In partnership with Microsoft, Fujitsu and over 20 other companies, IOTA - the cryptocurrency for the internet of things, has launched the first publicly accessible data marketplace for the Internet of Things, which will be entirely powered by a distributed ledger. The initiative, which aims to demonstrate a proof of concept for a tamper-proof data marketplace will allow stakeholders to share and monetize their data in a secure way. And in order to ensure immutability, all data is distributed to countless nodes once uploaded to IOTA’s decentralized ledger. This alliance opens up a whole new world of opportunities for IOTA and technology in general. Co-founder of IOTA David Sønstebø had this to say; >“We are very excited to announce the launch of our data marketplace, which will act as a catalyst for a whole new paradigm of research, artificial intelligence, and democratization of data.” In addition to Microsoft and Fujitsu, many other high-profile companies that will also participate in the demo include; Accenture, Deutsche Telekom, PwC and Bosch.

Omkar Naik, Microsoft blockchain specialist had this to say; >“We are excited to partner with the IOTA Foundation and proud to be associated with its new data marketplace initiative.” he continued saying; >“This next generation [sic] technology will accelerate the connected, intelligent world and go beyond blockchain that will foster innovation real world solutions, applications and pilots for our customers,” Chairman of the Board Fujitsu Germany, Head of Central Europe tweeted; ![tweeter.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmWpbHJf9Q1mPbuD7uieRFVi376mLb8f1JNwyuv9uBvTzn/tweeter.png) The IOTA marketplace demo will keep running until January, 2018. IOTA has guaranteed to release a progression of blog entries and case studies to exhibit the different ways in which organizations and people can profit by utilizing its innovation. By connecting their IoT gadgets to the IOTA ledger, ordinary netizens will likewise have an opportunity to offer their information for sale on the marketplace. This will empower them to capitalize on different information like climate station measurements, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. IOTA says that for this inaugural demonstration, all data will be valued equally. However, this might change in the future. According to Schiener; >“All of the data is rated equally for this proof of concept; however, we will include a simple bidding mechanism coupled with more complex querying for datasets in the next iteration.” IOTA, known for its groundbreaking open source distributed and decentralized ledger – The Tangle, does not use the blockchain like other cryptocurrencies; thereby making it highly scalable, light weight and able to carry out transactions with zero fees.

Based on coinmarketcap.com, it is currently the eighth biggest cryptocurrency by market share with a market cap of $3.97 billion, and within the past one-month IOTA has increased in value by over 420%, soaring from $0.34 on 5th of November to $1.43 where it currently is, at the time of writing this post. You might want to read my previous posts on IOTA:

I believe this is just the beginning for many more great things to come from IOTA. What are your thoughts on IOTA? Image credits: blog.iota.org, coinmarketcap.com