$100M Fund Aims to Support Development of the Decentralized Machine Economy

IoTeX, a blockchain platform focused on the Internet of Things (IoT), has announced a $100 million sustainable ecosystem fund.

The new fund will support more than 1,000 decentralized machine economy startups, connecting more than 10 million smart devices to the MachineFi portal over the next three years.

A decentralized machine economy is a developing economy in which machines, rather than people, are the drivers of economic growth. This new economy is powered by blockchain technology and artificial intelligence (AI), which has the potential to create a more efficient, secure and sustainable way of doing business.

MachineFi refers to a new paradigm based on Web3, the foundation of the new machine economy. Machine resources and intelligence can be monetized, providing value and ownership to individuals rather than centralized corporations. Simply put, MachineFi can be described as the financialization of machines, or more accurately, connected devices.

The goal of MachineFi is to distribute the profits generated by the financialization of devices to actual users, which is what web 3.0 is all about: changing the financial model of the Internet (and now devices) from platform advertising to user ownership.

Jing Sun, Director of Investment and Ecosystem at IoTex, explained that the fund is designed as a green vehicle that could potentially support more than 10,000 MachineFi-focused enterprises in the next 10 to 20 years, connecting tens of billions of devices to the IoTeX MachineFi portal website.

The IoTeX Foundation will survey all DApp developers to ensure they are effectively machine-financing and, if successful, “they will have all the support they need to be successful,” Sun explained.

In November 2021, IoTeX was revamped to focus on "The Rise of MachineFi" to integrate machines, metaverses, and traditional workforces. MachineFi aims to solve the fusion problem of smart gadgets, machinery and finance by using blockchain technology, and follow the era of DeFi and GameFi.