Source: FutureMoney

Introduction

Combining it with the real world has always been the direction of blockchain applications. Since this year, the U.S. dollar has Against the backdrop of strength, RWA It has opened up the channel between traditional finance and encrypted finance, and has become one of the few outstanding sectors in the bear market. DePIN, as a branch of RWA, has been gaining traction recently. DePIN is decentralized physical infrastructure (Decentrailized Physical Infrastructure Networks), Messari defines this new concept in a 2022 DePIN research report, Messari believes that DePIN is “one of the most important areas for crypto investment in the next decade.”

As RWA is not new; The development of DeFi is a product that adapts to the external world environment. Likewise, DePIN is not a new thing. As early as the birth of Ethereum, there have been many projects trying to decentralize energy, storage, computing and other infrastructure. in Projects such as Filecoin and Helium have achieved certain results.

At the recent Hong Kong Fintech Week, DePIN Becoming the focus of the Web3 industry, the combination of Web3 and physical facilities is considered to be the next trend. Techub News published an article stating that “DePIN is the biggest narrative of Hong Kong Web3.”

Future Money has always attached great importance to DePIN track research. This article will mainly introduce the DePIN representative project IoTeX. IoTeX has the dual concepts of DePIN and IoT. It is a The next-generation blockchain platform oriented by IoT (Internet of Things) has its own characteristics in terms of scalability, deep privacy protection, and independence. It is committed to providing comprehensive solutions for Internet of Things applications and building a blockchain ecosystem. support.

DePIN market space

Currently well-known The DePIN project mainly focuses on the storage and communication fields. In fact, DePIN has application potential in industries such as energy, computing, Internet of Things, and supply chain. For example, the decentralized energy storage asset network React uses decentralized Web3 technology is used to save energy and improve grid usage efficiency. It allows participants to connect their home batteries to the Web3 energy storage network, and connected companies and individuals can receive cash and Token incentives. Decentralization The GPU platform Render Network can provide rendering functions for large-scale video production, 3D modeling, and movie special effects projects. The Render Network provides different rendering speeds according to different levels of GPU rendering speeds. Token incentives.

Traditional physical infrastructure construction has the characteristics of capital intensity, long investment cycle, and low return. Using the token incentive mechanism of blockchain to release the potential of decentralized hardware can effectively solve this pain point. DePIN The core of the model is to use token incentives and flywheel effects to connect dispersed demands and idle physical resources to meet demands with lower costs and higher efficiency.

According to DePINscan, the DePIN public data platform created by IoTeX, shows that there are currently 370,000 devices connected to Web3, and despite rapid growth, this only accounts for a very small part of the physical world.

IoTeX: Provided for DePIN applications Full-stack solution

IoTeX was founded in 2017 and has been committed to the combination of physical devices (and their data) and blockchain technology since its inception. IoTeX ensures that people can own and control their devices, data, and the value they generate, allowing builders and users to become owners and beneficiaries of the trillion-dollar IoT economy. Based on its contributions to the Internet of Things, IoTeX has been selected as co-chair of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) Blockchain Group along with Amazon and Huawei.

IoTeX has built an EVM-compatible Layer1 blockchain designed for IoT data and DePIN applications. And by providing DePIN middleware W3bstream, DePIN physical devices and data are connected. Layer1. Any DePIN app can create your own in W3bstream with one click dAPP specifically includes hardware components, off-chain logic programs, and on-chain logic/token economy. Based on application logic, it stimulates the flow of real-world data and generates token rewards for users.

IoTeX ’s full-stack DePIN solution provides a complete set of "plug-and-play" products and tools for blockchain-driven IoT applications. Building DePIN applications on the IoTeX platform only needs to focus on business logic. Its full stack The DePIN infrastructure is divided into four layers from top to bottom:

• Hardware layer: MachineFi is the hardware portal platform for developers and users where you can register devices, obtain visualization data, and communicate with MachineFi dApp interactions.

• Middleware: W3bstream It is a middleware between smart devices and blockchain, used to connect smart devices to smart contracts, Generate chain Proof of dApps.

• Tool layer: IoTeX provides a series of tools to help applications realize data interaction and value transfer, such as ioScan is a blockchain browser for querying blockchain data, and ioTube is a cross-chain bridge that facilitates two-way token swaps between IoTeX, Ethereum, BNB chains, and other top L1s.

• Blockchain: IoTeX Blockchain is an EVM-compatible L1 designed for IoT data.

IoTex Development History

IoTeX was founded in 2017. In early 2018, it raised approximately US$30 million in funding from top venture capital institutions at the time and began building a Layer1 blockchain. That year, the L1 test network was launched, and then Binance, Kucoin and Gate list tokens.

2019 In 2017, IoTex developed the PoS-based EVM public chain and incubated many DeFi and NFT projects. The amount of ecological application data exceeded 100, and its products include ioPay, pledge portal, IoTeXScan wait.

2020 In 2017, the first Iot + blockchain vertical experiment was started: Ucam, which won the CES award and over 20,000 sales on Amazon. In 2021, the second IoT + blockchain vertical experiment was launched: Pebble, and within two weeks, it achieved 1,000+ sales. At the same time, through two social experiments, the concept of "MachineFi" was introduced and took this as the direction. "MachineFi" is the current industry-defined DEPIN.

2022 In the year, we started working on the W3bStream project and cooperated with the DePIN project to provide infrastructure support. The team hopes that W3bStream can become a standard for the entire industry in the future. respectively in the same year In May and June, MachineFi Lab completed two rounds of financing totaling $60 million. In 2023, IoTeX clearly proposed the strategic development plan of "DePIN First" and focused on improving In response to the imperfect infrastructure in the DePIN ecosystem, the W3bStream project was launched to actively participate in DePIN and cooperate with various projects in the ecosystem to promote the development of the entire ecosystem.

IoTeX Application Cases

With the rapid development of the Internet of Things, the number of connected devices and the data generated has increased exponentially. However, the Internet of Things industry also faces some challenges: various sensing devices and execution devices often come from different companies, lacking effective coordination, resulting in low device utilization; the data streams generated by massive devices and sensors are fragmented, making it difficult to open up and share. Data value is difficult to activate.

The root cause of these problems lies in the lack of digital system representation and effective circulation mechanism for equipment and data in the physical world. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a set of IoT economic infrastructure to solve the problems of equipment fragmentation and data isolation, and to realize the digital management and circulation of assets. IoTeX’s solutions support various IoT ecosystems, sharing economy, smart home, autonomous driving, supply chain and other different types of developers to build their own DePIN App.

IoTeX Built the entire blockchain and IoT middleware from scratch, and launched a number of blockchain-driven IoT products.

IoTeX Some successful products supported:

• Ucam: Ucam is the world’s first home security camera developed by IoTeX in partnership with Tenvis, leveraging decentralization Identity provides users with privacy and data ownership. Tenvis is a hardware giant and is currently Amazon’s featured camera brand.

• Pebble Tracker: Pebble Tracker is a decentralized asset tracking device developed by IoTeX in partnership with Nordic Semiconductor, one of the world’s largest chip manufacturers. Used with Edge Oracle, Pebble Tracker, which writes verifiable real-world IoT data (e.g. location, movement, climate) to the blockchain for use in smart contracts, is now available from Mouser Electronics.

• DIMO is a DePIN mobility project focused on collecting car data, analyzing data and providing value-added services to car owners. In April 2023,DIMO announced that it will integrate the blockchain IoT middleware W3bstream developed by IoTeX to connect the data of connected vehicles to smart contracts, help Web3 developers easily access zero-party movable data, and support the incubation of revolutionary Mobility Dapp that allows consumers and fleet operators to truly own and control the data generated by their vehicles

Involved by IoTeX Plans include:

• Automotive and Supply Chain Pilot: Leveraging Pebble Tracker Technology with MOBI , the U.S. Navy and the Industrial Internet of Things Consortium (IIC).
  

• Blockchain Standards: In IEEE and Confidential Computing Alliance Developed within (CCC).

Tokenomics

2022 In June of this year, 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 is at There are multiple functions at work in the IoTeX ecosystem, including gas fees, certified destruction of real-world devices, network governance, and staking services. IOTX is already listed on major cryptocurrency exchanges including Coinbase, Binance, Gemini, Upbit, Kucoin, Crypto.com and more.

Basic situation of tokens

Token supply situation

• Total issuance: 9,442,702,397

• Total circulation: 9,442,702,392 (as of now)

• Private placement price: 1 IOTX = 0.0000125 ETH (≈$0.0083)

• Public placement price: No public placement

Token initial distribution and release plan

The initial distribution of tokens is roughly divided into five parts: IoTeX Foundation (25%), private sale (24%), community reward plan (6%), ecosystem (30%, including Ecosystem Development and Roll-DPoS Mining), team (15%). These tokens will be gradually unlocked within three years after being launched and will be fully released before the end of 2022.

Token usage scenarios

Bitcoin’s proof of work is An early form of DePIN verification. It utilizes a large amount of computing power to ensure security, and every node in the global Bitcoin network participates in verification. Today, DePIN verification works on a similar concept, where participants can leverage the network through services that leverage the infrastructure they own, thereby generating fees and rewards.

IoTeX becomes DePIN modular facility provider, all DePIN projects built on IoTeX will be participants in the IOTX token economy.

IOTX Serving multiple uses, its goal is to enable trusted and transparent interactions between various entities in the IoTeX network, including representatives, stakeholders, product builders, service providers, and consumers. The main uses include:

• Gas fee: IOTX is used to pay transaction/contract fees on the IoTeX network

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Pledge governance: pledge tokens to participate in voting governance

• Pledge service

• Equipment registration: through pledge or Destroy registered trusted devices

Token Economic Model

• Burn - drop

On the way to the first million devices supported by IoTeX, a total of 1 billion IOTX (accounting for 10% of the total supply) will be Burn-Dropd, of which 900 million will be directly destroyed and 100 million will be released (for example, distributed to voters with automatic subscription time ≥ 91 days).

This process will be driven by smart contracts. Whenever new access devices reach a phased number, a new process will be automatically executed. "Burn-Drop" plan.

•  Burn-to-Certify

After the Burn-Drop phase is completed, Burn-to-Certify The mechanism will be activated. Device manufacturers destroy IOTX obtains a "Powered by IoTeX (PBI)" certificate, and PBI devices will receive token income every month. The source of income comes from transaction fees paid by other devices.

IoTeX Team and Financing Status

Team Introduction

IoTeX Headquartered in Silicon Valley, the team consists of more than 30 people from Uber, Google, Intel, Facebook and top engineers and scientists from other top technology companies. Currently, the platform is maintained by over 60 global representatives, including Blockfolio, CoinGecko, DraperDragon, and others.

Founding member

• Raullen Chai: Co-founder and CEO of IoTeX, PhD in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo. Served Head of encryption R&D at Uber and technical director at Google.

• Qevan Guo: Co-founder of IoTeX, PhD in machine learning and computer vision from the National University of Singapore. Served Head of Product at Facebook.

• Xinxin Fan: Co-founder of IoTeX, PhD in cryptography from the University of Waterloo. used to be Bosch serves as senior research scientist.

• Jing Sun: Co-founder of IoTeX, formerly a managing partner at Sparkland Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.

Principal Advisor

• Robert Parker: Samsung Former CTO of SmartThings, founding director of Amazon Alexa, general manager of Microsoft, and award-winning leader in the IoT industry

• Daniel Mason: Spring Labs (the leading data exchange platform in the financial industry) Founder

• Ken Seiff: Managing Partner of Blockchange Ventures

• Anoop Nannra: AWS Global Blockchain Leader ,IIC Co-Chair of the DLT Working Group and former Global Blockchain Leader at Cisco

• Michael (Minsik) Cho: Upbit and Director of the Board of Directors of Kakao Corp, founding member of KPMG Korea

• Robert Wolff: Chief Developer Evangelist, Blockchain and IoT at Arm KOL

• A.D: Google Chief Development Mentor

• Mitch Tseng: Leader of the Testbed Committee and Innovation Working Group of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC)

Investor

Current investor: Samsung NEXT, Draper, GoodWater, Jump, Wintermute, EV3, Hashkey, Blockchange, IOSG, Hanwha, Wemade, NGC, Hashed, Kenetic, Xoogler.

Financing situation

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In early 2018, top venture capital firms raised approximately US$30 million in funding.

• In May 2022, MachineFi Lab was valued at US$100 million and completed US$10 million in seed round financing.

• 2022 In June of this year, MachineFi Lab continued to lead the investment and completed a $50 million Series A financing.

Written at the end

The distributed and immutable characteristics of blockchain technology and the connections and data of the Internet of Things The ability to switch brings huge potential for creating revolutionary IoT projects. Currently, most IoT devices operate in a centralized mode, which is contrary to their decentralized nature. As a result, many problems have arisen, such as limited scalability, high operating costs, frequent privacy issues, prominent security risks, and lack of use value. Blockchain, with its decentralized inherent characteristics, can fully solve the above-mentioned problems existing in the current Internet of Things.

However, the opportunities brought by blockchain do not mean that any blockchain is suitable for use in the Internet of Things. In fact, due to many challenges, none of the existing public blockchains can be applied to the Internet of Things. 2015 The IOTA blockchain, which was created specifically for the Internet of Things, attracted market attention as soon as it was launched, and its market value once rose to fourth place. IOTA covered the most attractive concepts at the time - Internet of Things application scenarios, new DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) block structure, low handling fees and small settlements. IOTA's technological innovation and futuristic scenarios are very attractive. However, due to immature technology and incentive mechanisms, development has subsequently stalled.

Today, after years of development, blockchain technology, IoT devices, and data scale have greatly improved. DePIN As a bridge between physical world devices and Web3, it has a stronger foundation today. As a rising star on the DePIN track, IoTeX is expected to leverage DePIN by providing underlying facilities. IoTeX was founded in 2017. It has a top team and technology. After two cycles of dormancy, it has made great progress in research and development and practical applications. You can see the determination and strength of the project in this field. Future Money will continue to follow up and research in the future IoTeX and DePIN tracks.