With over 1 million location-verifying beacons already in the world, XYO is blockchain’s first…

6 min readMay 19, 2018

With over 1 million location-verifying beacons already in the world, XYO is blockchain’s first crypto-location oracle network. The XY Oracle Network (“XYO Network”) allows developers and smart contract creators to interact with the real world as if it were an API.

They believe the current location technologies lack the necessary certainty and security properties necessary to move us into the future. they have developed an ecosystem of crypto-location protocols and components, which leverage the strengths of blockchain technologies, and solve the short-comings of location technologies relied upon today. project is called the “XY Oracle Network” (XYO Network). The XYO Network enables trustless transactions through an ecosystem of crypto-location components that can bridge the gap from the world of today, to the world of tomorrow.

XYO NETWORK COMPONENTS

The XYO Network has four primary components, Sentinels, Bridges, Archivists, and Diviners. These four components enable geo-focused, consensus-building and trustless verification of location data. This means that when you write a smart contract that specifies for an object to appear at a specific XY-coordinate, if it appears there, you will know that it was at that location with absolute certainty. This is all done without risk of spoofing the location signaling device(s) verified by thousands of Sentinels in the XY Oracle Network with the longest Proof of Origin chain (thus yielding greater confidence in the heuristics).

1. SENTINELS

Sentinel components are heuristic witnesses. They observe heuristics and vouch for the certainty and accuracy of the heuristic by producing temporal ledgers. The most important aspect of a Sentinel is that it produces ledgers that Diviners can be certain came from the same source by adding Proof of Origin to them.

2. BRIDGES

Bridges are heuristic transcribers. They securely relay heuristic ledgers from Sentinels to Diviners. The most important aspect of a Bridge is that a Diviner can be sure that the heuristic ledgers that are received from a Bridge has not been altered in any way. The second most important aspect of a Bridge is that they add an additional Proof of Origin.

3. ARCHIVISTS

Archivist components store heuristics in a decentralized form with the goal of having all historical ledgers stored, but without that requirement. Even if some data is lost or becomes temporarily unavailable, the system continues to function, but just with reduced accuracy. Archivists also index ledgers so that they can return a string of ledger data if needed. Archivists store raw data only and get paid only for retrieval of the data. Storage is always free.

4. DIVINERS

A Diviner answers a given question by analyzing historical data that has been stored by the XYO Network. To accomplish this, heuristics stored in the XYO Network must have a high level of Proof of Origin to measure the validity and accuracy of the heuristic by judging the witness based on its Proof of Origin. Given that the XYO Network is a trustless system, Diviners must be incentivized to provide honest analysis of heuristics. Unlike Sentinels and Bridges, Diviners use Proof of Work to add answers to the blockchain

The goal of the XYO Network is to create a trustless, decentralized system of location oracles that is resistant to attack and produces the highest certainty possible when queried for available data. We accomplish this through a set of abstractions that greatly reduces the risk of location spoofing through a chain of zero-knowledge proofs along the components of the system.

XYO NETWORK

USE CASES

-eCommerce

According to a recent study released by Comcast, more than 30% of Americans have had a package stolen from their porch or doorstep. As the market share of eCommerce continues to grow, this problem will only become more prevalent. By utilizing the XYO Network and XYO Tokens, companies like Amazon and UPS can offer, as a premium service, an independently confirmed ledger to track every step of a shipment’s progress, starting at the fulfillment center and ending with the package’s secure delivery within the customer’s home.

-Medical Care and Hospitals

Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States, according to a study released by Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Many of these preventable deaths are a result of operational or record-keeping errors, including adverse drug interactions, improper medical records, and even unnecessary surgeries. By tying the XYO Network into the operational frameworks that are already in place, care providers can significantly reduce failures in communication and record keeping that result in patient injury and death.

-Rental Car Agencies

The number one problem that rental car agencies face are logistical ones. Simple events such as the customer losing their keys results in millions upon millions of dollars in lost opportunity cost for car rental companies each year. XY has already implemented a pilot program with one of the largest US rental car agencies to help cut down on the number of keys that aren’t returned at major airports. By expanding the program to make use of the XY Oracle Network, the rental car company and its customers can reduce the number of lost keys.

-Commercial Airline Luggage Logistics

Lost and mishandled luggage costed airlines $2.1 billion dollars in 2016, according to a study by SITA. While systems are improving, the complexities of air travel still result in millions of angry passengers with lost bags each year. The XYO Network has implemented a decentralized, trustless system for tracking and locating luggage. Its decentralized nature even allows airlines to utilize each other’s networks without compromising the airlines’ network security or needing to coordinate system updates — this means that if you’re at the United desk in Dallas, but your bag is at the Delta desk at SFO, the bag can still be instantly located by accessing the XYO Network Ledger.

-Insurance Agencies

Insurance for vehicles, modular homes, and other high-value, high-mobility objects can reimburse for theft, but can’t inherently assist in locating the original good. The insurance industry is also susceptible to fraud, especially in the case of insured items that are highly mobile. XY is already working with an insurance company that covers high value, high mobility goods to help them process claims and recover insured goods. Using the XYO Network, a decentralized and trustless location-based blockchain ledger, the company and its customers have access to an independently verifiable location history in the event of a claim.

-National Security (TSA) Agencies

In high security areas, it is essential to ensure that any authorized firearms are strictly controlled. Creating a system that is secure, reliable, and publicly accountable poses an operational challenge. A high-profile government security agency has contracted with XY to secure firearms in major transportation hubs throughout the United States. The use of XY’s existing technology saves the agency millions of dollars, and the decentralized nature of the blockchain creates a system that is both independently secure and publicly accountable.

-Drone Package Delivery Systems

Numerous entities are very close to implementing automated drone services, from eCommerce giants like Amazon and Walmart to Google/Alphabet’s Project Wing to the numerous drone mapping services already in operation. Ensuring public safety, securing personal privacy, and maintaining compliance with FAA regulation will become increasingly challenging as guidelines are altered and skies become more crowded.

XYO Network Expansion

XYO Network Expansion they are fortunate to have a consumer business that has successfully built a real-world network with over one million (1,000,000) Bluetooth and GPS devices in the world. Most location networks fail to reach this phase and attain the critical mass necessary to build out an extensive network. The Sentinel network they have created is only the starting point. The XYO Network is an open system that any operator of location devices can plug into and begin earning XYO Tokens. Generally, the greater the Sentinel cardinality in the XYO Network, the more reliable it is. To further grow its network, the XYO Network is engaging with other businesses to expand its network of Sentinels beyond its own network of XY Findables beacons.

XYO Token Specifications

The public token sale has a tiered pricing structure that starts at 1 ETH: 100,000 XYO and maxes out at 1 ETH: 33,333 XYO. Details regarding our volume and time based pricing structure will be announced soon.

• Smart contract platform: Ethereum

• Contract Type: ERC20

• Token: XYO • Token Name: XYO Network Utility Token

• Token Address: 0x55296f69f40ea6d20e478533c15a6b08b654e758

• Total issuance: Finite and capped at the amount reached after the Token Main Sale 15

• Projected XYO Token Cap: $48 Million

• Unsold and Unallocated tokens: Burned after the token sale event. No further XYO tokens will be generated after the Main Sale ends.