IOTA Price Prediction 2018: This Little-Known Cryptocurrency Could Record Four-Digit Returns
With so much political strife sweeping the nation, it’s nice to know that sensible people can agree on one thing—buzzwords are the worst.
Augmented reality, virtual reality, neural nets, machine learning, deep learning, big data—there are simply too many to count. But at Profit Confidential, we don’t ignore these clichés. We dig beneath them.
Why, you ask? Because we know that buzzwords are distillations of complex ideas…ideas that can make us smarter investors…
With that in mind, this report explores two of 2017’s trendiest buzzwords—“cryptocurrencies” and the “Internet of Things”—and an investment opportunity where they overlap.
This investment opportunity is called the IOTA cryptocurrency.
IOTA Prices: How Is IOTA Different from Other Cryptocurrencies?
IOTA (MIOTA) is the eleventh-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap. And, at first glance, it looks no different from other cryptocurrencies.
You can buy it using U.S. dollars, Bitcoin, or Ethereum; some of the technology is the same as Bitcoin’s; and its ultimate goal is to decentralize data flows.
That said, there are some major differences.
For instance, IOTA doesn’t operate on a blockchain. (More buzzwords!) It uses a “revolutionary” new ledger that is supposedly an upgrade to blockchain architecture. But before we get to what this means for the IOTA token, and for our IOTA price prediction for 2018, it might help to explain some of these terms.
Also Read:
Bitcoin Price Prediction 2018: Should You Invest in Bitcoin?
Will Ethereum Pass Bitcoin in 2018?
Most Cryptocurrencies Operate on a Blockchain
According to the trade publication CoinDesk, blockchain technology “represents an innovation in information registration and distribution that eliminates the need for a trusted party to facilitate digital relationships.”
You can read their full explanation here. (I highly recommend it.)
It says, in so many words, that blockchain disrupts power.
It does this by changing how information is routed, from the old-fashioned World Wide Web method of sending information through a channel that can be monitored, controlled, and manipulated to something brand new. A system where no party has absolute power.
In this decentralized system, every computer on the network carries a master copy of the information. This means that any transfer of information is logged across the whole network, removing the opportunity to hack, doctor, or abuse the data in any way.
Banks were the first target of blockchain, because they sit in the middle of every transaction, taking a few cents from every dollar that passes through them. They have immense power, in other words, which is why blockchain removes them from the equation.
Most experts say blockchain technology was a bigger invention than Bitcoin. However, the folks at IOTA think there is a BIG problem with blockchain.
IOTA Claims to Have Improved on Blockchain Technology
IOTA claims that blockchain is fundamentally unscalable.
Recent problems with Bitcoin’s transaction speed and cost aren’t exactly disproving that assertion, and since Ethereum is starting to run into similar issues, it’s not a stretch to imagine that blockchain can be improved upon. (Source: “A Primer on IOTA (with Presentation),” IOTA Blog, May 21, 2017.)
IOTA thinks it can solve this problem with its “Tangle” ledger. It would take a few more pages and several PhDs to explain how Tangle works. But the important takeaway is that Tangle is “scalable, lightweight” and able to “transfer value without fees.”
More to the point, IOTA wants to apply this Tangle ledger to the Internet of Things (IoT). Driverless cars, smart home technology, remote surveillance systems…Internet of Things is an immensely big market that deals with enormous data transfers.
With most of this data traveling on the web, there are security questions that need answering.
For instance, there is a security camera that you can install on your porch and access through your smartphone. This is extremely useful for people that travel a lot because they can check for intruders even when they are 1,000 miles away. But that data is coming to them through a server of some kind. What if that server is hacked?
There are a thousand questions like this when it comes to the Internet of Things. IOTA claims to have solved most of them by providing a safe, decentralized platform for running Internet of Things applications.
If they are right, then the IOTA token would likely soar in value.
How to Buy IOTA Coin?
You can buy IOTA much like any other cryptocurrency, which is to say you’ll need:
- A cryptocurrency wallet.
- A cryptocurrency trading account (sometimes on more than one exchange).
- A strong stomach.
The last one is a joke, but not really.
Double-digit price swings are a common occurrence in cryptocurrencies, and they don’t always go in the direction you’re hoping. As such, it takes a highly risk-tolerant personality to handle the stress involved.
But if you’re committed to the idea, then you can download the wallet. Bear in mind that IOTA is younger and less developed than Bitcoin, which is why the wallet looks like it was designed by programmers for other programmers. It’s still early days.
Next, you should generate a new seed (basically, a long password) and choose between light or full node. Once you have the wallet, you can trade IOTA on any of the following exchanges:
- Bitfinex (BTC, ETH, USD)
- Binance (BTC, ETH)
- CoinSpot (AUD)
- Bit520 (CNY) **likely discontinued after China’s ban on cryptocurrency trading**
For more detailed instructions on how to generate a seed or set up a trading account, I suggest checking out popular IOTA forums, such as those on Reddit. There is one for regular IOTA news and one for investors.
How to Profit from IOTA?
Simple: Buy and hold.
If someone uses the word “arbitrage” while giving you investment advice about IOTA, run away immediately. This cryptocurrency is young, it’s volatile, and it may take a while to mature. That said, there’s tremendous upside in our IOTA price forecast.
You may notice that IOTA hasn’t surged +1,000% like Ripple or Ethereum. This is due, in part, to the sheer difficulty of buying IOTA. Try to purchase some and you’ll see what I mean—it’s annoyingly complex.
Most advanced cryptocurrencies have smooth, sophisticated trading platforms and wallets. But the sheer existence of such a platform means there has been enough interest in those currencies to justify building the wallet, and IOTA simply has not received that kind of attention yet.
Investors were too preoccupied with Bitcoin’s never-ending series of hard forks or China’s antipathy towards cryptocurrency trading. They haven’t appreciated the upside potential of this currency, but that’s not a bad thing. It means that investors still have a chance to get in on the ground floor.
So if you missed out on ETH, XRP, LTC, or the rest, this could be your chance at redemption.
Analyst Take:
IOTA’s unique technology makes it an exciting opportunity for yield-hungry investors. For example, we modeled its upside potential based on previous growth trajectories in the cryptocurrency space, then took our IOTA price prediction from the lower end of the spectrum. We still ended up with an estimate that offers nearly four-digit gains to investors.
IOTA price prediction for 2018: $4.98
