IOST

What is IOST (IOST)?

Described by its team as an ultra-fast, decentralized blockchain network, IOST is based on a next-generation consensus algorithm called “proof-of-believability.”

IOST aims to be the underlying architecture for online services that meet the security and scalability needs of a decentralized economy. Backing up that goal is some compelling technology, from a potential throughput of 8000 transactions per second (TPS) to building on IOST using JavaScript.

The project has been ranked by China’s CCID as the best smart contract blockchain platform, beating out the likes of Ethereum and EOS for the accolade. IOST has a community of over 500,000 in over 20 countries and over 400 network nodes.

Who are the Founders of IOST?

IOST was founded in 2018 by Jimmy Zhong, Kevin Tan, Terrence Wang, Justin Li, Ray Xiao, and Sa Wang.

Several of the co-founders have past experience getting companies off the ground, with Zhong selling his first company for $40 million and Tan co-founding Etherecap. Xiao, Zhong, and Sa Wang also founded the AI firm Dora together.

How Does IOSTWork?

IOST is a public blockchain, meaning it is a network of nodes that maintain a publicly distributed ledger of immutable transactions.

Transactions made on the IOST network are gathered into a group called “blocks,” which block producers publish. The other nodes then verify these blocks through a consensus mechanism called proof-of-believability.

IOST’s blocks are published every half a second and take half a minute to reach finality. Compared to older blockchains like Bitcoin, these statistics make IOST an extremely fast network.

What makes IOST Unique?

Users of IOST require an IOST mainnet account to enter the ecosystem. This isn’t anything strange since a mainnet account functions just like a wallet address on any other blockchain. What sets IOST apart, however, is that its mainnet accounts are human-readable and can be chosen by users when registering.

Human-readable wallets may seem small, but they’re arguably one of the biggest things that make blockchain-based technology difficult to adapt to. Long strings of random characters are almost impossible to remember, making it difficult to transact on the fly without having the right devices to hand.

IOST also features a gas token, iGas, but transactions are essentially free since these gas tokens are given to account holders for free when they stake IOST tokens. By staking 1 IOST, a user is given 100,000 iGas on that day and then the same amount daily going forward.

How is the IOST Network Secured?

To become a block producer on IOST, candidates must stake, or “vote,” 2,100,000 IOST tokens. This represents 0.01% of the available token supply. Once a node has received some votes above this threshold, it can participate in committee formation and block production.

Nodes that fill out an application to be block producers are called candidate nodes, and once they hit 2.1 million IOST votes, they become partner nodes.

Each round of block production consists of three steps. First, all candidates get Servi proportional to their votes. Then, the top 17 nodes ranked by Servi form a committee in charge of block production for the next round.

Finally, all selected committee members will have their Servi balance reduced by the balance of the 17th node. That is, the 17th node will have its Servi cut down to zero, and the other 16 will lose that amount of Servi.

According to the IOST founders, this proof-of-believability (PoB) consensus mechanism provides a more decentralized voting process thanks to the Servi point system since the number of blocks a node produces is closely proportional to their votes.

What is the Use of IOST?

As mentioned above, IOST tokens are voted to nodes by token holders. This system of voting, referred to as “staking” by most other protocols, allows all token holders to support nodes and the IOST ecosystem as a whole. It also means holders receive rewards.

IOST is also used to stake for iGas tokens, meaning that users who want to use the network regularly need to pledge a certain amount of IOST to be able to do so.

How Much IOST is In Circulation?

IOST has a total supply of 21 billion tokens, with over 18.5 billion currently in circulation. At the project’s 2018 ICO, 40% of the token supply was sold, raising $31 million worth of ETH at the time.

35% of the IOST supply has been retained by the IOST Foundation, while 10% went to the founding team.

How Do You Buy IOST?

You can buy IOST on many top cryptocurrency exchanges, and some IOST wallets allow payments from services like WeChat and Alipay. This means that IOST is easily obtainable in most countries but is especially popular in Asia.

How Do You Store IOST?

You need an IOST mainnet account if you want to store IOST coins, but there are plenty of ways to get one. This blog post by the IOST team details the account creation process and some of the most popular IOST wallet systems. These include the IOST Chrome plug-in iWallet, Moonstake, and the TokenPocket mobile wallet.

It must be noted that creating an IOST mainnet account isn’t free. It costs a small amount of IOST tokens, but it’s also possible to have a friend fund your account creation process.

Is IOST a Good Investment?

IOST is a project that has been live for a few years and can count itself as decently “battle-tested.” It’s a fast, public blockchain with performance characteristics that rival some of the best smart contract platforms out there. Using JavaScript for developing smart contracts also makes the project more attractive to a wider audience of developers and easier to adopt for enterprise use.

If IOST sees the level of adoption that its performance seems to deserve, then the IOST token itself could see significant appreciation since all heavy-duty users will benefit from staking it.