Hi! Yes I am still around,
I have been busy exploring (it's what I like to do).
Sorry for not sharing much lately... surprisingly time does not expand yet!
What's in for the menu?
Today I have decided to show a glimpse of what I am now also participating in... IOTA!
(image source)
What does it mean?
It means (i believe) Internet Of Things Asset (IOTA), and it's here already for some time, but only this year had a great adoption. And although it has his own reputation for defying the blockchain technology, I do not think it will become mass adoption just yet, but it was now worth paying attention and having a little drive into it.
You are welcome to explore it under the following links and also do your own research:
Want to check my view on this?
I took some time to check for some neat tools (check bellow) and understand the status of this so called, BLOCKCHAIN-LESS network, which for me is still a network that requires an adoption of trust between IP's (just like any other blockchain) that predominantly have been called the hardest word I could ever thought of, neighbours (instead of nodes)! I was somehow expecting something like IOTA to communicate in the same idea i2p is currently working now, but not just yet. Maybe in the future.
...anyway,
A quote from IOTA at GitHub:
"IOTA is a revolutionary new transactional settlement and data transfer layer for the Internet of Things. It’s based on a new distributed ledger, the Tangle, which gets rid off the inefficiencies of current Blockchain designs and introduces a new way of reaching consensus in a decentralized peer-to-peer system. For the first time ever, through IOTA people can transfer money without any fees. This means that even infinitesimally small nanopayments can be made through IOTA."
How much did it hurt?!
My opinion on IOTA is divided and at the same time, I find it interesting... some of the implementation is a bit not yet ready and to be honest (in my view), I still can't see where is the strategy to get the mass adoption, simply because by allowing ZERO fee network, I can't see how you can create enough incentive for the network to sustain an enormous amount of transactions. But I can be wrong... this is why experimenting is really fun!
You still need A DATA BASE!
Beware that blockchain-less does not mean that full nodes don't need to store ANY data. You still need to hold some sort of database (currently at 2.85GB) that is (as it seems) snapshotted once and then, to basically reduce the exposure to attacks, minimise recovery time and data storage requirements for full nodes. This database keeps an index record of what is being transacted but does not necessarily need to be at last index for you to transact or receive a transaction.
How does it work?
The network is a bit like people travelling by car and the flow of this transit... you can go any direction by car... all you have to do is carpool at least 2 more persons. Then, you might eventually clog up somewhere in a specific road that possibly becomes "hard to sync". The difference is that on a real road, the congestion will remain until every bit goes through, but in IOTA, new roads will appear to solve the congestion problem and dynamically adapt the transit (well, it's not yet like this, roads are still static, but that's where it will go eventually).
The economics...
On another view, I really like the open and simple approach in making this possible to run basically everywhere (shame Java had to solve this bit), with very little PoW (proof of work). Although, I find the way to establish connections between peers a bit rushed and archaic... as in, "we do not have time for this...", so let's just make the "knowledgeable" ones able to work it out. It could make a bigger impact if more work was applied to this bit...
I guess I am somehow glad, I have not participated on the ICO... but, I could still regret it! It's the only risk now =)
Where is the CANDY you promised!
Anyway, enough of talk and to the good stuff...
Just waiting 15 minutes on this website, you can get an impression of what the network (the "tangle") is becoming...
Pretty amazing eh! All those dots are active nodes (lightweight and/or full nodes)... Massive! - The website could have adopted a different way to draw it though... drawing on a line is less intuitive and takes a lot more space to present.
You also have this one for a global view of the full nodes (I am not there yet), plus a lot of useful links to additional information:
A price calculator and other tools:
And to end... the official block explorer (there are more out there):
More info:
If you are interested in creating a full node, please read...
- Potentially needs a lot of bandwidth (at least when synchronising), so ADSL is quite useless if you want to start hard... Not that the node needs lot's of bandwidth to sustain connections, but if you wish to hold lots of neighbours, a good connection will be important.
- Memory is not a problem (any 256MB will do, 512MB is best, 1024MB for massive users) - at least from I have seen on Windows but might differ from other platforms and between the GUI I am using and headless node version.
- CPU LOGICAL cores is a must if you wish to be transacting like a Kiwi! (along with a good ISP connection).
- Be prepared for a journey of some days up to a week or two, to find the best "neighbours"! - you can do it in a few hours if you are in a CAVE, only doing IOTA though!
- If you have a NAS or a router, do not run this SH...t on it! =) don't do like me that loves to try everything! - Sometimes experiments cost time!... and people get mad at you because the internet is slow and video streaming IS not fast! heheh
- Get at LEAST 3 geographically distinct "neighbours" would make more room for less intercontinental problems (my opinion again).
The Wallet!
I leave you with a GUI image of the wallet in Full Node mode (not much to differentiate):
The wallet address is there as proof, not for donation begging... oK?
The reason I like the GUI version is that you can easily swap between the Full and the Lightweight mode. Of course that means you will be ending the connection to some of your "neighbours" for the time you are not in Full mode, but if you implement it with a headless IRI node and between your IRI node and your GUI Full Mode, you are sharing "neighbours", then it becomes obvious why it is a valuable option.
See you there! And ALLWAYS have fun...
Produce quality SteemCATAPOOM, RESTEEM if you wish to show others what you have learned... and, VOTE for Witnesses!
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