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IOTA is moving towards an open source coordinator (released today on github), and eventually coordicide (which is what it sounds like). It's been the goal of the project from day one. Bitcoin had checkpoints when it started; the coordinator is analogous to checkpoints. Wouldn't touch XRP with a ten foot pole, though.

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Checkpoints prevents the chain from being reorganized after a large number of confirmations have already passed. This is to prevent several days of transactions from being reversed.

IOTA's coordinator in contrast defines when a transaction can be considered confirmed.

They are nothing alike.

Hence the word analogous. They are both training wheels for their respective networks.

A checkpoint is in no way training wheels. It's for additional security.

Right. Perhaps comparing the coo to checkpoints isn't an apt analogy. However, the intent is the same. Without a coo, transactions would be probabilistic and confirmed once they went above a cumulative weight threshold, but the transaction volume is still too low to prevent a Sybil attack, hence the coo. It's still an open question whether or not the tangle can function coo-less, but it makes for an interesting experiment.

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