With all calmness, he slowed down his car and reached for his phone, which was in one of his pockets. He unlocked it, scrolled down its notification panel, and attended to some of the notifications, dropped back his phone and then accelerated his recently acquired BMW car towards his place of work.
What just happened? Was smith in his right mind? Why would he ignore that crucial realization of turned on appliances at his home and speed of to his place of work? Surely, he would have to pay more that day for the power consumed by his appliances or even worst, come back and meet a burned down house.
Of course, Smith was in his right mind. As a matter of fact he was living in the future, the dream of the Internet of Things (IoT) - Interconnectedness of everything. Did this dream turn to a nightmare for Smith? 😎 You'd find out soon enough. For now, Let's talk about the IoT and some of it's Benefits.
What's the IoT & What are its Benefits.
The internet of things refers to the billions of physical devices that are now connected to the internet, collecting and sharing data. It makes these devices which would be otherwise dumb and human intelligence dependent, smart and independent, communicating between one another. Some imagine it to be a giant robot which connects the digital and the physical world, controlling everything connected to it.
An IoT device is anything that has internet connectivity, which ordinarily we wouldn't consider to have. For this reason a PC or a smartphone is generally not considered as an IoT device, but smartwatches are. An IoT can be a smart lightbulb that can be controlled via a smartphone app, or a child's toy or even a smart television or Microwave or Air conditioning system, Camera, Thermostats, Motion sensors etcetera. As long as these devices can be connected to the internet and controlled by it, they are an IoT device.
Now you should have an Idea what Smith did, when he attended to some of his notifications. He was in fact, attending to the IoT devices he had left on. He lived in a smart home, where virtually all his devices was connected to the internet, an IoT home, you might call it.
The internet of things as you can imagine is huge, with billions of devices communicating over it. It is also getting "huger" as more innovative devices are being invented by the day, You could consider latest Google Home, Amazon's Echo and all other newly rolled out smart products. As a matter of fact, analysis showed that as at 2017, there were already 8.4 billion IoT devices used in 2017 and the number could rise to 20.4 billion in 2020.
The Benefits of this huge space of Machine to Machine (M2M) interactions cannot be overemphasized. To different individuals, businesses even manufacturers they present their own benefits. Generally, they aid our understanding of the devices, our environment and our world in general, and sometimes, in real-time. Consumers geared with this devices can interact and economize their homes effectively and efficiently based on the data these devices provide. It also makes interaction with these devices over a distance very possible. For the case of manufacturers, these devices creates a comfortable room for improvement as they can monitor their devices performances in the real world and possibly in real time. On a general end, applications of these smart devices, presence benefits to what ever application they are used, ranging from simple homes, to transportation and even to complex cities.
Is the IoT a Curse in Disguise?
Cool smith returned from work to find his house almost completely burned, with the firemen still trying to put out the fire. "But what could have gone wrong", he thought...
The dangers of trusting an IoT machine is just as colossal as the benefits received from trusting it. The internet, one could say, is no man's land. Roaming about in this space are hackers, thieves and terrorists and the M2M communication over the internet is not a safe one, especially when the links between data shared and data received is a centralized one. This vulnerability of centralization puts our privacy on the line, as our IoT devices sends to this unsafe space data about us. How and when we leave our safe havens, how we interact even in our safe havens, exposure our business plans and client details, etcetera. Security has been a major issue as regards IoT devices and it's had a very poor record in this field. Therefore exposing us to the digital dangers of the internet, which by IoT devices can be manifested physically.
Some other inefficiencies of this traditional IoT technology, aside that of data security and privacy protection, includes;
Lack of Interoperability between Platforms - Centralized mountains of data which exposes users to arrows of hackers also create other problems. Especially, the big shots in this niche, they shut their doors against other platforms who need data for some actual real life application which they've failed to do. Not only does this limit the free flow of undeserved user data which would help improve the standard of living for users, it creates a mouthwatering data-pie for hackers.
Lack of a Business Model in the IoT Industry - This is one of the reasons of the first inefficiency - the data insulation. A defined revenue model for data exchange for some other form of value has been lacking in this space, hence limiting the conductivity or mobility of data in the IoT industry.
The IoT's Cloud Computing Architecture - The current form of IoT infrastructure collects data and sends it to a central server where they are analysed and responses sent to each of the required device, that actuates the instruction. This form of central server data computing and analysis, away from the data generator or actuator has been dubbed cloud computing and it's been having issues of security, Latency, lack of real-time responses etcetera, which makes interaction over the IoT undesirable.
We have seen the alluring possibilities it opens up and also the life and property threatening dangers it exposes to us. Based on these considerations, do we embrace the benefits and ignore the dangers? or do we altogether ignore the entire technology?*
Well, if you ask me, I'd say we do some cleaning up. Clean up the danger stains of this highly beneficial Internet of things. Aside cleaning up, I'd also suggest spreading out its clusters, which as a matter of fact creates these dangers. Following this suggestion, I'm happy to introduce a project to you, which will do just that, by ionizing the IoT.
Introducing IONChain.
IONChain is a project which aims to apply the concept of ionization to the internet of things. *Ionization is a process by which atoms or molecules become positively or negatively charged by releasing or accepting electrons*. The word "ions" were first used by faraday to describe the flow of electrons between electrodes during electrolysis and it was gotten from a greet word, which means "going", as Faraday didn't know then, what moved between electrodes. In 1887, the word presented itself again to the world, as the famous swedish physicist, argued that they were the fundamental particles of matter. Much research has been done as regards that argument, and if there's anything that chemists and physicists are sure of, it is that Atoms or Molecules become more "conductive" when ionized. This is in fact what this project sought to do to the traditional internet of things, to make it more conductive where it needs to be, by ionizing it via Edge Computing and Blockchain Technology.
What is IONChain?
IONChain is an Edge computing network which harnesses the full power of all its nodes and rewards them to provide a network for industrial-grade applications. Edge computing, contrary to cloud computing, involves data processing, storage, analysis etcetera, at the tentacles of the network closest to the data source. This form of computing has been nicknamed fog computing and it's been proven that it overcomes all the limitations of its predecessor and provides benefits such as;
• Fast Connection
• Real-time Operation
• Application Intelligence
• Data Optimization
• Security & Privacy Protection etcetera.
The network tentacles are actually nodes which are capable of meeting the nearby connecting requirements of computing and storage of IoT devices. Via the blockchain technology, IONChain aims to establish connections with any type or scale of network nodes, in order to surmount the problems of the traditional internet. As such, IONChain will make every device a mining machine. Yes, yours too! and you'd get rewarded by the ionization algorithm.
So basically, the IONChain network makes your device and mine, the ions of this network that it creates, making the internet more conductive (low feedback latency) as our devices would be selected intelligently by the network to meet the computing needs of a nearby IoT device and others selected to meet our device's computing and storage needs too.
Considering this IONChain network type, one can see the sense of its innovative concept slogan; One Device, One Coin, One Code. The device refers to IoT devices which are connected to the network (IONChain network is built to be compatible with current IoT hardware and infrastructure). The coin refers to the rewards the contributing IoT devices receive for their participation and The code refers to the unique identification that each device, connected to the network possess, either via the manufacturer or the network (IONChain distributed ledger or blockchain) to make sure data is unique, reliable and traceable.
The IONChain project does not seek to compete with the already existing cloud computing infrastructure of the current internet. It rather aims to complement it. So, the IONChain network also provides sofware-level tools for data conversion, processing and packaging and network nodes for the current internet of things.
The importance of being able to utilize any and every IoT device in its minning process cannot be overemphasized and this is because it separates storage and transaction processing to solve the data block size/transactions speed contradiction by introducing an InterPlanetary File system (IPFS) to its network. One of such importance is the vast network resources it makes available for any computational overhead, regardless of the grade, industrial or consumer.
Before delving into how the IONChain network will transform the IoT industry, let's take a glance at how it achieves value transfer. Should the information be too brief, the reader can find more elaborate information in the project's whitepaper
A Brief Overview of IONChain Technical Architecture.
The ionization algorithm which can be described as the octopus controlling the tentacles of this network - the IoT nodes, is the core or the brain of this network. It's creation was inspired by the concept of ionization explained earlier - the separation of electrons from either molecules of atoms to form more conductive ionic bonds. The ionization algorithm separates value generation and value transfer, a twist to the current existing blockchain architecture. This allows all types of IoT devices to be compatible with the network, allowing IONChain to create the future it envisions.
IONChain Value Generation Process.
IoT devices have limited capabilities and IONChain recognizes this and uses Edge computing centers as intermediary layers to support the devices. Information from the unique devices, which has been ensured by IONChain ID code, are calculated by the network's mining machines (other IoT devices and the computing centers) using the Data quality Proof and Time Lapse Proof algorithms, and if certain criteria are met and verified, the data generator is rewarded.
The value verification process are of two stages; Verification and Evaluation. Interested parties in the information by the IoT device, confirms and evaluates it to ensure it is valid and unique (no double transaction of the data). This twice-verified data is then packaged in the last stage known as the Value confirmation process, so that the data exists as a digital currency in the IONChain ecosystem.
IONChain Value Transfer Process.
IONChain achieves this in many layers, carefully crafted in the tradition of excellence to enact its own unique functions in collaboration with the others to achieve the network's full purpose. The transfer process involves;
• The Application Layer- The user interface which allows users easily and non-technically interact with the IONChain network.
• The Service Layer- This layer encapsulates and abstracts the internal complex modules of the IONChain network and provide an external interfaces for programs. It can be envisioned as ghe IONChain envelope which other programs can write on.
• Protocol Layer- This layer aids guiding the data and value flow in the IONChain network.
• Smart Contract Layer- This layer is the glue of the network. It links the application layer with the blockchain layer and also allow users transact with the data and value on the network.
• Blockchain Layer- This is the core of the the IONChain network and it's from this layer the consensus protocol emanates to ensure validation of data and value transactions. It applies a consensus algorithm different from the regular Proof of Work (PoW) or Proof of Stake (PoS). This new algorithm is named ipos and it is arrived at by making some changes to the classic PoS algorithm and it's regarded as the upgrade of PoS and PoW. See whitepaper, Pg 23, for more details
• Data Storage Layer- IONChain stores data on the blockchain in two ways to ensure that transactions speed is not affected. The ways are, IPFS & BigChain DB.
The rich architecture of the IONChain network instils in our mind questions about the future of the internet of things. Questions as to how this technology make things any different for manufacturers, consumers and data centers of the IoT.
Would Smith's home still be standing had the IONChain network been unleashed as the mainstream IoT at that time? Is also a considerable question. Let's take a look.
IONChain's Impact on the IoT industry.
No doubt that the internet of things will continue to increase in size as end users still seek a more optimized and smart way of living, just like Uncle Smith. As it grows, if not fixed, the problems that tags along might just grow out od proportion and cause and irreparable damages.
Beginning from the most vital, security, data privacy and protection, IONChain network cures this ailment of the IoT industry. The "no man's land" tag and "if it's online, then it can be hacked" tag, that has long been associated with the internet will become obsolete. This will breed trust among end consumers for the internet and finally eliminate the reasons they had for doing transactions offline. This will in turn lead to more IoT devices made to handle new types of transactions which will further strengthen the IONChain network for all industrial applications.
Security & data protection is as good as nothing. As a matter of fact, this is the reason why industry practitioners sought better ways to handle their current IoT applications. Good for IONChain, as it has solved this problem via its combination of Edge Computing and Blockchain technology. This combo combines both advantages of both technologies, and where the disadvantages could have hampered the vision of IONChain, the project made a twist or tweak to the current systems. This first of its kind combination provides the advantages of Fast Connection, Real-time Operation, Application Intelligence, Data Optimization Security & Privacy Protection etcetera of the Edge computing with the transaction validation and unhackability of the blockchain without any centralized authority, purely Peer to Peer (P2P), or M2M per say.
M2M communication hitherto, had to substance of value attached. Primarily because of its vulnerability and the technology infrastructure, which would have involved a centralized third party, who would impose fees, making it expensive. The IONChain provides the network to power such M2M value transactions. Being purely M2M, with other IoT machines validating using a combined mining power, not only will these transactions be unfalsifiable, it will completely eliminate any unnecessary cost. Amazingly, all these happen in swifly because of the ionized nature of the network. With such value transactions now possible, it's not difficult to envision a "smart home economics" where all home appliances are regulated to consume value budgeted to it, while still generating data that can be converted to value for its use on the network. Ohh, how Smith would love this! 🤗
The "One Device, One Code, One Coin" will be a revolutionary slogan, in few years from now. You may ask, why? This is because "One Device & One Code" represents and provides identification, not just for the IoT devices but also its owners and manufacturers. This provision is cherished by the government, to help coordinate and govern her people, most times not in a bad light. Also such Identification will reduce the theft of IoT devices as each one will be unique and connected to a distributed network of other IoT devices. Hence applications can easily be built on this network that will seamlessly track stolen devices. So, if you're a thief, Sorry! Your glory days are over!😁😂
"One coin" sends one message, REWARDS! which we are naturally drawn to as humans. This alluring feature of the IONChain could just be the missing piece required for blockchain and cryptocurrency mass adoption and not that BTC ETF approval that never comes🤥, as it allows us to fully interconnect our physical culture with our digital culture which time has proven that we are very keen to. About these rewards.
If innovatively harnessed, IONChain provides an opportunity for passive income to end consumers. How? The full control of user data it provides with end consumers is one way. Manufacturers would have to pay users to get their hands on these data. Also parties interested in big data would also beckon to consumers or manufacturers for this generated data. In this form, IONChain provides the business model that has for long, been lacking in the IoT space, which would ensure faster flow of data.
Use Case - Smith's Rebuild
No one could fully tell how or why Smith's instruction to the appliances didn't go through, but it was certain that the Microwave caused the fire.. 😔
Determined to build a better and smarter home, he does some research and discovers IONChain. He connects his new devices to the network and also purchases some devices built by the manufacturer to be compatible with the network. Smith realizes that this network has taken things to a whole new level, even to allow M2M value transactions. First of, he splits his home maintenance budget amongst his IoT devices and made it flexible, such that on the network, he could switch the subscription of the Tv satellites and electric power on and off, directly from his smartphone. He got data from all his IoT devices in his phone.
To show how connected his home was, he could even control the Tv in the living room from his bedroom vai the IONChain network, in real-time (as soon as he clicked a button in his phone). He had IoT motion sensors, cameras and thermostats which would help organize the home. As an example, when he left the home, and the camera caught him leaving, the camera would signal the motion sensors to check for movements, if none, it would initiate the security system and if necessary, it would shut down the power to prevent a fire. Smith made some cash from his cctv camera, as it captured a lot of pictures which he sold to be used as captchas. From his smart watch too, which recorded his health data as he exercised. He sold this to hospitals which require this for health care improvements.
IONChain Tokenomy
IONC is the moniker for the IONChain network token. It used by all the participants of the IONChain ecosystem for different reasons. For businesses, it serves as an access to the Big-data that the ecosystem provides. The contributing users (miners, nodes etcetera) are also rewarded with the IONC tokens for their participation. It also serves as a fuel for DAPPs to run on the network. Holding the IONC tokens also gives the Holders some voting or being voted rights.
There are 800million IONC tokens which will be released gradually for 20years. It will be released economically, in a bid to balance supply and demand. The token distribution is shown in the image below.
IONChain Featured Technologies
IONChain RoadMap
IONChain Team
IONChain Consultants
IONChain Partnerships
IONChain Legal Support
In Conclusion, the current infrastructure of the IoT is inefficient to meet the demands of users and manufacturers, not to talk of the plagues from hackers. IONChain ushers us into a new age of the IoT, call it IoT 2.0 if you may, by combining the advantages of edge computing and blockchain technology to break the barriers of this current IoT and blend in any type of device as a mining machine. IONChain has got its ion IoT devices! 😀😁
More Information & Resources
- IONChain Website
- IONChain Bitcointalk Explanation
- IONChain WhitePaper
- IONChain YouTube
- IONChain Twitter
- IONChain Medium
- IONChain LinkedIn
- IONChain GitHub
- IONChain Steemit
- IONChain Telegram
ALL unsourced Images are credited to IONChain.
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