The ixo network has been successfully upgraded in a big step forward on our mission to build the Web3 Internet of Impact.
The Mundo release
After more than two years of research and development, the Mundo release of the ixo-Cosmos Blockchain SDK brings important protocol enhancements and innovations for non-fungible digital assets that we believe are going to be game-changers for the Tokenised Impact Economy.
Before diving into why this upgrade is so significant, allow me to reflect on where we have come from.
The fourth ixo network upgrade
Four years ago, almost to the day on 7th December 2018, the first ixo protocol network launched with the announcement The ixo Blockchain is Live. Welcome to the new world of Impact!
Over the past four years we have all experienced first-hand how the world is being fundamentally impacted — by pandemic disease, the climate crisis, institutional failures, and increasing levels of impoverishment.
The world of Impact has also fundamentally changed.
In 2018 ixo was one of the lone voices advocating to use blockchain technologies for Impact. Now we are part of a much larger and vibrant ReFi movement!
These trends over the past four years surely validate the need for an Internet of Impact hyper-structure. We are beginning to see that something like this is already forming!
Over the next four years and beyond, we will continue advocating for and building an Internet of Impact technology ecosystem that enables a more inclusive and Earth state-changing tokenised Impact Economy to grow, at the intersection of human development, energy transition, human security, and biodiversity protection.
At the end 2018 the ixo blockchain was one of the very first Cosmos chains in beta production. The Cosmos Hub launched a few months later in 2019.
The ixo network upgrade in August 2021 made ixo amongst the first to be connected to the Internet of Blockchains, through the IBC protocol.
This fourth ixo chain upgrade is by far the most important to-date.
This upgrade completes the implementation of the ixo Protocol for Impact verification and tokenization. It also brings us within reach of achieving the vision for the ixo network to serve as one of the hubs interconnecting a multi-chain Internet of Impact.
The Mundo release adds CosmWasm smart contracts that will enable more advanced DAO, tokenization and financing mechanisms that leverage the capabilities of the ixo Protocol — such as claims verification, digital identity and credentialing — to meet real-world business requirements, such as compliance with financial, privacy and data protection regulations.
With IBC v3.3 the next generation of Inter-blockchain Communication (IBC) enables applications using the ixo software stack to access the specialised services of application chains and to connect with networks such as Ethereum and Polygon.
The ixo MultiClient-SDK has been extensively upgraded for this multi-chain future and we believe the power of the Internet of Impact will soon become evident to users of ixo applications.
For instance an Impact Exchange interface has been built into the ixo Impact Portal web application that will ship in Q1 2023. This will enable users to perform asset swaps on other networks without having to leave an Impact Exchange interface, or needing to hold gas tokens for other networks.
Decentralized applications for any Cosmos chain can now be built using the ixo JAMBO developer platform using JAMstack, Blockchains and the Opera crypto wallet. Developers don’t even need Web3 experience to configure and deploy serverless, mobile-first web applications through the JAMBO dApp Store, which is already live in the Opera for Android crypto wallet. This should be a game-changer for scaling user access in emerging markets and for rapidly iterating mobile web applications for any imaginable use-case that can benefit from Web3 and the Internet of Impact.
An integration between the ixo and the Axelar network is currently underway that will be like turning on the Christmas lights for the multi-chain Internet of Impact, enabling arbitrary message-passing between networks and bridging into EVM chains. With this, the Cosmos-native USDC stable token will become available on the ixo network, which is a big deal for paying agents, managing project budgets and investing in AlphaBonds.
Mundo brings upgrades and adds new features to the ixo Payments and Bonds modules. The AlphaBond algorithm and configuration options have been further refined for Outcomes-based Financing after further R&D and field-testing conducted in collaboration with the UBS Emerging Technologies team.
We are particularly excited about the new custom modules included in this release. The Tokens, Entities, and Interchain Identifiers (IID) modules bring together powerful new Impact tokenization capabilities.
It is now possible to tokenize both the means of producing Impact, as well as the outcomes of Impact projects and investments.
These next-generation tokens implement the technical specifications for Interchain NFTs, Interchain Identifiers and the Tokens 2.0 architecture that we have been developing over the past couple of years in collaboration with the Interchain Foundation and other blockchain teams.
InterNFTs can be thought of as programmable, dynamic containers of verifiable data that can grow over time, embed executable rights and capabilities, provide routing to services, and link together portfolios of entities and accounts.
Now when you create a DAO, Project, Investment, Asset, Oracle, or Protocol on the ixo chain, these are minted as InterNFTs.
This introduces rich new capabilities for owning and interacting with entities as composable digital assets that have advanced cryptographic controls, executable rights, linked resources, services and verifiable linkages to other entities.
Each entity has a decentralized identifier (DID) and on-chain key management store. Your DAO can now be located on the Web by its URI address! It can have a portfolio of accounts — including on other chains, and be linked to multiple groups, other DAOs, projects, investments, assets or other types of entities.
A DAO can delegate rights as executable authorisations — such as the capability to access a data store controlled by its members. It can be linked to any type of web service or smart contract, and it can own and control resources such as asset registries, media, or even physical assets.
Entities can now inherit properties from classes. For instance, a collection of Assets can share a private registry database.
With the new Tokens module, Impact Tokens can be minted using both the versatility of CosmWasm smart contracts, such as ixo1155, and the powerful metadata framework of the ixo Protocol.
Also, the capability to mint Impact Tokens can now be delegated to the producers of Impact. For instance, a clean cookstove user can execute her right to self-issue tokenized carbon credits, based on her claimed emission reductions. When these tokens are minted this embeds a Verifiable Credential linking to the evidence for the claim and the proof that it has been independently verified.
Why this upgrade matters
In this article we only scratch the surface of what is now possible with the Mundo upgrade. The true power of these protocols and utility of the infrastructure will soon become evident through the real-world applications that can now be built on this upgraded infrastructure and the solutions that have already been built on the ixo Testnet in anticipation of the Mundo upgrade that are preparing for market release early next year.
The ixo network Mundo upgrade is only one part of the ixo software stack that includes the Impact Portal web platform, Impact X Mobile applications (coming to the app stores in January), CellNode decentralized data stores, JAMBO developer platform and mobile dApp store, Blocksync chain indexing node, Client-SDK, Cloudflare workers, Prediction Oracle AI services and a host of other utilities.
As we look ahead to the next four years and beyond, at the tipping-point of irreversible climate disaster, it is imperative to deliver solutions for locally coordinating, financing, delivering and verifying Impacts at Internet scale.
We hope this ixo network upgrade and the related product releases we have been working on will make significant contributions towards addressing this imperative and help accelerate growth of the Tokenized Impact Economy.
Growing the Internet of Impact Ecosystem
Achieving what needs to be done at the scale of an Internet of Impact needs a much better-coordinated ecosystem of builders, investors, innovators and implementers.
To accomplish this, together with organizations that share this vision, we are forming the Impact X DAO for the Internet of Impact ecosystem. This will use the powerful new capabilities of the ixo chain and software stack.
Look out in the New Year for more information about these developments and do get in touch if you would like to know more and are motivated to help grow the Internet of Impact ecosystem, or want to build on this infrastructure.
