IOTA has not really benefited too much from the recent Bitcoin price surge. When the majority of the top 20 ranked cryptocurrencies increased by a total of over 30%+ over the past 30 trading days, IOTA only managed to increase by 25%. IOTA is not alone though, as XRP and Bitcoin SV have also not enjoyed too much benefit from the price increase.

IOTA is a cryptocurrency that is designed to become the backbone of the machine to machine economy in the internet of things (IoT). The IOTA network can help facilitate transactions between devices that are connected to the IoT.

IOTA addresses the scalability issues surrounding Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by removing the blockchain completely. Instead, IOTA uses a system called Tangle which requires users to verify 2 other transactions if they would like to conduct a transaction themselves. This way the central ledger is removed and has created a network of nodes that help to verify transactions on the network.

In this article, we will take a look at the potential for IOTA to reach the top 10 ranked cryptocurrencies by 2020.

IOTA is currently sitting in the 15th ranked position according to market cap value, as it presently holds a $981 million market cap. To reach the top 10 IOTA will need to increase its market cap value to at least $2.5 billion to stand a chance to compete. However, there are a string of partnerships and development updates that may help IOTA stand a chance in increasing its value to reach the top 10 ranked projects.

Positive Drivers

Let us take a look at some of the positive drivers that can potentially allow IOTA to rise into the top 10 ranked cryptocurrencies.

IBCS Group Partnership

In January, IOTA had announced a partnership with IBCS, a company which improves the process of the logistical process through the implementation of IT systems.

The announcement had stated that IBCS will be using the IOTA Tangle network to Track and Trace Supply Chain Solutions. The ibcsTracker by IBCS uses IOTA to collect and share information on logistics carriers.

The two companies have partnered up to provide customers with a better understanding of where their assets exist in the supply chain.

Zeux App Partnership

IOTA has also very recently announced a partnership with Zeux, a mobile payment and banking service app. Zeux has added IOTA to its list of payment methods which will now allow users to spend IOTA at any merchant that accepts Apple Pay or Samsung Pay.

Zeux is slated to launch the new payment method in April 2019 for its European customer base and will launch within the US at some point in 2020.

Coordecide

Perhaps the most important positive driver to get IOTA into the top 10 ranked cryptocurrency projects will be due to Coordecide. Coordecide is IOTA’s codeword for the removal of the coordinator that runs the IOTA Tangle network.

The Coordinator helps to keep the Tangle network secure within its infancy stages. As the network is currently pretty small, this gives attackers the chance to create a 33% attack on the network. Similar to the 50% attack on Bitcoin, if the attackers manage to cause up to 33% of the network transaction to flow through them then they have the ability to profit.

The Coordinator was implemented early to protect the network and prevent a 33% attack. However, the Coordinator has been the largest reason as to why users believe that IOTA is a centralized project as all transactions flow through the Coordinator. Centralization is the complete opposite goal of what cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are trying to acheive and therefore has caused many to avoid investing within the project.achieve

However, the Coordinator was only intended to be present during the initial stages of IOTA’s growth and the team have always had the plan to remove this at some point. Well, it seems that this point is arriving quickly after the IOTA team have recently announced that they are taking another step closer to removing the Coordinator.

Before the completely remove the Coordinator, the IOTA team plan to make the inner workings of the current network set-up completely transparent. To achieve this, they will be running an open source Coordinator on the mainnet. The open source Coordinator has been labelled as Compass and will replace the official Coordinator at some point on April 10 2019.

IOTA Long Term Price Analysis

For IOTA to reach the top 10 at today’s market cap values, the cryptocurrency will need to increase past the $0.80 target. Let us take a quick look at the IOTA/USD market and highlight some key potential resistance areas on the way up toward $0.80 for IOTA.

IOTA/USD – LONG TERM – DAILY CHART

Taking a look at the IOTA/USD chart above, we can see that the market had recently managed to break above the 100 day moving average toward the end of March 2019, an incredibly potent bullish signal.

The market is now trading at resistance at a long term bearish .236 Fibonacci Retracement level (drawn in red) priced at $0.3499. IOTA/USD has managed to climb above this level ever so slightly but is struggling to climb further higher. This bearish Fibonacci Retracement level is measured from the $0.81 high on August 29 2018 to the December 2018 low.

If the buyers can increase the pressure and cause IOTA to break above $0.40 we can expect further higher resistance to be located at the bearish .382 Fibonacci Retracement level priced at $0.4379. Above this, further higher resistance can then be located at the bearish .5 FIbonacci Retracement level priced at $0.50 and the 1.618 Fibonacci Extension level (drawn in green) priced at $0.5329.

If the bullish pressure allows IOTA/USD to drive itself above $0.60, resistance can then be expected at $0.63 and then at the bearish .786 and .886 Fibonacci Retracement levels (drawn in red) priced at $0.6813 and $0.7415, respectively.

Once IOTA/USD has cleared $0.75, it will be free to make an attempt above $0.80 at which point it should join the top 10 ranked cryptocurrencies.

Conclusion

IOTA is still a long way away from being able to join the top 10 ranked cryptocurrency projects, however, the team are making strong developments which may cause a significant surge and allow this to happen.

If IOTA can remove the Coordinator fully during 2019 this should help remove worries from those who kept away from investing due to fear of centralization to start to load up on their positions. This combined with the recent partnership additions and future partnerships should help IOTA rise into the top 10 ranked projects.