Atonomi — A Macro Analysis

16 min readFeb 3, 2018

Context

There are already billions of IoT devices active. This number is projected to grow from 8 to 20 billion by 2020 and IoT transactions will number in the quadrillions or sextillions. If true, there will be a tremendous need to provide security for IoT networks of astronomical size.

Atonomi intends to provide this solution.

What is it and how does it work?

Atonomi is a security protocol for the Internet of Things.

Atonomi will secure IoT networks by registering and verifying devices, to ensure safe communities of trusted actors; and analyzing behaviour, to ensure that participants remain cooperative. Additionally, the Atonomi protocol can improve the efficiency and performance of IoT networks by incentivizing higher standards of productivity.

The protocol creates security by combining device identity and “reputation” with blockchain.

Identity

Devices register on the blockchain to establish an open ledger of genuine devices. This ensures the security of the whole network, as the identity of each participant is checked against the open ledger. Atonomi’s protocol will be developed and deployed on the Ethereum blockchain.

Reputation

Devices in the Atonomi Network are scored with a “reputation”. “Reputation” is measured through Atonomi’s “reputation protocol,” in which the whole network of devices works to evaluate the past performance and behavior of each IoT participant.

“Reputation” then allows for an objective measure of the device performance. High performing IoT devices are rewarded with high “reputation,” which can flag their services as more desirable to service requesters.

Such grading then allows for a competitive market space that not only drives cooperation, but increased machine performance and efficiency by incentivizing devices to achieve high standards and maintain them. “Reputation” also allows for the network to identify and root out bad actors.

So why blockchain?

Analyzing the project, Atonomi does appear a valid application of blockchain tech and tokenization. IoT networks can be big messy things, with vast numbers of participants. In networks of such scale, the possibility of bad actors grows exponentially. Trust becomes an issue as the possibility of untrustworthy participants increases. How does Atonomi apply blockchain to solve the security issues of vast IoT networks?

First, the open ledger aspect of blockchain is leveraged to ensure only trusted and cooperative participants are given access by registering them on a list via Ethereum smart contract. Atonomi protocol then actively vets participants via the parameters of identity and “reputation”.

Second, tokenization à la blockchain drives behaviour that maintains the security of the IoT network. Atonomi tokens are paid for access to the secure network and to conduct immutable transactions, and tokens are earned through processes that audit the security of the network.

The Token Economy

Tokens are paid:

To register device identity on Atonomi network
So tokens allow access to a secure network
To validate identity and “reputation” scores of participants
So tokens ensure only good actors participate
As a unit of value, to pay for services between parties
To process transactions

So tokens are paid for access and registration on a secure network. Tokens are also paid to ensure secure transactions as token transfers are checked against the open ledger.

Tokens are earned:

By verifying identity of participants (auditing) against the open ledger
Writing “reputation” data
Using computation power to score the “reputation” of devices
By providing IoT services to customers

So tokens are earned by conducting activities that verify the identity and behaviour of participants to maintain the security of the network and encourage increased productivity. Tokens can also function as value to pay for services.

Now while the Atonomi token can be used as a unit of value, the white paper notes (section 7.2) that “third party tokens can also be used.” If true, possibilities for Atonomi significantly expand. Imagine Atonomi being used to negotiate the security of transactions, then another token being used as the actual unit of value. Imagine Miotas being used. Such a scenario could mean the interfacing of Atonomi with the biggest player in the space, IoTa. Imagine a partnership where Atonomi provides a security layer upon an IoTa network. Atonomi tokens pay for security and Miotas pay for IoT services. A power couple bigger than Beyonce and Jay-Z?

Use Cases

Atonomi boasts endless use cases, as its security protocol could theoretically be layered on top of all IoT networks/applications. White paper describes such uses as:

Health care

to secure IoT life support equipment, scheduling, inventory and survey data;

Smart homes

to protect IoT devices from external intrusion and secure the internal networks

Smart cities

To secure infrastructure
Improve the efficiency of infrastructure
Lower power consumption
Reduce traffic congestion
Increase liveability

Industrial sectors

to secure vast IoT networks of industrial machinery
Improve machine efficiency
Coordinate supply chains

White paper also notes how Atonomi intends to work with bank and credit card authorizations (section 3.5.4 white paper)

Implementation

Atonomi like other IoT projects, will require embedding of chips with custom software (section 5, white paper). Atonomi’s implementation is then be reliant on its ability to secure partnerships with big chip manufacturers.

For technicals, see whitepaper.

Foundational Partner: “The CENTRI Connection”

CENTRI Technology

Atonomi is being developed is by Seattle-based CENTRI technology, a company that previously worked on IoTas (Internet of Things Advanced Security). It was founded in 2010 by Vaughan Emery who is the CEO of Atonomi and CENTRI.

Via a magic time machine, we can see:

Centri began by working on improving wireless network security and efficiency circa 2010.
And it began pivoting towards IoT tech in the middle of 2014.
Centri lists IBM, Intel, HP as IoT tech partners on its website in 2016.
In the later of 2016, CENTRI went full pivot to IoT tech.

Centri has 10 patents that will be used in Atonomi.

Presently, Atonomi lists CENTRI with some pretty large partners:

“Atonomi is being developed by CENTRI Technology, creators of IoTAS — Internet of Things Advanced Security. CENTRI’s current partners include the largest IoT ecosystem players like Arm, Flex, Microsoft, Intel, and others.”

Such partnerships are not visible on the CENTRI website. However, CENTRI’s purported partnerships are mentioned in this article.

When asked to confirm CENTRI’S partnership on the Atonomi telegram, got the response from the support team:

Michael AmaZix:
I am not able to verify claims of Centri. You will need to contact them about inquiries like that.

It seemed odd considering Atonomi’s CEO is also the CEO of CENTRI. Shouldn’t the staff be aware of such big partnerships? I later realized Michael is from AmaZix, Atonomi’s marketing and social outreach partner. So it’s possible Michael is not privy to this knowledge, or perhaps keeping it on the down low.

So to find out from the source, I emailed the man himself, Mr. Vaughan Emery Esquire. He appeared to confirmed the partnerships:

Vaughan’s statements were reasserted in the Telegram, the nature of the partnerships somewhat clarified. According to Vaughan, Microsoft is already incorporating Centri security tech in their own IoT security solutions, for at least Azure.

If such partnerships exist, it would be monumental for Atonomi. Relations with such companies would allow Atonomi to tap into astronomical software/hardware expertise and provide godzilla level manufacturing to implement its protocol. Wikipedia notes Flex as the world’s third largest global electronics manufacturing services (EMS), original design manufacturer (ODM) company by revenue. ARM is a multinational titan in chip design, and you’ve probably heard about Intel.

Competitors/Collaborators?

Atonomi combines the security of blockchain with IoT networks. Are there other projects creating a security protocol for the Internet of Things?

Xage is the only other project with a similar objective. Xage utilizes blockchain to secure the IoT, but seems to be a private solution that does not utilize tokens. Currently,there are no other projects that combine tokenization with security protocol for the IoT. Atonomi then has no immediate competitors.

As mentioned earlier, Atonomi and IoTa overlap in that both use tokens as a system of value to pay for services. Though, they aren’t in direct competition with each other. IoTa aims to create a network of IoT devices via open, distributed ledger. Atonomi aims to interface on top of IoT networks (which IoTa is) to provide security as a protocol layer. In a perfect world, there would be a partnership. Both projects claim Microsoft as partners. So could such a thing be possible in the future? #Atonomi-secured fleet of autonomous Lambos?

Asked if Atonomi plans to integrate with the IoTa platform, got telegram reply:

Michael AmaZix:
The project will not be interacting with Iota. Have you checked out our white paper?

Asked if they seek to partner with IotA in the future, got the reply:

Michael AmaZix:
Great question. I believe the main focus for the team right now is working on its own project before considering anything like that. Stay tuned though and as more info comes out we will let the community know =)

Such a reply could imply an emphasis of tech over fanfare, which is a positive flag in this space of over-hype and over-marketing. Though, it’s important to note this is from Atonomi’s marketing partner and not a direct member of Atonomi. It’s difficult then to gauge the mentality of the team as they aren’t directly active on telegram. Email does seem to work though. But please don’t spam Vaughn, he’s a busy man. We’re friends. (Not at all.) (Please text me V, I’m lonely.)

Partners

CENTRI Technology

Core partner, developing the tech
Experienced in network/data/IoT tech

AmaZix

Marketing firm for ICOs, manages telegram
Has an impressively long list of clients
Bancor, SALT, WePower, CardStack, FortKnoxster, Superbloom, Data Wallet, Codex, ecetera ecetera.

TokenMarket

A site for showcasing and facilitating ICO sales

Ambisafe

Company providing software support for ICO raising
Does Ethereum development
Lists Bitfinex and Tether as clients

PerkinsCoie

A multinational law firm that consults for tech

Deloitte

A multi-billion dollar multinational consultancy firm, with recent blockchain interests

Waschman

A PR firm for fintech companies

Atonomi’s partners form a very very strong marketing/PR/consultancy/legal support group.

As for tech, Ambisafe provides blockchain coding and has some notable (and universally respected) clients in Bitfinex and Tether. CENTRI’s purported ties with Arm, Flex, Microsoft, Intel are the big question. If the partnerships are true then Atonomi has some titanic resources at its disposal.

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Update — 10 Feb 2018

Atonomi has recently updated their site with a statement from ARM’s IoT director.

“Secure interoperability is essential for the Internet of Things to reach its full potential. The Atonomi blockchain technology vision for a global service that enables secure transactions and commerce through device identity and reputation is something Arm is excited to see realized.”

-Ian Ferguson, VP Ecosystem Development, IoT Services Group at ARM

I messaged Ian on LinkedIn to confirm his statement. His reply appears to confirm a close and ongoing relationship between Atonomi and ARM.

As a multi-billion dollar company, I would say it’s unlikely that ARM would allow for this LinkedIn profile to be faked. The number of endorsements on his profile would also suggest its legitimacy. While there is no absolute confirmation from ARM, Flex, Microsoft and Intel, having the IoT director of one such company appearing to confirm a close partnership could be a very bullish indicator for Atonomi, a sign that unicorns may indeed exist.

Social Metrics

Reddit presence is small for r/Atonomi, with about 220 subscribers. Subreddit is a month old, with low activity but is growing. Twitter is at 1900 followers, with likewise low activity, but seems to be growing rapidly.

Google trends for Atonomi shows erratic interest over the past year, spiking significantly as of recently. Awareness of Atonomi appears to be booming out of some early stages of obscurity.

Google trends for CENTRI Technology shows doldrums of interest with sudden massive spikes. Such spikes might correlate to mentions in articles related to the purported partnerships.

Google trends for Internet of Things security shows high interest in the last year, dipping somewhat in the last few months, but settling to relatively strong levels. This could suggest the notion of security and the internet of things is entering the public consciousness.

Telegram is active. It has grown exponentially in the past 2–3 weeks from about 2.5k to now around 8.6k subscribers with new people buzzing in everyday. Interest seems to be building rapidly. Telegram staff will reply to simple questions, but are reluctant to answer more complex ones. They will generally refer people to the white paper. Again, it seems all the telegram staff are from the marketing partner AmaZix.

Overall social presence is rapidly growing with a recent explosion of interest. In its earlier stages, Atonomi appears to be accumulating growing awareness and hype.

Team

Lead, Vaughan Emery is CEO of both Atonomi and CENTRI. Vaughan worked as an analyst within the semiconductor business and then as a managing partner of an informations tech company for about 20 years before founding CENTRI technology. Has been CEO of CENTRI for about 7 years. Vaughan does not have previous blockchain experience, but CENTRI began work on IoT tech around 2014 so he does have previous experience with IoT tech.

Andrii Zamovsky, “Strategic Development Partner”, is the founder of Ambisafe. Has been working in crypto since 2012. Well-seasoned in blockchain.

1PhD of Engineering Science in core team. Seems very experienced and qualified in his scientific field, but no prior blockchain experience. Other core members include CENTRI members with reputable tech qualifications.

4 PhD’s as advisors,

David Kravits — Electrical Engineering Systems

Worked for IBM, Motorola
No prior professional blockchain experience, but has experience in cryptography (3 years)

John Henry Clippinger — Computational Linguistics

Advisor for Bancor
Researcher at MIT’s “Media Lab”

Ulf Linqvist — Computer Engineering

R&D projects in infrastructure security and lead SRI’s support for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science & Technology Directorate, Cyber Security Division
No prior experience with blockchain

Peter Kinnaird — Philosophy (Human Computer Interaction)

Blockchain architect of Ambisafe

Overall, Atonomi hosts a core and team of advisers with decades of experience in their related fields. Most of the PhDs do not have blockchain experience, but have served huge in roles in their respective specialties and are clearly very intelligent, seasoned people who could certainly transition well into blockchain development.

Roadmap

Phase 1: Deployment of Network

Functional network near the time of public sale
Three “root Identity and Auditor” servers online
Atonomi software is made available to manufacturers
Ready support for most popular IoT devices
Device registration manual, whitelist provided by verified manufacturers
Device reputation and data decentralization limited capacity

Phase 2: Growing the Atonomi Network — Timeline 6–9 Months

Triple identity and auditing servers, with third providers involved
Support for IoT operating systems expanded
“Likely to expand to potentially include IoT solutions from Amazon, Microsoft, Intel and Google.”
“Atonomi Server infrastructure” will run via Amazon Web services, expanded to Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure
Device registration fully automated
Secure wallet and device reputation developed

Phase 3: Increase Scale And Grow Platform Support

Significantly expand number of identity and audit servers, run by third parties
Atonomi software will support all popular IoT hardware and operating systems
Universal use cases in a full spectrum of industries
From healthcare, finance, utilities, etc.

Atonomi intends to have an MVP near the time of the crowdsale. From then on it’s a strategy of steady growth, with huge end goals.

Summary

Atonomi is a security protocol for IoT networks. It leverages blockchain to establish communities of trusted parties that are listed in an open and decentralized ledger via Ethereum.

Tokenization enables trustless transactions and creates a competitive market space that incentivizes cooperative behavior in conjunction with greater productivity. In Atonomi, tokens are paid for the right to participate in the network, to securely transact on its infrastructure and to encourage behavior that upkeeps the security of the network. Parties need not trust each other to transact as token flow is recorded in an open decentralized ledger. Token economics rewards high performers, which encourages greater network efficiency.

The project has a team of engineers and PhDs with a wealth of experience and strong technical expertise.

Atonomi has a rapidly growing social presence and boasts strong marketing and legal partners.

If the purported ties with Arm, Flex, Microsoft, Intel are true then the levels of technical consultancy and manufacturing support for Atonomi are absolutely astronomical.

Final Thoughts/Marketing

Atonomi is novel, seeks to solve a tremendously vital need and has no current tokenized competitors. Atonomi has a clear outline for how the protocol works and a clear strategy to implement its solution. It describes them without flashy or unnecessary marketing terms.

My overall impression of Atonomi is very very very positive. There aren’t many projects that hit the trifecta of novelty, clear technology, and emphasis of tech over marketing. A Jsmee never names prices, but the initial hard cap is very low (25 million) for a project with such ambition and potential to execute its vision. IoTa currently sits above 5 billion as an Internet of Things platform. If Atonomi just reaches a fraction of IoTa’s market cap as a security protocol for IoT platforms, it could certainly achieve exponential gains out from public-sale. As of yet, token sale structure has not yet been released. But expect such details to be announced soon, along with the public sale date.

Obstacles that Atonomi will need to be addressed include implementation, scalability, and its relationship to IoTa.

Implementation

Atonomi first needs to successfully develop its protocol as it doesn’t seem to be fully developed yet. Next Atonomi will require large industrial partners in order to have mass adoption. The Atonomi protocol requires chip embedding on IoT devices. If not through ARM and Flex, Atonomi will require close partnerships with a manufacturer to implement the hardware necessary for its platform. Once implemented on hardware, Atonomi must then create partnerships within industries pioneering IoT to achieve actual market usage.

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Update — 10 Feb 2018

Ian Ferguson, the IoT Director for ARM appears to confirm a pre-existing and ongoing relationship between his company and Atonomi. If true, this would be tremendous for Atonomi as it answers the demand for the manufacturing capabilities and expertise utterly essential for product implementation on the hardware level.

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Scalability

IoT networks of the future may be monumental in scale. If Atonomi’s protocol functions via an Ethereum smart contract the potential for a bottleneck is very possible. If a bunch of cutesy cats were able to bring a multi-billion dollar platform, developed by a extra-terrestrial Russia-Canadian cyborg, to its knees then imagine the platform trying to process quadrillions of transactions from a single DApp. It is good that Atonomi acknowledges this and in response it asserts that their transactions “do not require high throughput writes to the blockchain” (White Paper Section 3.6). Atonomi addresses the current scalability issues of Ethereum, and states that they are open to adopting other solutions such as Raiden/Plasma, hash graph or even other tech if necessary. This could be a positive flag that shows a certain humility that is rare in the crypto-space, and a pragmatism necessary to survive in the turbulent environment of crypto.

Relationship to IoTa

The biggest factor which may determines Atonomi’s success could be its relationship to IoTa.

Atonomi and IoTa both require hardware implementation via chip embedding. If they want to work together they would have to interface together in the step of hardware implementation. Furthermore, IoTa is already a giant with its partnerships. Why would they wish to work with some upstart? Could they simply develop their own security protocol? There are other companies developing security for the internet of things, with at least one other using blockchain (Xage). Atonomi must then leverage blockchain tech in such a way that the functionality of its platform is superior and cannot be ignored. If the partnerships with Intel, Microsoft and etc. are true, then Atonomi must take advantage of the gargantuan technical and logistical expertise at its disposal to out-compete any challengers.

Atonomi does seem to have that through the CENTRI connection, but it remains to be seen what types of/degrees of connections and if they are 100% confirmed by Microsoft, Intel, Arm and Flex themselves. One thing is certain though. If an Atonomi — IoTa partnership does form you may never a Jsmee-report again, a bullet this writer would isn’t more than willing to take for his beloved reader.

Marketing

Current awareness of Atonomi is growing rapidly. Further outreach can amplify growth through actions like interviews through popular podcasts (BAD-CRYPTO PODCAST/TBP NETWORK SHOUTOUT) and interviews with crypto-personalities on YouTube. Targeted awareness campaigns on Reddit, Bitcoin Talk could have significant impact. Also, actual team members should be more active on telegram, though this could be difficult if they are focusing on the tech/travelling the world to promote their project. An AMA with quality answers would add significant exposure and seed trust in the community.

If CENTRI confirms its purported partnerships, the marketing game is won. A little outreach on social media a la “get the word out” and public interest interest drives itself. When a project has close connections with big, well-known tech companies, social media erupts in a frenzy and so too does the volume. See Stellar (XLM) with IBM. See Iota with Microsoft, Bosch and all those car companies. It is crucial though for partnerships to be clearly established. CENTRI or better Atonomi needs to clarify this through a video showing dialogue between the parties or having Microsoft/Intel/Arm/Flex announce it themselves via press release/mentions.

What about social competition from IoTa? Atonomi could face scrutiny from IoTa supporters who might suggest IoTa can develop its own security protocol. Promoters of Atonomi could answer by suggesting the possibility for both projects to work together and mention their common partners (supposedly in Microsoft). To the mass audience, Atonomi should emphasize its target for vast scale and should push its tremendous potential to impact the future - one of quadrillions of micro transactions which will require security solutions. By emphasizing the astronomical scale of the project, Atonomi can influence possible investors to connect potential size with potential price to put fire on the public interest.