IOTA saw a 10% jump yesterday following the news that their token had been added to the Zeux payment platform, which will allow IOTA holders to pay with the token at terminals that accept Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. Zeux, a Berlin-based financial services company, will launch their payment app in Europe next month and in the US in 2020, which will allow IOTA holders the chance to use their token worldwide. The news was enough for IOTA to beat the red that had just bathed the market and turn a 10% profit and adds a real-world use case for a token plagued by doubts.
Payments App @Zeuxapp Adds IOTA For Crypto Payments at all Shops.@Zeuxapp is the @finTech that integrates all banking activities on one single app and will now support #IOTAtoken to pay at all shops via Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.https://t.co/gmUDiXTwuI#IOTA #Zeuxapp
— IOTA (@iotatoken) March 21, 2019
Good News for the Ecosystem
IOTA founder and co-chairman David Sønstebø claimed the news was good not just for the IOTA token but also for the crypto community as a whole:
This partnership with Zeux will provide a significant convenience benefit for IOTA ecosystem. We are very excited for this. Now IOTA digital currency can be used as payment with merchants that accept Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. By combining existing technology with another form of currency, this is a big step forward towards the adoption of crypto for the masses.
IOTA aims to tokenize the Internet of Things, rewarding the sharing of data from internet-connected devices with MIOTA tokens, so the addition of a worldwide platform for spending those tokens adds another layer of usability to the token, which bodes very well for the future.
Doubts Still Exist
Like most projects IOTA has a legion of diehard fans, but it has also gained some high profile detractors over the years. A vulnerability report in December 2017 by MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) highlighted security problems with the tangle network, some aspects of which were reinforced by others in the cryptography and blockchain industry. IOTA co-founder Sergei Ivancheglo reacted by threatening one of those who supported the views. Then there is the case of the missing $10 million. IOTA’s wallets need an 81 character seed, like a password, but IOTA themselves don’t provide a generator, leading to users having to create, key in, and record 81 characters. Wallet generators sprang up online, one of which (at least) was fake, and led to wallets being drained of $10 million worth of IOTA tokens in early 2018. The company denied any responsibility, but to many it underscored the laissez faire approach to security taken by the team. Hopefully for the team and supporters these issues are behind them and they can look to the future rather than reflecting on a slightly worrying past.
