You can already see the light at the end of the tunnel

Markus
11 min readJun 5, 2019

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An article about the cryptocurrency IOTA, the planned Coordicide, the economic dimension of the IOT as well as the partnerships of IOTA and projects with the Tangle. Also a short statement from the Co-Founder of the IOTA Foundation Dominik Schiener to the Coordicide. For those who are more interested, we have linked many things.

At the moment we are in a revolution, because “ a revolution is a fundamental and sustainable structural change of one or more systems”, and that happens currently.

Source: https://fotografie.andreas-heisig.de/

The current revolution will result in a transformation of our society, industry and the handling of data. It is the change to a digitized world, to Industry 4.0 but also to a changed handling of resources, better living spaces in cities and a climate-friendly energy supply. I think there will not be one stone on the other, but do not worry: it is a gratifying revolution that will ultimately also make a significant contribution to solving the major global problems. But, like every major change, it also poses major challenges for all the actors.

For example, industry in 2019 is still facing one of its biggest challenges so far. A modern digitalization is not yet reached today, technologies are developing much faster than the industry can keep up. The Internet of Things and its smart networking has already made some contribution here, but a key question these days from decision-makers worldwide is: What support can cryptocurrencies at this point afford? And which cryptocurrency will prevail over others because of its advantages.

Blockchain became part of this big revolution with Bitcoin in the year 2008. But Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have fundamental drawbacks. IOTA tried to solve these disadvantages with a new Tangle technology. That’s why many experts call IOTA the cryptocurrency of a new generation.

There are a number of factors that make IOTA interesting. In summary, there are 5 areas where IOTA clearly hits other cryptocurrencies:

  • The transaction rate
  • The scalability
  • The feasibility of micropayments
  • The efficiency
  • The verifiable manipulation security
Source: https://blog.iota.org/iota-foundation-fb61937c9a7e

There is a fundamental change of system

Many cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, rely on energy-intensive mining, which generates high revenues for miners. This is also the mainspring for many people to support this technology, but the transactions are therefore burdened with fees.

IOTA can do without mining because the maximum number of IOTA already exists. This will make the transactions without Fees. The driving force behind this technology is not the mining but the application itself. Solving problems with IOTA/Tangle applications is just as much a driving force as the ability to earn revenue with applications of this technology .

But IOTA, however, still has some disadvantages. The biggest and most important disadvantage is that IOTA is currently not completely decentralized.

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Why is decentralization so important

Cryptocurrencies are intended to enable digital payments without centralized administrations.

Decentralized data exchange makes it impossible for individual groups or interest groups such as industry, banks or governments to simply print new money or manipulate data or the price. The stored transactions are immutable and therefore need no management or confirmation by a third party. The decentralization of technology makes it possible to do business without third-party intermediaries.

This creates trust and solves the dependency on large corporations that may eventually pursue other goals. Of course, this principle also benefits those who use such a cryptocurrency through the aforementioned advantages. Cities, industry, including all communication in the IOT.

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But, as noted before, IOTA is actually not completely decentralized. In order to protect the Tangle in its early phase attacks, IOTA uses the review so called “Coordinator” (also: “Coo”). The Coo is a special node operated by the IOTA Foundation. The use of the coordinator often meets with criticism in the crypto scene, because in principle it gives the IOTA Foundation the last word on the status quo of the network.

At the 27th of Mai 2019 the IOTA Foundation started the bomb: IOTA will be decentralized shortly (on sight of 3–6 months). The technical term for this is Coordicide (Coo), as the omission of a central coordinator. This Coo has been discussed in the last few days again and again in the social networks and even skeptics of the IOTA / Tangle paid respect. IOTA would be a cryptocurrency that combines many advantages and would be able to maximize all three elements (Decentralisation, Security, Scalability), thus solving the Blockchain-Trilemma.

I spoke with Dominik Schiener the Co-Founder of the IOTA Foundation about the latest developments and he gave me the following statement on the Coordicide:

The IOTA Foundation is one of the leading R & D organizations in the DLT field, and with our new Coordicide Proposal we show that the vision of DLT is free, decentralized, secure and scalable. The coming months will be very exciting for the development of IOTA, and the maturity of the entire DLT area. We hope, together with our ecosystem, that IOTA will have a real impact on the lives of each individual.

What economic significance does payment and data flows have in the IOT?

Many companies, technologies and cryptocurrencies want to get a piece of the cake because the IOT is about unbelievably large cash flows. To be able to make an estimate of what this is, I have used some statistical data. It is predicted that more than 75 billion devices (“things”) will be connected by 2025, with an annual economic impact of $3.9 Trillion to $11.1 Trillion by 2025. And one thing is absolutely clear, these numbers will boost in the coming years.

Source: McKinsey Global Institute

These numbers illustrate as rough estimates what it is about. A Part of these cash flows will be reflected in the 2,779,530,283 MIOTA when IOTA realy becomes a standard in the IOT. For those of you who would like more information about the statistics, here is the link

Source: Statistica

The battle for the best technology continues and with this Coordicide announcement, IOTA has taken an important step toward becoming a standard.

Of course, this also benefits the large partnerships and countless applications of IOTA and there will be more and more large companies testing IOTA. The future applications are another advantage that IOTA throws into the balance.

A small selection of IOTA partnerships and use cases

Jaguar using ‘Smart Wallet’ technology

With its announcement on April 29, 2019: „On the money: earn as you drive with Jaguar Land Rover“, the important partnership with IOTA is confirmed.

Drivers will be able to earn cryptocurrency and make payments on the move using innovative connected car services being tested by Jaguar Land Rover.

Source: https://blog.iota.org/earn-as-you-drive-with-jaguar-land-rover-and-iota-3c744d8c0cba

Using Smart Wallet technology, owners earn credits by enabling their cars to automatically report useful road condition data such as traffic congestion or potholes to navigation providers or local authorities. Drivers could then redeem these for rewards such as coffee, or conveniently use them to automatically pay tolls, parking fees and for smart charging electric vehicles. Smart Wallet removes the need for drivers to hunt for loose change or sign up to multiple accounts to pay for a variety of everyday services.

Smart Wallet uses the latest cryptocurrency technology and Jaguar Land Rover has partnered with the IOTA Foundation to harness distributed ledger technologies to make and receive these payments. Unlike other similar systems, due to its structure, it requires no transaction fee to operate and over time transactions will get faster across the entire network. Drivers could also top-up the Smart Wallet using conventional payment methods.

Volkswagen car-pass

Volkswagen entered into a partnership with IOTA. VW, in conjunction with IOTA, presented a new proof of concept at the CEBIT 2018 event. VW wants to integrate the technology into its products to make sure all the cars get the data they need to run certain updates and functions as we advance into the future of technology.

With the future of driver-less cars not that far away, the transmission of data and software over radiowaves to vehicles on the IOTA tangle will be core to maintaining order on the roads.

After it was announced in 2018 that VW would like to launch a first vehicle with IOTA technology in 2019, the euphoria was great. Since then, it has become a little quieter. A letter that Volkswagen wrote in May 2019 says: “Volkswagen is continuing to work on a technical implementation of a possible project to document mileage in a blockchain / tangle. This is a first approach to a potentially wider car-pass approach. Volkswagen is also investigating alternative solutions. Whether there will be an implementation in 2019 has not yet been finally clarified. “

IBCS solution to track and trace assets in the supply chain

With a solution to track and trace assets in the supply chain — ibcsTracker. The IOTA-powered solution aims to support IBCS Group customers improve their delivery planning and shipment, by ensuring a cross-system interoperable audit trail to manage assets (e.g. pallets, windows and glasses stands) used to move goods across Middle Europe. The IBCS Poland Proof of Concept (PoC) is yet another example of IOTA’s vision for enabling the Global Trade and Supply Chain.

Source: https://www.ibcsgroup.com/

As a result, companies are able to achieve an accurate overview of assets available for shipment at any given place and time, leading to more efficient delivery planning, reduced administrative burden and greater profits. The IOTA-powered solution will not require integration with different legacy systems or a centralized repository, meaning customers can securely view and request the return of assets for reuse, but without sharing any proprietary or sensitive information with competitors that also have assets circulating within the same supply chain ecosystem.

Fujitsu: Industry 4.0 Show Case

Last year, Leopold Sternberg, Program Manager, Industry 4.0 Competence Center, Fujitsu, said “Fujitsu is well-equipped to help roll out IOTA as one new protocol standard as we are experts in both IT services and the manufacturing of IT products.” At the Hanover Fair this year showed Fujitsu again an IOTA Showcase. The Fujitsu website states: „In our own research and co-creation projects with DLT and Blockchain, we have identified use cases and related benefits for the industry. One of these projects is IOTA, which we also present in our Industry 4.0 Show Case. We show how with IOTA component and process data can be tracked in the context of supply chain management and stored invariably in the IOTA Tangle, for example as evidence of original components as for the warranty management.“

eCl@ss enable data standardization for the IIoT

Without a standard way to identify and classify industrial machines, information errors and variances in M2M data exchange become commonplace. Connected entities, each with its individual interface, can make scalability and cost efficiency difficult to maintain.

eCl@ss offers ISO approved standardized product data across 44 industry sectors. This enables faster, more reliable sharing of product information without concern of organizational structure or language barriers.

Through the collaboration between eCl@ss and IOTA, eCl@ss standardized data can now be transmitted in a private, secure, reliable and accountable manner by utilizing the IOTA Tangle and Masked Authenticated Messaging (MAM).

Bosch: XDK2MAM bridges the Bosch XDK and IOTA

Bosch recently announced that it is conducting experiments with the Ethereum Network. But Bosch also maintains long-standing relationships with IOTA.

The Bosch XDK110 is a programmable sensor device & a prototyping platform for many IoT use cases, being used in the field of Internet of Production, mainly to measure the performance of industrial machinery. On the other side, IOTA’s Masked Authenticated Messaging (MAM) is a second layer data communication protocol which adds functionality to emit and access an encrypted data stream over the Tangle.

XDK2MAM main goal is to provide open source software to allow interaction between this powerful hardware and the promising IOTA Tangle. The XDK2MAM members, consisting of the founders Daniele de Michele and Alejandro Elustondo as well as Daniel Trauth as their consultant from RWTH Aachen University, have set upon themselves the goal to make this open source code available to the IOTA community. They provided a simple and well-documented solution, understandable to non-experts as well, that connects the XDK110 to the IOTA Tangle. HTTP/MQTT/BLE/UDP/USB are the current solutions provided. XDK2MAM also develops code for RuuviTags and also other makers or IoT devices can be added to the program. The work will continue swiftly in the next few months

Many more partnerships, projects and applications

In many areas something is developing with IOTA and the Tangle. These include, above all: Smart City, Energy, Automotive, Supply Chain, Fintech, E-Health, Games and Space Exploration.

The variety of partnerships, projects and applications is increasing almost daily, so it’s hard to keep track of all things here. If you would like further information about IOTA partnerships, IOTA projects and use cases, please refer to the following links:

IOTA Ecosystem

hackster.io

Tangle Universe Projekt

IOTA Link Direktory

It’s really great to see what IOTA has done in terms of Coordicide, partnerships and real use cases in the last month. I hope that we get the Coordicide this year and IOTA thus rises to more than only a cryptocurrency. To a system that combines many advantages and so can contribute to the solution of global problems and can be used to benefit everyone.

END

I belong to a small independent group called public IOTA. Our current project is the Tangle Universe project. As previously announced, the Tangle Universe BETA 2.0 will be launched in autumn. We are currently working to expand the Tangle Universe project into a virtual trade fair especially for the areas DLT, IOTA and the Tangle. A place of learning and of future ideas and concepts.

I´m very happy about your support:

IOTA: GVVZUBLGQDUYQADECSNQEMNWK9SRWPJEVDZ9XBRDQINCWYQFRXHMYAKSJB9XFUQHPSGRBCHBPBVPZBZTWOGQ9INOSD

Bitcoin: 32wyq6tp2t92R3vRJHz4Lhdb4qo1gJ1jGQ
Ethereum: 0xd6eBFc291D2902a9A2a039408e09e21Ea82e238f

Thank you very much!

The „Tangle Universe project“ is not part of the IOTA Foundation or linked to any other way, it is an independent project to support IOTA and it´s applications.

We look forward to your message. Contact: info@publiciota.com

Please be very cautious about trading cryptocurrencies. It can come to a total loss!!!

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Markus

Interested in cryptocurrencies especially IOTA and member of the public IOTA project.