Review CES#2024: Call for DePIN Business Alliance
CES is the world’s largest consumer electronics show, attracting 1.8 million people from all over the world this year. This article is excerpted from a chat at the Web3 Coffee House hosted by Fog Works on January 15, 2024, on the topic of WEB3 and decentralized physical network infrastructure (DePIN) at CES 2024.
Feature 1: DePIN can help achieve true data storage on Web3
LIN (Fog Works’ CEO): “Whether we can guarantee that data is truly stored on WEB3 is still a question. Many people don’t understand the technology, and have no concept of where the data is stored and whether it can disappear. Now some less popular projects may not be able to access the data anymore. So our goal at this stage is to ensure that all data is available. As for the right confirmation, NFT plays a role in confirming the rights, but it is different from the traditional right confirmation. The traditional copyright requires judicial intervention, and the government and users need to negotiate. But NFT is related to consensus, just like a previous work that was auctioned for 60 million US dollars, as long as the buyer agrees, it is fine, and everyone else knows that he owns it. If someone else plagiarizes, the more he plagiarizes, the happier the owner is. It mainly looks at it from a digital native perspective, and does not care too much about the traditional copyright confirmation, but pays more attention to the online consensus level confirmation.”
Feature 2: DePIN is the beginning of true decentralization or old wine in new bottles
Victor (Chairman of DMC Foundation): “I saw some mining machines and other devices related to Web3 in the Web3 area. One of the personal consumer products related to DePIN decentralized physical network infrastructure nodes impressed me: charging pile sharing, with the popularity of electric vehicles, basically every family will install a charging pile for their electric vehicle, but their charging pile still has a lot of idle time, then we can install a device on the charging pile, which can allow others to use it when your charging pile is idle, and the docking will be completed in the digital wallet. I think this idea is in line with ours. We do decentralized storage. At that time, there was no concept of Depin, but our idea coincided with the concept of Depin. I think the emergence of Depin symbolizes a new stage of Web3. Before that, blockchain and smart contracts solved a ledger problem, by putting data on the chain to achieve a public, transparent, and tamper-proof ledger, and then eliminated the role of intermediaries between the two parties of the transaction through smart contracts, thereby facilitating direct transactions between buyers and sellers. But I think the real decentralized world needs a physical connection network. From Web2 to Web3, Depin is its next stage, which is the beginning of a truly decentralized physical network. The decentralized physical network must first have data, and then applications and ledgers on the data. So our Fog Works product: Foggie Max will be the central node of the future Depin network, such as the charging pile we mentioned above, how much electricity it charges, and how many people use it, these data need a place to store, and these data are related to personal privacy, so I think people who use it need a Depin digital device to store data. Secondly, it will also become a personal portal for everyone to enter the decentralized Web3, just like a mobile phone that everyone must have on the mobile Internet. This is my idea after visiting some Depin devices at the CES exhibition. So I think Fog Works should exhibit our Depin devices next time, or we can also form a Depin IOT device alliance with other Depin exhibitors to participate in the exhibition.
LIN: “What I am more interested in is a car-mounted pendant device at the party, which can collect car information. It does this information collection for various industry applications and obtaining tokens in the future. A business model. This device is still in the experimental stage, but it held this party and met some project parties, entrepreneurs, investors, etc. who are interested in the Depin track. We also showed up in it and briefly communicated and got to know each other. Because we have been in the Web3 field for many years, the word Depin has just become popular, so everyone has a feeling of new wine in old bottles, and because we have accumulated experience in decentralized storage projects, we have more experience in this field. DePIN and NFT are the same. NFT technology has appeared for a long time before it became popular. The earliest Ethereum cat was even mentioned in the white paper, but no one called this concept NFT at that time. Until later, the consensus of NFT was hyped enough, and various account applications became more and more, and everyone formed a consensus. So I think we have been working in this field for a certain amount of accumulation, and we are more confident.
Victor: “I also paid attention to this application. They are the host of our party. They are mainly a car networking device, and also a Depin. Their car networking device is mainly connected to the car’s computer because all your car data is stored on your car computer. This device connects to the computer and downloads your car data, and the devices are interconnected. They did a good job and also got the recognition of investors.”
Feature 3: A large imagination space for data storage and verification for DePIN
Victor: “I think they still have a problem that has not been solved: that is, the data on the car has rights and interests, not only involving the personal privacy of the car owner but also the data on the car computer may be related to the car factory. Who does this data belong to? This question was asked when I talked to the founder, and he answered that we haven’t had time to consider this issue. What we did was just to build the network and user group first, and we will consider the data ownership later. This kind of home IoT device is a relatively common pain point. How to confirm the rights of these data, who owns the data? In the Web2 era, everyone had some disputes. The final result was that the data was stored on whichever platform the data belonged to, so we felt that this was unfair and we decided to store data on Web3. For example, what we say on Twitter and what we post are all owned by Twitter, and Twitter can use it however it wants. So for us believers in Web3, we think this is wrong, and we want to change this situation. So a very important point of Depin devices is to solve the data confirmation. This time we also saw home security cameras. The prices of cameras on the market are not high, but where are the data generated by the cameras stored? Users generally store it on the device, but the device generally only supports saving up to seven days, and cannot store data completely. I also asked some manufacturers at the exhibition, and most of them help you store one month for free and help you store it on their backend cloud. The data generated later can only be on the device, and the device can be stored as long as the storage space is. If you want to check the data from last month or earlier, you can’t do it. This is a pain point for both users and manufacturers. For camera manufacturers, helping all users store data is a very painful thing, and at the same time, these data are stored on the backend cloud, these data also involve personal privacy, how to manage these data? This is still an unsolvable pain point. So we hope to solve this problem through our Foggie Max. The data generated by the user’s home camera can be stored on our Foggie Max, which can help users store data on the Web3 chain, and confirm their rights through the network, you can control the access, and you can authorize these data can access and who can’t, such as authorizing to AI for training, etc.”
Feature 4: AI integrates into daily products, and privacy protection of massive data is a challenge
Lin: “Four years ago, the concept of AI had been hyped, and it became something that users knew well, especially like Open AI, Chat GPT, and other users who have used it before, and this also conforms to the law of AI, that is, when AI becomes a reality, we no longer call it AI. Now AI is everywhere, AI has computing power, algorithms, and data, and data evolves into applications. What are the applications in it? The most important thing is IOT, IOT is both around us and seemingly untouchable, but in fact, about 80% of the venues are using IOT devices. If someone pays attention to Google’s exhibition hall, basically the IOT device usage rate is more than 80%, Google is very special, Google’s exhibition hall is connected, and all the devices in it can be linked by voice recognition. Xiaomi is also doing the same thing, I believe many people have also experienced Xiaomi’s smart home in China, which is quite good, but if Xiaomi wants to come to the United States to participate in the exhibition, it is still a bit difficult, with various problems such as taxes and intellectual property rights.”
Felicia (VP of Fog Works): “This is my first time at the CES exhibition. There are a lot of products that attract me, especially some smart devices that make me want to buy them as soon as I see them, such as AI chairs, AI toothbrushes, and even AI to help you customize shoes, so I saw a lot of female consumers interested in this project on the spot. Secondly, there are a lot of smart furniture that make you feel more convenient in life, such as a TV, when you use the TV, the sound will only play in the middle position, and you can’t hear any sound on both sides, I am very interested in this, because for example in the dormitory, or watching the game late at night, other people will not be affected. Another example is waterproof headphones or folding treadmills, I feel that we are using AI in various scenarios.” “I found a point: AI is everything. Now AI is everywhere, and AI produces a lot of data. The storage and confirmation of these data are also a big challenge. I listened to some lectures, and the lectures mentioned that some of the laws and regulations in the United States have not kept up with the pace of AI, let alone Depin. They are particularly worried about the privacy of data, especially now that more and more devices are connected to the Internet and becoming more popular, some of these public data will become very private and need to be protected for us consumers. Therefore, a privacy data storage infrastructure will become very important.”
Feature 5: DePIN ensures data security
Victor: “What I said about Depin and IOT, this is a very good point for blockchain. A few years ago, there was a case, because IOT devices are huge, and they all need to go online, then how to ensure the security of these devices is a problem. If we control it through centralized storage, there will be security loopholes, including data loss or data privacy leakage. So I think IOT data storage must be realized through blockchain. Because blockchain data is public and transparent. Whether it is a camera or a sensor, once these devices are connected to the Internet, their data will be immeasurable, then how to ensure that these cameras are safe and have network access permission, we can only achieve this through blockchain, if it is managed by centralized devices The cost is too high. So I think Felica’s point is very good. I remember it should be around 2018, when a network attack occurred on the West Coast of the United States, and the root cause was caused by network cameras connected to the Internet. If network identity authentication and records can be completed through blockchain, this network security loophole will no longer exist. On the other hand, it is data confirmation, who owns what data, and it is difficult to manage through centralization. Secondly, it is AI. AI has three types of data: training data, the model itself, and now a larger model that may require 700G, and finally the generated data. All of these data are by permission and privacy, then how to manage and authorize them is a problem. Now everyone’s demand for data confirmation is getting bigger and bigger. Now everyone shares a model like Chat GPT. Chat GPT’s training data mainly comes from social networks like Twitter or Reddit. Now they are in court. These social networks think that Chat GPT uses their data, but these data are also created by the majority of users on it. Including the data you generate on Chat GPT, you may be stolen by others accidentally. In the future, it would be best to achieve that one person can have a model, the training data is provided by yourself, and then train based on the model with your data, this model will belong to you, and this AI will serve you specifically, and the generated data will naturally belong to you. How to store these data and how to authorize them to others and other problems will emerge endlessly after AI evolves. It’s just the beginning, and there is still a long way to go, so now using blockchain to ensure data security and build a decentralized network is just a start.”
Feature 6: Call for DePIN Business Alliance
Victor: “I think Depin is the real beginning of Web3. Before Web3, it only solved the ledger problem. The next core is decentralized data storage and data verification. These are some of my views through CES and our Fog Works philosophy. Our next step will be to work with the DePIN industry to form an alliance and improve the underlying protocol. Now home devices are becoming more and more common on the Internet, and I can even see that light bulbs need to be connected to the Internet. These home devices have a lot of imagination space for data verification and storage.”
Felicia: “Yes, we saw too few DePIN companies this time, and we look forward to more blockchain creators and us setting up booths together next year and letting more people know about us. After we ally next time, we can attract more manufacturers and entrepreneurs to come in and share and exhibit their products and ideas!”
Victor: “We are the leader in building real and effective storage infrastructure in Web3, so I hope to see more devices that are compatible and supportive of us on data next year and to see data verification and ensure data security on the blockchain.”
