Short answers, pulled from the story.
Four researchers named David Sønstebø, Dominik Schiener, Sergey Ivancheglo, and Serguei Popov created the digital currency called IOTA in 2015. The network officially went live in 2016 with a fixed supply of tokens distributed pro-rata to early investors.
More than US$10 million worth of tokens were stolen via a malicious online seed creator in January 2018. This incident involved over 85 victims and remains the largest fraud in IOTA history.
The IOTA Foundation shut down the coordinator node on the 12th of February 2020 to stop further thefts after a breach occurred on the 26th of November 2019. Users had until the 7th of March 2020 to migrate their seeds before the network restarted on the 10th of March 2020.
IOTA uses a directed acyclic graph structure known as the Tangle to store transactions instead of traditional blockchain blocks. Network participants must approve two previous transactions for every new transaction they issue without paying fees.
Corporations like Jaguar Land Rover, STMicroelectronics, and Bosch have developed proof-of-concepts using IOTA technology within the automotive industry. Smart city testbeds utilize the platform to establish digital identity systems and manage waste or local energy trading.