The IOTA price has surged nearly 600 percent this month on the heels of a flurry of announcements related to the launch of IOTA’s much-touted Data Marketplace.
IOTA Storms to Fifth-Largest Market Cap
One month ago, the IOTA price was valued at just $0.37, but it experienced a steady climb over the course of the next three weeks, eventually reaching parity with the dollar on November 27. The next day, the IOTA price punched through its all-time high, and it has continued to soar from there.
At present, the IOTA price is trading at a global average of $2.48, which represents a seven-day increase of 164 percent. IOTA now has a market cap of $6.9 billion, ranking it fifth among all cryptocurrencies and less than $3 billion behind fourth-place ripple.
Traders Bullish on IOTA Following Microsoft Partnership
This week’s surge appears to be linked to the announcement of IOTA’s Data Marketplace, a Tangle-based solution built to help monetize data — the “oil” of the Internet of Things (IoT) economy. Revealed on November 28, the Data Marketplace demo will run for two months and will see IOTA partner with a myriad of myriad of corporate heavyweights, including Microsoft, Samsung, Cisco, and Volkswagen.
“This next generation technology will accelerate the connected, intelligent world and go beyond blockchain that will foster innovation real world solutions, applications and pilots for our customers,” said Microsoft’s Omkar Naik in a statement published on the IOTA Foundation website.
The announcement catapulted IOTA trading volume to historic levels. In the past 24 hours, exchanges have processed more than $800 million worth of IOTA trades. Contrasting with many recent altcoin pumps, more than half of that volume is concentrated on Bitfinex — not Korean exchanges, which tend to price coins at significant premiums over their global averages.
That said, there is still significant demand for IOTA among Asian traders. IOTA currently holds the highest-volume trading pair on both Binance and Coinone, and two IOTA pairs rank within the top 10 on OKEx.