the IOTA, the DLT platform with a focus on the Internet of things (IoT), wishes to dispose of its centralist legacy, the „Coordinator“. The Berlin-based IOTA Foundation has put together a special Team, to take steps for the „Coordicide“, the death of the coordinator. How these steps look like, explained the organization on your Blog.

By Christopher clover
26. November 2018 share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn xing mail

The term „Blockchain“ is certainly one of the Buzz-words this year. The decentralized, public, and immutable transaction history was made possible by the Bitcoin Protocol to prominence. There are in addition to the Blockchain technology, a number of further paths of decentralized accounting. The concept of Distributed Ledger technology (DLT) includes so much more than just the Blockchain. One of the most well-known Blockchain Alternatives is the „Tangle“ of IOTA.

unlike the Blockchain à la Bitcoin, there is when Tangle no Miner and no transaction fees. Anyone who wants to perform a transaction in the Tangle, it must confirm at least two previous transactions, before the own transaction is part of the Tangles. Unlike in the case of a Blockchain, transactions are not grouped into blocks, and in a row chained together. Instead, each transaction is part of a directed graph (Directed Acyclic Graph, DAG): of the Tangles. New, yet unconfirmed transactions are to tips („Tips“) of this graph, until they in turn are confirmed by descendant transactions.

A beautiful visualization of this resulting tangle can be found here.

Overall, the consensus procedure in the case of IOTAs Tangle is significantly leaner and scalable than in the case of a Blockchain. However, the System only works if the number of „honest“ transactions is significantly higher than that of malicious actors performed transactions. The more participants, the network has, the assumption that the greater the number of honest transactions. This means, conversely, that a young network with relatively few participants is more vulnerable to attacks. to protect

the role of The „Coordinator“ in the IOTA-Tangle

the Tangle, in its early phase of attacks, IOTA the to Check the so-called „Coordinator“ (also: „Coo“). The Coo is a special Node, which is operated by the IOTA Foundation. He published at regular intervals, the Zero-Value transactions, have to comply with the Tangle of a Checkpoint function. These transactions, also known as „Milestones“ that determine the direction in which the Tangle is spun. A transaction is only valid if the coordinator confirms, directly or indirectly, with a „milestone“.

The use of the co-ordinator meets in the crypto-scene is often criticized because he gives the IOTA Foundation in principle, the last word about the Status quo of the network. Although the Foundation cannot make retroactive transactions invalid; you might, however, freeze de facto deposits of participants of the network in which the coordinator takes into account the transactions in the publication of new Milestones. In addition, an attack could cripple the coordinator of the whole Tangle. Not least, the use of the coordinator restricts the scalability of the IOTA, which is actually one of the greatest Strengths of the Protocol.

the cross, in the centralization

The above criticism is, in a word, to the point of centralization:. The criticism doesn’t trust at IOTA on deaf ears, on the contrary, The Coo was provided from the outset as a transitional solution. The question after the end of the co-ordinator of the IOTA Foundation writes in her Blog:

„The short answer is that the coordinator can be removed and, if our research team is convinced that we understand the coordinator free Tangle enough.“

Therefore, the IOTA Foundation is planning in the coming months, the Start of a coordinator-free Testnets. Within this Testnets various theroetische approaches should be tested to make IOTA in the long term, a consistently dezentraliserte IoT platform, without scaling problems.

One of these theoretical approaches is the introduction of a reputation system for Nodes. Here, Nodes that try to confirm invalid transactions (e.g., Double Spending) to lose, in favour of more reliable Nodes with high Reputation gradually. First Tests with the one of the Cornell researchers, Walsh and Sirer reputation system have delivered „promising results“, – stated in the IOTA Blog. Improvements also the (Markov-Chain-Monte-Carlo-)method, which is used in the selection of the validating transactions use.

star pictures

another way to banish the Coo out of the Tangle, see IOTA in the „Stars“concept. To the „Stars“ Nodes „are well-known[r] public[r] institutions such as governments, companies or individuals“, a „not particularly high trust“. This „trusted“ Nodes would then perform similar to the Milestone transactions of the coordinator, reference transactions. Also this is a kind of reputation system. Instead of a single there is a lot of coordinators, and the User or the Community the freedom of choice in the composition of the Star constellations.

On the (as yet unknown) at the end, so the ambitious goal of the IOTA Foundation, can be considered the Tangle as „a developing, the cellular machine that isolates the actions of fail-behaving Nodes, and finally eliminated, by using a suitable evolutionary algorithm.“

IOTAs ambitions are big – finally, the Tangle should be the platform for the IoT industry. Numerous large companies have already expressed interest, including Bosch, VW, and Fujitsu. In the BTC-ECHO Podcast has entertained Alex Roos with IOTA-expert Tobias Zeitler on the Status quo of the IOTA project, its objectives and some of the hurdles that to take it.