IOTA Plans To Abandon Its Centralized Core, When Will It Happen?

IOTA, also known as the DLT protocol for Internet of Things, recently announced the release of an updated white paper. In the document, the IOTA foundation specifies a software update is going to be released soon, which will eliminate one of the protocol’s most centralized blocks – the Coordinator.

IOTA plans ensure that their network will remain secure and without glitches while getting rid of the central entity. Exact date and time of the update release remains uncertain at this time.

 “There are too many variables to consider before implementing such a drastic update,” IOTA representative stated. “Our foundation is working around the clock to make sure everything fits in our timeline. We’ve set our eyes at Q1 2020, but the real implementation depends on how and when we will be able to exclude all the variables. Also, we are welcoming community support – how users are interacting with the underlying update will be crucial for the success of the project”.

The idea behind removing the Coordinator, which was a reason for widespread negative feedback, dates back from November 2018, when IOTA posted a series of publications, describing the concept of the so-called Coordicide.

“We are still getting ideas, but for things to work out, we need simulations and tests before developing new blockchain components and deploying them into the mainnet. Some of the Ideas in the white paper are still in progress, so further modifications or complete rework are possible options”, the white paper states.

The main issues for the IOTA foundation will be auto peering and node discovery (faster and safer node connection) and consensus. Other critical problems include node accountability and rate control (how much the network can handle before running out of power).

IOTA never spoke openly for the Coordicide, but on May 28th the foundation released a short video in which Sergei Popov, IOTA’s co-founder, states that the IOTA research team in Barcelona managed to find a way to kill the Coordinator.

“We did it! We still have a long way ahead of us, but we did it!” Popov states.

Scalability issues threaten the entire crypto community, not just IOTA in particular. Ethereum also suffered from scalability problems in the past months. Ethereum’s plans include the migration to a new, Proof-of-Stake protocol, named ETH 2.0. Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin hopes that the update will increase the transaction rates and throughput, and also lower energy consumption for the nodes.

Ethereum stuck on the same plain as IOTA – the planning phase. It seems implementing updates into the mainnets is a complicated matter with a huge list of variables. The hardest problem for both Ethereum and IOTA is transforming the research documents into working lines of code.