What Is the Internet of Things?

By connecting devices — from everyday appliances like toasters and vacuum cleaners to vehicles, industrial machines and more — to the internet and “teaching” them to communicate with each other, it is possible to create an interconnected network of information between these devices.

The resulting network paves the way for an immense amount of use cases in consumer electronics, healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, energy and environment management and other industries. Some experts predict that the number of IoT devices will grow to 75 billion by 2025, up from 20.4 billion in 2020.

To provide just one example, connecting a self-driving car along with all its camera, radar and LIDAR sensors to other cars, road infrastructure and wearable pedestrian devices would allow for unprecedented road safety and completely autonomous driving with no human intervention.

While for the most part IoT and cryptocurrency industries are only loosely related, there are some crypto projects that focus specifically on Internet of Things functionality. One of the largest of these — IOTA — aims to create a blockchain that supports fast micro- and regular transactions at zero fees, allowing IoT devices to exchange not only data, but also value.