While Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin have been making headlines, the IOTA has been seeing a major crash in value due to a rectification that the tech giant, Microsoft, would not, in fact, be its partner, but only a participant regarding its new market data initiative.
The IOTA Was Off to a Good Start
At the beginning of the month, the IOTA overcame a rather interesting situation. Last week, it had surpassed the Ripple and ranked as the 4th most valuable cryptocurrency around the world. This significant increase was, in fact, due to a declaration that the cryptocurrency network and Microsoft would be partners in the IOTA’s new market initiative.
Member from both sides had made statements declaring the newfound partnership. In November, IOTA co-founder David Sonstebo was quoted saying: “We are very pleased to announce the launch of our data market place. This will act as a catalyst for a whole new paradigm of research, artificial intelligence and data democratization. This market has been created in partnership with more than 20 companies, including Microsoft. “
Omkar Naik, blockchain specialist at Redmond said in a statement, “We are delighted to work with the IOTA Foundation and proud to be associated with its new data market initiative. “
The combination of both statements was enough to launch the IOTA’s value towards the sky. With that said, since the rectification on December 13th that Microsoft will only be a participant in the project, the IOTA’s value has been plummeting.
The Crash of the IOTA
Less than a week after the announcement of Microsoft being one of their partners, the IOTA’s value had increased by nearly 450% ($5.55 on December 6th) and then, after the rectification, it took a serious crash. Dominik Schiener, co-founder of the company, confirmed that there is no official partnership between IOTA and Microsoft.
Schiener confided in an e-mail that, “We have never mentioned that the companies that participate in the market were our partners. We call them participants.”.
He also stated that it is an active working relationship between them and Microsoft. “We are in contact with several divisions of Microsoft (Chicago, Paris, Munich) and we are organizing two meetups in Chicago and, this Thursday, in Paris at Microsoft’s offices.”
This decrease in the IOTA’s value is estimated at around 10%, which is currently sitting around $3.65 or 3.09 Euro.
Over 40% of IOTA transactions have taken place on the Bitfinex trading platform, 25% were through the Chinese exchange, Binance and the rest took place on the South Korean platform, Coinone.
