOTA has achieved a prominence in the industry which cannot be ignored anymore.

III. The already working projects

IOTA’s goal is to be production-ready by the end of 2018. Already now, many projects are under way, some of which you can see here:

One of the most renowned German tech universities is starting to use IOTA

IV. The tech and its usecases

Of course, partnerships and good people are not enough — the product itself must be good! Despite some allegations, IOTA’s code has not been hacked so far and no funds have been hacked accordingly (yet some people were hacked after using phishy seed-generator websites) Here are some usecases:

Keep in mind that this can be achieved without any mining rigs (and the corresponding electricity waste), without fees and in a network which gets faster the more people (and companies) use it (as opposed to basically any other crypto out there which get slower in the same case).

Final thoughts

Yes, there have been delays.

Any yes, the communication was sometimes not really good.

But looking at the people at the IOTA Foundation and their skills and experience,

looking at how the team works 24/7,

looking at their goals and what IOTA is being made for,

looking at the working PoCs and projects,

looking at new exchanges and volumes soon,

looking at the companies involved (make sure you know what BOSCH (and thus the partnership with IOTA) is about in terms of IoT),

and considering the fact that the team has always delivered (even if sometimes delayed), I am really looking forward to what is going to happen in 2018 and beyond to IOTA. There are reasons for the delays which we have seen so far; one of the Discord community members has put it this way:

Julie Maupin also pointed at the restructuring of the Foundation which has cost time but which will ultimately pay out:

To put it in a nutshell: If they can deliver, IOTA will be the epicenter of the biggest innovation earthquake of our time!

As always, I would be really happy about donations (you may also read my other articles):

KGOZYHJRYVDBSXTUSECYJVEBLDVYFKCAKAWTPTCKXMBNOWNVRDRHRVSJNIVOQUFRODFPXWYSGROKRWKRZWJZTJOHSX