Can IoTex, the 7-year-old Internet of Things blockchain, usher in a second spring?

Author: Haotian; Source: Chain View

How to understand the 2.0 white paper released by @iotex_io, a seven-year-old IoT concept chain? Simply put: IoTeX has upgraded from the narrative of the digital payment settlement layer on the chain in the past to a modular universal layer dedicated to serving AI+DePIN. Its years of experience in payment, ledger, and hardware device connection have finally formed a synergy under the new trend of DePIN? Next, let me talk about my understanding:

If you are familiar with the development history of IoTeX, you will find that IoTex1.0 has changed from the global payment layer at the beginning to the solution of hardware device data ownership and privacy. Although the main narrative is changing, it has always been focusing on hardware devices and data sovereignty.

The current AI+DePIN track trend is hot. AI itself is aimed at data training of large models, distributed computing power involves the proof of work of hardware devices, and distributed reasoning is directly related to the verifiability of data sources, etc. DePIN itself mainly solves the network framework problem of how distributed hardware devices can collaborate, etc. Obviously, these are the directions that IoTeX has been committed to developing over the past years, so it is not surprising that IoTeX2.0 is positioned as a modular DePIN network general architecture layer for brand upgrades.

Specifically, IoTeX2.0 defines a general modular network architecture for the entire DePIN industry, mainly including:

1) Modular Security Pool Layer (MSP), based on the Token staking model, provides a "security consensus mechanism" for projects participating in the IoTeX DePIN network Stack;

2) Modular DePIN Architecture Layer (DIMs), as a general DePIN technology Stack layer, this layer provides RPC, Data Availability, Hardware SDK, identity, Sequencer, Storage and many other basic functional layers, which can allow relevant developers to directly enjoy the DePIN network architecture with full functions, which is equivalent to the DePIN Stack convenient development stack layer like OP Stack;

3) DePIN application layer, at the top of DePIN Stack will present a rich DePIN landing application layer. Projects can not only directly build DePIN applications, but also build applications based on IoTeX L1 directly creates the DePIN L2 sovereign chain.

It should be said that IoTeX2.0 envisions a very complete and complex DePIN general layer service solution, which has a flavor of "DePIN as a Service", and the unified consensus layer, unified Stack layer, unified DID identity layer, unified DA layer, etc. provided by the IoTex chain are all part of the solution.

The question is, why is IoTex2.0 confident that it can redefine the entire DePIN industry? The content of the white paper is relatively complex and covers a wide range of areas. I mainly select three key technical details to give examples.

1) W3bstream multi-Prover system verification solution: We define the on-chain and off-chain worlds as the virtual world and the physical world respectively. The data in the on-chain virtual world must be deterministic and verifiable, while the data source of the off-chain physical world is full of complexity and unknowns. How can the off-chain hardware devices effectively prove their workload and detect and screen out deceptive witch devices?

The W3bstream architecture aims to solve the "Proof of real-world activity" problem, and to allow off-chain hardware devices to prove the validity of their workload to the on-chain Verifier through four Prover methods such as ZKPs, TEEs, SMPCs, and BYOP.

In short: ZKP zero-knowledge proof is a common end-to-end trusted verification method based on zk-SNARKs; TEE directly builds an Enclave isolation environment on the hardware side to establish a trusted connection, etc. W3bstream is like a data transmission and reception dispatch center that verifies, cleans, processes, and stores data according to unified standards, which is equivalent to converting complex off-chain data into verifiable on-chain deterministic data.

2) ioID unified identity identification scheme: Usually, pure on-chain environments can use unique addresses and hash values ​​as well as NFTs, SBTs, etc. to ensure traceability sources, but in the DePIN application environment, the communication and interaction between people and machines and between machines, how to accurately match and trace the source is a big challenge. In order to solve this problem, ioTex2.0 builds a DID identity layer.

ioTex mainly uses SSI autonomous identity identification and VCs verifiable credentials to complete a set of identity registration and verification identification systems, and builds a unique DID identity for hardware devices participating in DePIN distributed collaboration, and then can trace, verify and incentivize the contribution of hardware device providers based on the data management system.

3) ioConnect unified hardware device abstraction SDK solution: Due to the great diversity of DePIN hardware devices, a unified standard is needed to measure the workload of different hardware, so IoTex2.0 abstracts a hardware SDK unified solution.

For example: ESP32 control chip, Arduino open source electronic prototype platform, STM32 semiconductor controller, Raspberry PI single-board computer and other different hardware devices and platforms can be directly and undisputedly linked to the DePIN contribution network through a unified SDK solution.

The above.

In general, after the upgrade, ioTeX2.0 is to become a unified DePIN network architecture infrastructure. Whether it can succeed is still unknown. Whether the DePIN track can become the main bull market as everyone wishes is still in the making. But it is at least worth looking forward to letting an old chain that has been working on hardware device trusted communication and privacy data solutions for seven years to take the lead in doing this.