FIO - the Foundation for Interwallet Operability, is a consortium of blockchain organizations and community members supporting the ongoing development, integration, and promotion of the FIO Protocol.
The FIO Protocol is a decentralized service layer that bridges the gap between crypto endpoints such as wallets, exchanges, crypto payment processors, and any other application in which crypto assets are held and/or transferred.
The FIO Protocol is not a wallet. Rather, it integrates into existing products as a usability layer that creates an improved, homogeneous user experience for all blockchain tokens and coins by providing a layer of data and confirmations about transactions on other blockchains. The FIO Protocol does not compete with, integrate with nor interfere with any other blockchain. And it does not send transactions to or from other blockchains. Technically speaking, other blockchains are not aware of the FIO Protocol's existence.
What are main goals of the FIO Protocol?
The FIO Protocol reimagines and enables a better way of sending and receiving blockchain-based value, regardless of the wallet, exchange, token or coin used. This is achieved in a manner which is:
- Human-meaningful: allows users to initiate transactions using human-readable and memorable identifiers like "john@edgewallet" or "jane@gold"
- Decentralized: powered by a public blockchain that does not require a centralized solution of a trusted third party
- Secure: enables transactions to be exchanged between parties in a secure way. All FIO Protocol transactions require a FIO private key, which is stored in the user’s wallet
- Private: sensitive counter-party information, including public addresses and metadata, can be encrypted on the blockchain
- Interoperable: once integrated into a wallet, the FIO Protocol works with any blockchain and cryptocurrency without any integration to those chains
- eCommerce ready: enables request for payment functionality (i.e. for wallet-to-wallet order cart presentation) along with robust, immutable and private metadata for every transaction and simple refund processes
What are the Primary Features of the FIO Protocol?
The FIO Protocol is capable of providing several features, with a robust roadmap of future items that may be added. Initially, the FIO Protocol will be able to provide the following:
- FIO Addresses - a human-readable wallet identifier (such as john@edge or alice@gold) which eliminates the need to see, or even know of, blockchain public addresses. FIO Addresses automatically support any token in a wallet/exchange, and requires no manual mapping.
- FIO Requests - the ability to request funds from any other wallet, utilizing in-wallet/app notifications and simple approvals. FIO Requests are fully encrypted between counter-parties, and do not interfere with the actual underlying blockchain transactions.
- FIO Data - encrypted metadata that can be attached to any transaction, such as a simple memo, structured data (like an order cart) or hashes and references to off-chain data. FIO Data can accompany a send of funds directly to a wallet, or be attached to a FIO Request.
All features are now available on the FIO Chain Mainnet for developers to integrate into their respective products, though not all features must be included at the same time depending on the product's needs and/or resources available.
There is a growing list of future potential capabilities including potential functionality like secure decentralized mutli-signature request routing, recurring payment capability, fee splitting and more.
Please view our explainer video below to better understand how FIO works:
We also have a demo video of the protocol in use:
Even before the FIO mainnet launch which happened on March 26th, 2020, FIO had 28 members who have stated their intention to integrate the FIO protocol into their products and services. You can view the updated list on the website at https://fioprotocol.io/ecosystem/
You can learn more about FIO here:
| Site | URL |
|---|---|
| Website | https://fioprotocol.io |
| Blog | https://medium.com/fio-blog |
| Knowledge Base | https://kb.fioprotocol.io |
| Developer Hub | https://developers.fioprotocol.io |
| Github | https://github.com/fioprotocol |
| https://twitter.com/joinFIO | |
| Telegram | https://t.me/joinFIO |
| Discord | https://discord.gg/pHBmJCc |
Over time we plan to replicate our content here on the Hive blockchain because if you don't own the platform, you don't own the content. The Hive blockchain ensures our content can never be taken down or modified without our permission, and we look forward to connecting more with the Hive community here.
We plan to work with our FIO members to educate them about the benefits of the Hive blockchain and increase adoption of this great platform. Follow us for upcoming FIO address giveaway opportunities for the Hive community.