What is Tangle ledger technology?

Tangle ledger is the unique technology, based on a directed acyclic graph (DAG). DAG is mathematic-computer science theory, that graph consists unlimited vertices and edge connected to each other. (For more detail see Wikipedia definition). So, the main technology is absolutely opposite to the classic blockchain technology. Tangle technology is main the technology of IOTA project.

It’s very hard to understand, how exactly Tangle works because there are a lot of technical terms. If you want completely know, how tangle works, you can look on Tangle blog. Also, you look at Tangle whitepaper.

Directed acylic graph, tangle ledger

Example of Directed acylic graph

Overall Tangle ledger whitepaper describes these individual functions:

  • Infinity scalability (the more transactions in the network, the more scalability network has)
  • No mining, no blocks, no transactions fees
  • Delete the role of the transaction verifier (miner)
  • Verification of transactions belongs to everyone, who issue a new transaction
  • Quantum Resistance

Motivation for the Tangle technology

Most of all blockchains projects like Ethereum, Ripple or Litecoin are trying to solve the major problem of all cryptocurrencies – scalability of the network. If some cryptocurrency is to be used mainstream, it is necessary to process millions of transactions in the network for zero or minimal fees. Another thing is, that every blockchain network has 2 roles – transaction issuer (normal users) and transaction verifier (miners). Therefore without issuer and verifier, blockchain network cannot work.

How does the tangle technology work?

Tangle technology is trying to solve scalability problem with a totally different technology. Tangle is made by sites (transactions on the DAG graph) and Nodes (Issuers of transactions). The verification process is set up, that newly issued transaction is obligated to approve two old transactions. As a result of this solution, the responsibility of verification transactions belongs to everyone, who issue a new transaction. In conclusion, Tangle allows to process transactions in the network without miners and transaction fees.