The idea of blockchain as a chain of blocks containing data secured through encryption dates back at least 25 years to the early '90s, but Bitcoin was the first practical conceptualization of blockchain in 2008.

Since then, we've had scores of different blockchains spawning like shrooms in a swamp. Currencies, Dapps, digital asset management, prediction markets… blockchain's possibilities are limited only by our imagination. It is safe to say that we've only scratched the surface in terms of discovering use cases for distributed ledger technology(DLT).

Blockchain

Blockchain is often misrepresented as the only DLT, but it is only one iteration of DLT. There is a school of thought that blockchain's seemingly boundless potential is curbed by its inability to scale and support larger networks.

This limitation of blockchain stems from its consensus protocols, be it proof-of-work or proof-of-stake, requiring the entire network of nodes to process every transaction. This is a trade-off of slower processing of transactions for having a decentralized network where no single entity is in control.

Other limitations inherent to proof-of-work protocol include high power consumption and risk of centralization through mining pools with too much hashrate, whereas proof-of-stake has drawn criticism as a lop-sided rich gets richer model.

DAG

IOTA and Byteball are unique cryptocurrencies. How so? Neither uses a blockchain. Instead, they share an innovative new technology called Directed Acyclic Graph(DAG).

DAG is a distributed ledger technology without blocks, storing all transactions on a network. Unlike blockchains, in which consensus is decoupled from the user, therefore requiring validators, in DAG a user sending a transaction also acts as a validator who validates previous transactions.

DAG allows all users to secure each other's data by referencing earlier data units created by other users, and also removes scalability limits common for blockchains, such as block size issue. Users can just add a transaction, appending it to the end of the DAG without waiting for validators/miners to pick up their transaction and create a new block.

In the case of Byteball, the consensus algorithm used to protect from double-spends is based on establishing a total order within the DAG. This is achieved by selecting a chain, called main chain, which gravitates towards units issued by commonly recognized reputable users — witnesses.

IOTA's DAG is called ‘Tangle'. On Tangle, each transaction confirms two prior transactions. The network is designed to get faster as it grows. IOTA currently employs a coordinator/proof-of-authority node to process transactions as the network is not large enough to be self-sustaining.

IOTA Vs Byteball Differences

Launch – IOTA was launched in July 2016, while Byteball was launched in December 2016

Maximum Supply – Byteball has a maximum supply of 1 million Gbytes. IOTA's supply is 2.7 billion Miota

Transaction cost – Byteball has a transaction cost of 1 BYTE per Byte data. IOTA transactions are free

Consensus – IOTA is technically PoW where the work is performed by a transaction. Byteball uses a unique algorithm called main chain(MC) to define transaction order

Confirmation time – Byteball transactions are confirmed in roughly 30 seconds. IOTA transactions are instantaneous

Privacy – All IOTA transactions are public, although private transactions are on the roadmap. Byteball supports private untraceable payments

Other features – Byteball supports private encrypted messaging and is KYC/AML ready. IOTA is the most suited platform to date for IoT.

Which Is Better?

In terms of available features right now, Byteball is superior to IOTA. IOTA's roadmap is stocked with ambitious future implementations. Although they're often juxtaposed and compared as rivals, the truth is that they each offer a different proposition. The only similarity is that neither utilizes a blockchain.

IOTA is an IOT-ledger which is aimed to operate as a machine-to-machine and man-to-machine interface while Byteball is focused on being a currency and a platform for smart contracts away from blockchains. While Byteball is versatile and multi-faceted, IOTA is the one thing that Byteball cannot be – the fuel for machine economy.

Exchanges

IOTA – Bitfinex, Binance, Coinone, OKEx, CoinFalcon and Exrates

Byteball – Bittrex, Cryptox, Cryptopia

Wallet

IOTA's GUI client can be downloaded at : github.com/iotaledger/wallet/releases

Byteball wallet can be downloaded from: byteball.org/

Byteball wallet includes innovative features such as conditional payments, prediction markets and P2P betting.