What is IOTA?

Taken directly from IOTA's readme: 

"IOTA is a revolutionary new, next generation public distributed ledger that utilizes a novel invention, called a “Tangle”, at its core. The Tangle is a new data structure based on a Directed Acyclic Graph. As such it has no Blocks, no Chain and also no Miners. Because of this radical new architecture, things in IOTA work quite differently compared to other Blockchains. "

IOTA is a currency designed for the (upcoming) machine to machine economy which will become widespread following the 4th industrial revolution: the Internet of Things. As stated in the readme, the technology iota is utilizing, the Tangle, is a DAG - meaning there are no blocks to be mined, chain of transactions to be agreed upon, nor mining equipment to waste energy. The Tangle's architecture allows it to scale indefinitely, remain completely decentralized, and keep transactions free.

IOTA is NOT Yet Stable

Because of the Tangle's architecture, a network has to be created from the ground up meaning, during it's infancy, the Tangle is vulnerable to all sorts of attacks. Therefore, the development team created the Coordinator, or Coo for short, in order to manage the network and protect it from attacks that would destroy it. It's beta state has a lot of investors skeptical about its potential, resulting in a lot of FUD surrounding it. As an IOTA investor, I think it's important to keep in mind that Bitcoin suffered from the same doubts in it's infancy as well. Remember, Bitcoin threatens fiat currency in a similar way that IOTA (and other DAG based currencies) threatens Bitcoin.

Fiat to BTC Exchange (Coinbase)

The first step into purchasing IOTA is obtaining Bitcoin. As with all cryptocurrencies that have not been around for long, one cannot simply buy the crypto directly with fiat. One would need to purchase a more popular coin and then trade that for the desired coin. 

Coinbase is a US based cryptocurrency exchange that makes everything much simpler for the end-user. It has been around since early beginnings of Bitcoin and has been trusted ever since. The first step in obtaining IOTA is signing up here. Using this link, purchasing $100+ of bitcoin will result in $10 worth of bitcoin for FREE!

Be sure to enable to verify your email address, along with enabling 2FA on your coinbase account for extra security. Click on Buy/Sell in the sites navigation bar.

The next step is adding a payment method. On Coinbase, you have the option of purchasing through the following:

Select your payment method based on what's easier for you. It's important to note that purchasing through Credit/Debit Cards is the quickest method, but charges the most fees. Once you get your methods added, you can now buy Bitcoin.

Once the Bitcoin is in your account (the time it takes to be accessible varies based on the payment method), the next step is to send the cryptocurrency to an exchange that allows U.S customers to access it, and has IOTA/BTC as a trading pair. This is where out next exchange, Binance, comes in handy.

Our First "Real" Exchange: Binance

Binance is a crypto currency exchange based in Japan and South Korea (and more importantly, allows U.S customers). We need to use this "real" exchange because it allows us to trade our Bitcoin for hundreds of other altcoins, one of which being IOTA. Sign up for Binance here. Be sure to also enable 2FA for the extra security.

Once you have your account setup and are logged in, you will want to transfer your Bitcoin from Coinbase to Binance. This is a simple process and will take some time dependent on the congestion of the network. In the upper right-hand corner, hover over funds and click on Deposits/Withdrawals. You should be then be greeted with this screen (I have censored all of my balances):

As you can see, you have a wallet for every single cryptocurrency on the site. The one we are searching for is Bitcoin (BTC). In the search box, type in BTC. Then, click the deposit button on the right hand side for Bitcoin.

The address being shown is where you are going to send your Bitcoin from Coinbase. Copy that address EXACTLY how it is, and head on over to Coinbase. Over there, click Accounts in the navigation bar, and click Send under Bitcoin Wallet (if it shows your balance is 0, that means your transaction has not been processed yet, resume here when the Bitcoin is accessible from your wallet). You should now see this:

Paste in the address copied from Binance into the Recipient field, type in how much BTC you want to send and click continue. Go ahead and approve the transaction and wait for it to confirm (this may take anywhere from 10-60 minutes, maybe even more dependent on the networks congestion). One sent, you are done from Coinbase, so you can close that out and head back to Binance.

Now that you have your Bitcoin in Binance, you need to trade that for IOTA. Click on the Binance logo in the top left corner and you should be presented with the main page:

Every single trade pair that's offered on Binance's site should now appear. We are looking for IOTA/BTC (which I have favorited). Either find it in the list, or search IOTA in the box, then click on it. You will now see the details of the IOTA/BTC trading pair:

You will now see a lot of information on your screen. If you have no idea what's going on here, that's OK we will be buying at the market price (current lowest asking price) anyways meaning we won't have to worry about any of this. If you do know what's going on, place your buy order at whatever price you feel comfortable with and wait for your order to be filled. Otherwise, click on Market, type in how much IOTA you'd like to purchase and click Buy IOTA.

Congratulations! You have successfully purchased IOTA from Bitcoin with no initial accounts setup. If you would like to withdrawal, head over to the Deposits/Withdrawals section of the site and click withdrawal next to IOTA (although they are suspended as of the writing of this post). Beware: the IOTA wallet is not user-friendly and should only be used if you understand how IOTA works. A new wallet is coming soon, so sit tight with your IOTA on the exchange until the new wallet comes out.

Edit: Binance logo fixed. Spelling.