tangle

Tangle is a term with multiple meanings. In everyday language, a tangle is a twisted mass of something tangled or snarled; the verb to tangle means to become twisted or entangled. In figurative use, a tangle can describe a complicated or confused situation.

In technology and finance, Tangle commonly refers to IOTA's distributed ledger technology. The Tangle is a directed acyclic graph (DAG) used by the IOTA network to record transactions. Unlike traditional blockchains, each new transaction in the Tangle must validate two prior transactions, creating a graph of interlinked transactions. This design enables high parallelism and scalability as more users participate, and aims to support feeless microtransactions for the Internet of Things (IoT). Early IOTA versions used a coordinator to aid security; coordicide developments seek to remove this centralized component. A tip-selection algorithm guides which transactions to approve, influencing confirmation times and throughput.

Other uses: The word tangle also appears in nontechnical contexts to describe knots, entanglements, or situations that are difficult to untangle.