IoTeX embodies the dual concepts of DePIN and the Internet of Things (IoT). It is a next-generation blockchain platform oriented towards IoT, with its own unique features in scalability, deep privacy protection, and independence. IoTeX is committed to providing comprehensive support for IoT applications and building blockchain ecosystems.
Author: FMResearch
Introduction
Integrating with the real world has always been the direction of blockchain applications. Against the backdrop of a strong US dollar this year, RWA has bridged the gap between traditional finance and crypto finance, becoming one of the few outstanding sectors in the bear market. DePIN, as a branch of RWA, has gradually gained attention. DePIN, short for Decentrailized Physical Infrastructure Networks, is defined in a 2022 research report by Messari as one of the "most important areas for crypto investment in the next decade."
Like RWA, DePIN is not a new concept. As early as after the birth of Ethereum, many projects attempted to decentralize infrastructure such as energy, storage, and computing. Projects like Filecoin and Helium have already achieved certain accomplishments.
At the recent Hong Kong Fintech Week, DePIN became the focus of the Web3 industry, and the combination of Web3 and physical infrastructure is considered the next trend. Techub News stated, "DePIN is the biggest narrative of Hong Kong Web3."
FutureMoney has always attached great importance to DePIN research. This article will mainly introduce IoTeX, a representative project of DePIN. IoTeX embodies the dual concepts of DePIN and the Internet of Things (IoT). It is a next-generation blockchain platform oriented towards IoT, with its own unique features in scalability, deep privacy protection, and independence. IoTeX is committed to providing comprehensive support for IoT applications and building blockchain ecosystems.
Market Space for DePIN
Currently, well-known DePIN projects mainly focus on the storage and communication fields. In fact, DePIN has application potential in industries such as energy, computing, IoT, and supply chain. For example, the decentralized energy storage asset network React uses decentralized Web3 technology to save energy and improve the efficiency of the power grid. It allows participants to connect their home batteries to the Web3 energy storage network, and participating enterprises and individuals can receive cash and token incentives. The decentralized GPU platform Render Network provides rendering capabilities for large-scale video production, 3D modeling, and movie special effects projects. Render Network offers different token incentives based on the rendering speed of different levels of GPUs.
Traditional physical infrastructure construction is characterized by capital intensity, long investment cycles, and low returns. Utilizing token incentives and the flywheel effect of blockchain to unleash the potential of decentralized hardware can effectively address this pain point. The core of the DePIN model lies in connecting dispersed demand and idle physical resources using token incentives and the flywheel effect to meet demand at lower costs and higher efficiency.
According to DePINscan, a public data platform created by IoTeX, there are currently 370,000 devices connected to Web3, and although the growth is rapid, this only represents a very small part of the physical world.
IoTeX: Providing a Full-Stack Solution for DePIN Applications
Founded in 2017, IoTeX has been dedicated to the integration of physical devices (and their data) and blockchain technology. IoTeX ensures that people can own and control their devices, data, and the value they generate, making builders and users the owners and beneficiaries of the trillion-dollar IoT economy. Based on its contributions to the IoT, IoTeX was selected as the co-chair of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) Blockchain Group along with Amazon and Huawei.
IoTeX has built an EVM-compatible Layer1 blockchain designed specifically for IoT data and DePIN applications. By providing the DePIN middleware W3bstream, IoTeX connects DePIN physical devices and data to Layer1. Any DePIN application can create its own dApp with one click on W3bstream, including hardware components, off-chain logic programs, on-chain logic/token economics, incentivizing the circulation of real-world data, and generating token rewards for users.
IoTeX's full-stack DePIN solution provides a complete "plug-and-play" set of products and tools for blockchain-driven IoT applications. Building DePIN applications on the IoTeX platform only requires a focus on business logic. Its full-stack DePIN infrastructure is divided into four layers from top to bottom:
- Hardware Layer: MachineFi is a hardware portal platform where developers and users can register devices, obtain visualized data, and interact with MachineFi dApps.
- Middleware: W3bstream is a middleware between smart devices and blockchain, used to connect smart devices to smart contracts and generate proof of on-chain dApps.
- Tool Layer: IoTeX provides a range of tools to help applications achieve data interaction and value circulation, such as ioScan, a blockchain explorer for querying blockchain data, and ioTube, a cross-chain bridge for facilitating bi-directional token exchanges between IoTeX, Ethereum, BNB chains, and other top L1 chains.
- Blockchain: IoTeX Blockchain is an EVM-compatible L1 designed for IoT data.
IoTeX Development History and Real-World Applications
IoTeX Development History
IoTeX was founded in 2017 and raised approximately $30 million from top venture capital firms in early 2018, beginning the construction of the Layer1 blockchain. That year, the L1 testnet was launched, followed by token listings on Binance, Kucoin, and Gate.
In 2019, IoTeX developed a PoS-based EVM public chain and incubated many DeFi and NFT projects, with over 100 ecosystem application data. Products include ioPay, staking portals, and IoTeXScan.
In 2020, IoTeX began its first IoT + blockchain vertical experiment: Ucam, which won the CES award and achieved over 20,000 sales on Amazon. In 2021, it launched the second IoT + blockchain vertical experiment: Pebble, which achieved over 1,000 sales within two weeks. Through two social experiments, the concept of "MachineFi" was introduced and used as the direction. "MachineFi" is the industry's current definition of DePIN.
In 2022, the W3bStream project was initiated, and collaboration with the DePIN project was established to provide infrastructure support. The team hopes that W3bStream will become the industry standard in the future. In May and June of that year, MachineFi Lab completed two rounds of financing totaling $60 million. In 2023, IoTeX explicitly proposed a strategic development plan called "DePIN First," focusing on improving the inadequate infrastructure in the DePIN ecosystem. The W3bStream project was launched to actively participate in DePIN and collaborate with various projects in the ecosystem to drive overall ecosystem development.
IoTeX Application Cases
With the rapid development of the Internet of Things, the number of connected devices and generated data is growing exponentially. However, the IoT industry also faces some challenges: various sensing and execution devices often come from different companies, lacking effective coordination, leading to low device utilization. The massive data generated by devices and sensors is fragmented and difficult to share, making it challenging to activate the value of the data.
The root cause of these problems is the lack of a digital system representation and effective circulation mechanism for devices and data in the physical world. Therefore, there is an urgent need for an IoT economic infrastructure to solve the fragmentation of devices and isolation of data, enabling the digital management and circulation of assets. IoTeX's solution supports developers of various IoT ecosystems, sharing economies, smart homes, autonomous driving, supply chains, and other types to build their own DePIN applications.
IoTeX has built the entire blockchain and IoT middleware from scratch and has launched several blockchain-driven IoT products.
Some successful products supported by IoTeX include:
- Ucam: The world's first home security camera developed in collaboration with Tenvis, providing privacy and data ownership to users using decentralized identity. Tenvis is a hardware giant and is currently an Amazon camera selection brand.
- Pebble Tracker: A decentralized asset tracking device developed in collaboration with Nordic Semiconductor, one of the world's largest chip manufacturers. When used with Edge Oracle, Pebble Tracker writes verifiable real IoT data (such as location, movement, climate) to the blockchain for use in smart contracts and is now listed on Mouser Electronics.
- DIMO: A DePIN travel project focused on collecting car data, analyzing data, and providing value-added services to car owners. In April 2023, DIMO announced the integration of IoTeX's blockchain IoT middleware W3bstream to connect the data of connected vehicles to smart contracts, helping Web3 developers easily access zero-knowledge mobile data, supporting the incubation of revolutionary mobile travel Dapps, allowing consumers and fleet operators to truly own and control the data generated by their vehicles.
IoTeX's participation plans include:
- Automotive and supply chain pilots: Collaboration with MOBI, the U.S. Navy, and the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) using Pebble Tracker technology.
- Blockchain standards: Development within IEEE and the Confidential Computing Consortium (CCC).
Token Economics
In June 2022, the IoTeX mainnet and its native token $IOTX were officially launched. IOTX is the native utility token of the IoTeX blockchain network (IoTeX L1 + IoTeX W3bstream). It serves various functions in the IoTeX ecosystem, including gas fees, authenticating real-world devices, network governance, and staking services. IOTX has been listed on major cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase, Binance, Gemini, Upbit, Kucoin, and Crypto.com.
Token Basic Information
Token Supply
- Total supply: 9,442,702,397
- Circulating supply: 9,442,702,392 (as of the current date)
- Private sale price: 1 IOTX = 0.0000125 ETH (≈$0.0083)
- Public sale price: No public sale
Token Initial Allocation and Release Plan
The initial token allocation is roughly divided into five parts: IoTeX Foundation (25%), private sale (24%), community reward program (6%), ecosystem (30%, including Ecosystem Development and Roll-DPoS Mining), and team (15%). These tokens will be gradually unlocked within three years after the launch, and fully released by the end of 2022.
Token Use Cases
Bitcoin's proof-of-work is an early form of DePIN verification. It uses a large amount of computing power to ensure security, with every node in the global Bitcoin network participating in verification. Today, DePIN verification also adopts a similar concept, allowing participants to utilize the services of their owned infrastructure to generate fees and rewards.
IoTeX becomes a modular infrastructure provider for DePIN by providing middleware and hardware, and all DePIN projects built on IoTeX will be participants in the IOTX token economy.
IOTX has multiple use cases, aiming to achieve trusted and transparent interactions between entities in the IoTeX network, including representatives, stakeholders, product builders, service providers, and consumers. Its main uses include:
- Gas fees: IOTX is used to pay transaction/contract fees on the IoTeX network.
- Staking governance: Staked tokens participate in voting governance.
- Staking services
- Device registration: Registering trusted devices through staking or destruction.
Token Economic Model
Burn - drop
When IoTeX-supported devices reach the first 1 million mark, a total of 1 billion IOTX (10% of the total supply) will be Burn-Dropped, with 900 million directly burned and 100 million distributed (e.g., distributed to voters with automatic subscription time ≥ 91 days).
This process will be driven by smart contracts, automatically executing a new "Burn-Drop" plan whenever a new phase of devices is reached.
Burn-to-Certify
After the Burn-Drop phase is completed, the Burn-to-Certify mechanism will be activated. Device manufacturers can obtain the "Powered by IoTeX (PBI)" certificate by destroying IOTX. PBI devices will receive token rewards monthly, with the source of the rewards coming from transaction fees paid by other devices.
IoTeX Team and Financing Situation
Team Introduction
IoTeX is headquartered in Silicon Valley and has a team of over 30 top engineers and scientists from Uber, Google, Intel, Facebook, and other leading tech companies. Currently, the platform is maintained by over 60 global representatives, including Blockfolio, CoinGecko, and DraperDragon.
Founding Members
- Raullen Chai: Co-founder and CEO of IoTeX, Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo. Former Head of Cryptography Research at Uber and Technical Lead at Google.
- Qevan Guo: Co-founder of IoTeX, Ph.D. in Machine Learning and Computer Vision from the National University of Singapore. Former Product Lead at Facebook.
- Xinxin Fan: Co-founder of IoTeX, Ph.D. in Cryptography from the University of Waterloo. Former Senior Research Scientist at Bosch.
- JingSun: Co-founder of IoTeX, former Managing Partner at Sparkland Capital in Silicon Valley.
Key Advisors
- Robert Parker: Former CTO of SamsungSmartThings, Founding Director of Amazon Alexa, General Manager at Microsoft, and award-winning leader in the IoT industry.
- Daniel Mason: Co-founder of Spring Labs, a leading data exchange platform in the financial industry.
- Ken Seiff: Managing Partner at Blockchange Ventures.
- Anoop Nannra: Global Blockchain Leader at AWS, Co-Chair of the IICDLT Working Group, and former Global Blockchain Lead at Cisco.
- Michael(Minsik) Cho: Board Member of Upbit and Kakao Corp, founding member of KPMG Korea.
- Robert Wolff: Chief Developer Advocate at Arm, blockchain and IoT KOL.
- A.D: Chief Development Mentor at Google.
- MitchTseng: Chair of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) Testbed Committee and Innovation Working Group.
Investors
Current investors: SamsungNEXT, Draper, GoodWater, Jump, Wintermute, EV3, Hashkey, Blockchange, IOSG, Hanwha, Wemade, NGC, Hashed, Kenetic, Xoogler.
Financing Situation
- In early 2018, top venture capital firms raised approximately $30 million.
- In May 2022, MachineFi Lab completed a $10 million seed round financing at a valuation of $100 million.
- In June 2022, MachineFi Lab continued to lead and completed a $50 million Series A financing round.
In conclusion, the distributed and tamper-resistant nature of blockchain technology, combined with the connectivity and data exchange capabilities of the Internet of Things, has the potential to create revolutionary IoT projects. However, not all blockchains are suitable for IoT deployment, and the existing public blockchains face challenges in this regard. IoTeX, as a rising star in the DePIN track, is poised to leverage its underlying infrastructure to drive DePIN. With a top-notch team and technology, IoTeX has made significant progress in research and practical applications, demonstrating its determination and strength in this field.
References
A Deep Dive into DePIN: Decentralized Physical Infrastructure
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