Back to the Basics

We’ve been explaining the foundations of IOTA for years now. Since it’s so different from blockchains, newcomers to the IOTA space have been well served by extra-careful explanations.

We talked to @Schmucklos who curates the gold standard of IOTA German-language websites, iota-einsteiger-guide.de, whose mission it is to spread information about IOTA. Here he shares his most updated explanation of what IOTA actually is.

Let’s get back to the basics.

What is IOTA?

IOTA is an open source distributed ledger technology and a cryptocurrency, which is developed and provided by the non-profit-making IOTA Foundation  (foundation under German law) with its headquarters in Berlin.

The IOTA token used in the network is a digital currency form (cryptocurrency) and is required for the value transfer within the IOTA network, the maximum number of tokens is 2,779,530,283 MIOTA. All tokens were issued (pre-mined) and are in circulation, and the four founders also had to finance their tokens from their private assets.

The goal of the IOTA Foundation is to create a level of trust for the Internet of Things (IoT) that enables the devices in the IoT to exchange unchangeable data and values ​​with each other. To enable this, the following features are fundamental:

  • Scalable – Process a significant number of transactions per second across a large network of nodes with fast confirmation times.
  • Lean system – Low- performing devices should be able to participate directly in the network.
  • Toll Free – Transactions should be sent without paying network fees .

Data structure

In addition to fees, conventional DLTs such as blockchain have other limiting factors and are therefore unsuitable for achieving the IOTA goal. For example, the inherent limitation of the speed of blockchain networks, which is commonly referred to as “blockchain bottleneck”. There is only one side of the blockchain where new transactions can be added – the end of the chain. The resulting negative effects on network throughput are shown in this simple graphic:

In contrast, IOTA does not line up block by block and no miners are required to validate transactions. The core data structure at IOTA is highly scalable, this is made possible with a simple rule: each transaction references and approves two existing transactions. This rule defines the underlying data structure of IOTA – the tangle – which is mathematically referred to as a directed acyclic graph (DAG) .

  • a lot of transactions are connected by paths, this is a  graph
  • each of these paths has a clearly defined direction of travel, so it is a  directed graph
  • if a path can never be found that returns to its starting point, the graph is  acyclic (circular paths, on the other hand, would be cyclical)

Transaction status

green = fully confirmed / white = partially confirmed / gray = unconfirmed (tips)

Instead of being limited to a single page for attaching new transactions, as with the blockchain, DAGs offer several points at which transactions can be attached. Users can still attach new transactions to different parts of the Tangle without waiting for other transactions to confirm:

In this chaotic order, all transactions are processed in parallel and enable very high scaling, since the confirmation rates increase with an increasing number of transactions instead of developing in the opposite direction, as is currently the case with classic blockchains.

Consensus mechanism

In the blockchain, the Nakamoto consensus divides the network into miners and users. Miners consume large amounts of computing power and thus fulfill the proof-of-work (PoW) required for chaining the blocks. Miners are motivated by the fees that users are willing to pay to have their transaction included in a block. This fee-based incentive structure would be a significant barrier in a machine-to-machine economy in which the micro-payment values ​​between the machines can be lower than the fees incurred.

At IOTA there is no difference between miners and users. All nodes can participate in the consensus. This means that an IOTA node plays a completely different role than a Bitcoin miner. IOTA nodes only perform basic operations that do not require a lot of computing power (e.g. saving the ledger, validating transactions). Users can set up a node and participate actively in the network consensus at minimal cost, increasing the security of the network.

The consensus mechanism  determines how the nodes agree on which transactions are trustworthy, thus ensuring consistency in the network. In the current IOTA implementation (as of June 20), nodes only trust (value) transactions that are referenced and approved by milestones that were issued by the coordinator . Similar to Bitcoin (checkpoints until June 16, 2014), the use of this centralized “finality device” is currently still necessary to ensure the security of the network in its infancy.

Note: The open source coordinator can only confirm transactions, he cannot circumvent consensus rules, so it is also not possible for him to create, freeze or steal tokens. For monitoring purposes, this fixed rule and the address of the coordinator are permanently programmed in each node. The influence of the coordinator on the tangle is therefore very limited, since this is also constantly monitored by all other nodes.

IOTA without coordinator

The coordinator will be switched off in the near future (Coordicide), in this regard all research work has been largely completed and checked by several universities. The IOTA development roadmap for production readiness and adoption has been defined and is currently being implemented. Before the Coordicide, the IOTA network will be  fully optimized with an interim update called  Chrysalis to offer a business-friendly solution for the ecosystem, a release strategy has already been published here.

The upcoming shutdown of the coordinator (probably Q1 2021) ensures that the network achieves consensus without the coordinator and at the same time has the following characteristics:

  • Scalable:  The transaction rate in the network is not limited by the protocol, an unprecedented scalability is made possible.
  • Sure:  an attacker cannot influence the consensus.
  • Decentralized :  All honest nodes can be part of the consensus process.

Current blockchain solutions can guarantee a maximum of two of these three properties at the same time. This problem is known as the “blockchain trilemma”.

An example of the trilemma can be found in PoW-based blockchains like Bitcoin. These networks offer security and decentralization, but are not scalable:

  • Security: Miners complete PoW to chain transaction blocks together. The combined computing power (hash) of the miners secures the network.
  • Decentralization: Miners are spread across the network. No single miner controls most of the hashing power.

However, Bitcoin faces a fundamental scalability problem. To ensure decentralization and security, the blocks in the Bitcoin block chain must be of a limited size. This block size limit limits the transaction rate and limits the scalability of the network. As more and more transactions are sent over the network, miners choose to validate the transactions with the highest fees, which leads to increasing transaction costs and long waiting times. The revolutionary nature of this PoW-based solution should not be underestimated – but at the same time, we must not neglect the associated restrictions in network throughput.

IOTA with the coordinator is scalable and secure, but not yet completely decentralized:

  • Scalable:  Each transaction references and approves two previous ones. Transactions can be attached to the Tangle anytime, anywhere. No miners are involved.
  • Safe:  The coordinator secures the network by issuing milestone transactions. Nodes only consider (value) transactions to be trustworthy if they have been referenced and approved by a valid milestone.

The Tangle allows users to attach new transactions to any part of the Tangle. The DAG structure only requires that each new transaction approve two more transactions. By being able to use multiple attachment points and avoiding the need for blocks, the Tangle is inherently scalable. There are actually no protocol-related bottlenecks. The scalability is only limited by the hardware and the laws of physics. (currently also from the coordinator, as of May’20)

Although the coordinator ensures network security, it also represents a single point of failure and thus prevents IOTA from being a completely decentralized network.

The improved Tangle after the Coordicide: Decentralized, scalable and secure

The distance of the coordinator alone is not enough to achieve decentralization.

Coordicide aims to solve the scalability trilemma by providing a decentralized, secure network while maintaining a high transaction rate. At the core of the solution is an additional level of security with a proactive voting mechanism ,  through which nodes request the opinions of other nodes to decide which transactions should be included in the tangle and which should be rejected (orphaned). To remove the coordinator, a number of challenges have to be solved.

Due to the complexity of the solution, Coordicide is broken down into various components. This approach makes the Coordicide proposal modular, so that each module can be replaced independently of one another if new research results result in further improvements in the future.

Note: If you want a deeper insight into the post coordinator consensus mechanism, you can find out  more about the topic Coordicide (not up to date anymore), please also read all the more up-to-date explanations . An open scaling is also only possible with sharding, this is only introduced after the Coordicide, but there are already the first articles in the field of sharding .

Characteristics of the tangle (after removing the coordinator)

  • Complete decentralization: Without the coordinator, no instance will play a special role in the network to make it clear: once the coordinator is switched off, the IOTA Foundation will no longer be able to restart it.
  • Permission-less access to the network: Anyone or better anything can join the network at any time to add and validate transactions. If other DLTs need to limit their number of nodes or even adopt an approved approach to scalability, our approach includes additional nodes. A larger number of honest nodes improve the security of the network by increasing the proportion of honest votes.
  • Partition tolerant: This means that devices that run over the Tangle, can disconnect and carry out transactions offline. As soon as the devices are connected to the Tangle again, these transactions are entered.
  • Finality within seconds: The reconciliation process enables the network to make and complete transaction decisions very quickly without having to wait for several additional approval processes to increase security. In addition, the network can achieve “true finality” (deterministic instead of probabilistic) because an attacker with unlimited hashing power could not “reverse” the ledger state.
  • Reliable timestamp : The issuer (node ​​/ user) of the transaction sets a timestamp at the time of issue. Agreeing on the credibility of timestamps enables us to establish a fully organized tangle – a big step towards smart contracts.
  • Scalability through node number and transaction throughput: There are no protocol-related bottlenecks. The scalability is only limited by the hardware and the laws of physics. The elimination of the coordinator as a single unit that processes and verifies all transactions forms the basis for a dynamic sharding process that enables “real” unlimited scalability.
  • An adaptive rate control algorithm that works on a node basis will make it impossible for attackers to overwhelm the network with unhealthy spam, while honest nodes can still work normally.
  • Increased Reliability: Voting the preferred part of the tangle allows you to implement different tip-selection strategies that address most (if not all) honest transactions. This reduces the need for reattachments and promotions .
  • Security / Mana: The new Sybil protection mechanism leads to extremely high mana shares and, together with the additional security mechanisms of the voting mechanism, secures the network even with a large number of opponents.
  • Intelligent and stable auto-peering : The elimination of manual peering reduces the maintenance effort for the node operators and makes the network more stable.
  • UTXO model :  Each token on an address is then clearly identifiable and each issue names exactly the token that you want to move. This enables faster and more accurate conflict handling and improves the resilience and security of the protocol.
  • Toll-free transactions : The lack of miners makes IOTA transactions completely free of charge and enables real micro payments both for humans and for the machine-to-machine economy, in order to implement the payment for small quantities or consumption-based payments in a meaningful way.
  • Quantum robustness : The Winternitz disposable signature scheme (WOTS) makes IOTA robust against quantum computers when they become generally available.
  • Support for a new signature  scheme parallel to WOTS. The network will therefore enable both quantum-resistant one-time signatures and a more common signature scheme that allows private keys to be reused. This will drastically reduce the transaction size and consequently allow a significant increase in TPS. With the introduction of a new signature scheme, we will also enable reusable addresses.
  • Local snapshots enable nodes to save only a subset of the ledger’s history so that nodes with limited hardware resources can participate in the network.
  • Fairness: All transactions are treated equally. There is no way to pay a premium (e.g. through increased fees) to get higher priority in processing by the network.
  • Lean system: Low-power devices are able to carry out transactions and participate in the consensus.
  • Modularity: A modular structure enables the components of the protocol to be developed independently of one another. The multi-layered approach will enable the basic protocol to be expanded in a similar way to the Internet protocol itself. A protocol that cannot be updated is not a protocol.
  • Reliable leadership: The non-profit organization under German law behind IOTA optimizes the acceptance and future development of the network. The lack of miners enables new functions to be implemented without conflicts of interest.
  • Open source: The technology is free, open source, and anyone can build solutions on it.
  • Data transactions: The so-called “messages” enable use cases of the technology that go beyond the financial. The vast majority of all transactions will be pure “messages” (without value), that can be data that is traded on marketplaces, for example, recorded by sensors or exchanged by apps, and many other applications. The image below shows how the IOTA architecture alone favors the rapid exchange of data and values ​​compared to the blockchain.

Technological solutions for different applications

Ensuring the truthfulness is exactly what the distributed ledger technology enables. IOTA is a protocol that achieves consensus on the state of affairs in a network by providing a single cryptographically secure source with a uniform truth. In the future, this will result in a major explosion of technological innovation and enable completely new use cases or business fields with an accompanying economy that were impossible in the past because, for example, they were centralized, not scalable, too expensive, not secure or violated the rules of data protection.

IOTA will offer solutions for a large number of these new use cases. I will teaser the most important aspects below:

  • Versatile : The IOTA protocol can also be used as a tool to maintain a free and open Internet by improving privacy and security in an open network.
  • Microtransactions: Free-of-charge transactions, for the first time enable real micropayments for both people and the machine-to-machine economy, in order to implement the payment for small quantities or consumption-based payments in a meaningful way.
  • Mechanical engineering:   A mechanical engineering (machine-to-machine, abk. M2M) is an economy in which machines are self-determined market participants who have their own bank accounts. The growing spread of the IoT and advances in artificial intelligence (AI) enable networked intelligent machines to act autonomously. This means that machines will communicate directly with each other, exchange data with each other and pay each other for services without the need for human interaction.
  • Digital identity : The Internet forms the basis for many of our interactions in the modern world. It has created new business opportunities, better customer satisfaction and an improvement in our daily lives. However, essential characteristics of trust and privacy are lacking. With a decentralized digital identity protocol, IOTA will add these features to online interactions.
  • IOTA Streams: Streams have a built-in method of sending messages to IOTA nodes. However, they are also flexible enough that you can expand them to send messages in other ways, e.g. B. in HTTP URLs. It is a multifunctional second layer data transfer protocol that can be used for different types of data transfer (eg streaming data). For example, sensors and other devices enable entire data streams to be encrypted and anchored in the IOTA tangle. IOTA’s consensus protocol adds integrity and authenticity to these message streams. Given these properties, IOTA Streams meets an important need in industries where integrity, privacy, and immutability meet.
  • Colored tokens:  These are earmarked tokens that can represent real-world assets based on IOTA (on top) on which Tangle is tamper-proof. They are not intended to trade monetary values ​​- for example, they could be used to redeem something or regulate ownership. Keyword: tokenization of assets
  • Smart contract: A smart contract is a programmed agreement that is completely deterministic and is automatically enforced; the contractual obligations between buyer and seller are encapsulated in the software. This makes it impossible to contest this agreement.
  • Flash Channels: This is an offline payment channel for deposits and withdrawals, which enables immediate transactions with high throughput. This is possible because only two transactions take place in the IOTA tangle, namely the opening and closing of a flash channel. In essence, they offer the two business partners an opportunity to trade at high frequency without waiting for every transaction in the public IOTA network to be confirmed.
  • Digital marketplaces: Data has been called the new oil of the digital world for some time. A basic idea of ​​the IoT is the exchange and trading of such data sets. With “machine to machine” communication, devices can trade a wide variety of data autonomously, but it could also be very interesting for humans to receive data or goods directly from the sensory end user without having to go through a third-party platform. Creating data marketplaces is an inevitable consequence of the IoT revolution, it will fundamentally change the way we connect, interact with, or act on data.
  • Digital twins:  A digital twin is a digital representation of a material or immaterial object or process from the real world in the digital world. The Industrial IOTA Lab Aachen , Pickert and the Digital Twin Consortium are driving the technology for IOTA.

Application Areas

Basically, almost every industry is digitized, linked to the IoT and accordingly benefits from it. The IOTA Foundation describes some use cases in a published interactive brochure . Furthermore, I describe a lot of PoC from current projects in the guide.  

Collaboration

In order to achieve the goal and to make IOTA the gold standard of distributed ledger technologies, the IOTA Foundation works with partners from the following areas to standardize the IOTA protocol and enable a really smooth communication between all users and sectors.

Standards organizations

A key figure for the standardization of IOTA technologies is the IOTA board member  Dr. Richard Mark Soley , he has been Chairman and CEO of the Object Management Group® since 1997 and actively drives the standardization process with his organization, please read this article .

  • Object Management Group (OMG):  Is an international, open, non-profit consortium for technology standards. Ultimately, OMG standards are determined by providers, end users, academic institutions and government agencies. OMG develops corporate integration standards for a wide range of technologies and for many industries.

  • Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) : Belongs to OMG and is the world’s leading organization that transforms companies by accelerating the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT). The goal of the organizations is to bring together technologies that are necessary to accelerate the growth of the Internet by identifying, compiling and promoting best practices. Membership includes small and large technology innovators, market leaders, researchers, universities and government organizations.

  • World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): Is the body for the standardization of technologies in the World Wide Web. It was founded on October 1, 1994 at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science in Cambridge. The W3C is a member organization. Founder and chairman is Tim Berners-Lee, who is considered the inventor of the World Wide Web.

Major organizations / regulators

International Association of Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA) : INATBA’s core policy is to promote the use of DLT technology by developing a predictable, transparent and trust-based global framework. INATBA offers developers and users of DLT a global forum to interact with regulators and policy makers and take DLT and blockchain technology to the next level.

Image source: https://inatba.org/

The IOTA Foundation is a founding member of INATBA. The Board of Directors is chaired by Dr. Julie Maupin , she is also director of Social Impact & Public Regulatory Affairs at the IOTA Foundation. Dr. Maupin is a global leader in the regulatory impact and use cases of DLTs, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, artificial intelligence and IoT technologies in the public sector. It will also be one of the reasons why the IOTA Foundation is now funded by the EU for various projects.

Open source and non-profit organizations

  • eCl@ss was founded in 2000 as a registered association and non-profit organization by twelve companies (Siemens, BASF, Audi / VW, e.on, SAP, Bayer AG, Degussa, Wacker Chemie, Infraserv and Solvay), meanwhile the association is over 150 companies or large public organizations have joined as members (including the state of NRW, VW, BASF, RWE, Fujitsu, Bosch and Hella), which together generate annual sales of more than USD 1 trillion. In general, the association receives strong support from all areas of the international economy and is financed by contributions from the members, grants and income from the sale of the standard. The aim of the association is that all companies can work together globally by exchanging standardized master data with each other. eCl@ss is a worldwide reference data standard for the classification and unambiguous description of products and services. It is the standard language for industrial companies, for a faster and more reliable exchange of product information regardless of the organizational structure or language barriers. eCl@ss offers standardized product data for 44 industries and is the only ISO / IEC-compliant industry standard that has established itself internationally, which already benefits more than 3,500 companies worldwide in which eCl@ss is used. for a faster and more reliable exchange of product information regardless of the organizational structure or language barriers. eCl@ss offers standardized product data for 44 industries and is the only ISO / IEC-compliant industry standard that has established itself internationally, which already benefits more than 3,500 companies worldwide in which eCl@ss is used. for a faster and more reliable exchange of product information regardless of the organizational structure or language barriers. eCl@ss offers standardized product data for 44 industries and is the only ISO / IEC-compliant industry standard that has established itself internationally, which already benefits more than 3,500 companies worldwide in which eCl@ss is used. eCl@ss and the IOTA Foundation enter into a promising partnership, this will help IOTA on the way to the M2M industry standard very much, since the  eCl@ss  standard is already integrated in a great number of software systems, such as SAP. As part of the eCl@ss M2M communication and trade, IOTA will  strongly participate in it.

  • The  Eclipse project  was originally founded by IBM in November 2001 and supported by a consortium of software providers and developers. The Canada-based Eclipse Foundation emerged from this project in January 2004 emerged as an independent nonprofit that manages the Eclipse community (millions of developers). The independent non-profit foundation was founded to build a manufacturer-neutral, open and transparent community around Eclipse. Several different projects are being created under the umbrella of the Eclipse Foundation in order to promote open source collaboration and commercial acceptance. Companies and universities will come together to develop tools and pioneer thought in key IOTA applications. The first two IOTA-based projects in the newly founded Tangle EE working group deal with  decentralized marketplaces that enable real-time trading of data and services and with decentralized identity that enables  a uniform identity for people, organizations and devices.

  • The FIWARE Foundation founded in 2016  advances the definition of key open de facto standards that enable smart solutions to be developed in a faster, easier, interoperable, and affordable manner, avoiding vendor engagement scenarios while promoting a sustainable business ecosystem. The foundation does this with the support of a growing global community that shares a common vision and bundles its efforts to make FIWARE the open source technology of choice for industries, governments, universities and associations to realize its full potential and activities intensify to open up new markets and expand their business. The  FIWARE API  is now by  ETSI (European Standard of Organization)  acquired  Standard . In addition, FIWARE Context Broker  technology was selected to create the basis for the Europe-wide exchange of context data at the right time. The context  Broker is surrounded by a number of additional platform components that provide context data (e.g. from various sources such as a CRM system, social networks, mobile applications or IoT sensors), support the processing, analysis and visualization of data or data access control, publication or monetization support. The European Commission (EK) has recently officially adopted FIWARE Context Broker technology as a central connecting Europe facility (CEF). The initial core focus through the IOTA Foundation’s collaboration with FIWARE is to enable contextual capabilities to spread across the tangle by implementing developments in IOTA functionality in the FIWARE Context Broker.Advantages of this implementation: context-dependent data management at the tangle, scalable decentralization of FIWARE context capabilities via the IOTA protocol, increased interoperability with IoT sensor integrations with mutual focus, reduction of development work on dynamic intelligent solutions through joint developments, an increased security environment for existing ones FIWARE solutions through decentralization and immutability and great acceptance potential through existing FIWARE integrations.

  • The Linux Foundation and the IOTA Foundation will join forces in the future in an open collaboration via LF Edge. The  LF Edge Framework (programming framework) is another instance of the Linux Foundation, it is an umbrella organization that aims to create an open, interoperable framework for edge computing (recognition: decentralized data processing at the edge of the network, data is processed where it is generated , on the network periphery) and the future of the IoT, regardless of hardware, cloud or operating systems. The more than 60 global founding members from the areas of enterprise, IoT, telecom and cloud are working on a common framework for hardware and software standards that are crucial for the maintenance of current and future generations of IoT and edge devices. By bringing together industry leaders, LF Edge will foster collaboration and innovation across multiple industries, including industrial manufacturing, cities and government agencies, energy, transportation, retail, home and building automation, automotive, logistics and healthcare, all of which will be changed by edge computing in the future. By building a software package that offers the best of telecommunications, cloud and entrepreneurship, LF Edge will help ensure greater harmonization to accelerate deployment among the rapidly growing number of edge devices. For the broader IoT to be successful, the currently fragmented edge computing market must be able to work together to identify and avoid problematic security vulnerabilities, and a common, constructive vision for the future of the industry should be developed. Retail, home and building automation, automotive, logistics and healthcare, all of which will be changed by edge computing in the future. By building a software package that offers the best of telecommunications, cloud and entrepreneurship, LF Edge will help ensure greater harmonization to accelerate deployment among the rapidly growing number of edge devices. For the broader IoT to be successful, the currently fragmented edge computing market must be able to work together to identify and prevent problematic security vulnerabilities, and a common, constructive vision for the future of the industry should be developed. Retail, home and building automation, automotive, logistics and healthcare, all of which will be changed by edge computing in the future. By building a software package that offers the best of telecommunications, cloud and entrepreneurship, LF Edge will help ensure greater harmonization to accelerate deployment among the rapidly growing number of edge devices. For the broader IoT to be successful, the currently fragmented edge computing market must be able to work together to identify and avoid problematic security vulnerabilities, and a common, constructive vision for the future of the industry should be developed. that will all be changed by edge computing in the future. By building a software package that offers the best of telecommunications, cloud and entrepreneurship, LF Edge will help ensure greater harmonization to accelerate deployment among the rapidly growing number of edge devices. For the broader IoT to be successful, the currently fragmented edge computing market must be able to work together to identify and avoid problematic security vulnerabilities, and a common, constructive vision for the future of the industry should be developed. that will all be changed by edge computing in the future. By building a software package that offers the best of telecommunications, cloud and entrepreneurship, LF Edge will help ensure greater harmonization to accelerate deployment among the rapidly growing number of edge devices. For the broader IoT to be successful, the currently fragmented edge computing market must be able to work together to identify and avoid problematic security vulnerabilities, and a common, constructive vision for the future of the industry should be developed. to accelerate deployment among the rapidly growing number of edge devices. For the broader IoT to be successful, the currently fragmented edge computing market must be able to work together to identify and avoid problematic security vulnerabilities, and a common, constructive vision for the future of the industry should be developed. to accelerate deployment among the rapidly growing number of edge devices. For the broader IoT to be successful, the currently fragmented edge computing market must be able to work together to identify and avoid problematic security vulnerabilities, and a common, constructive vision for the future of the industry should be developed.The LF Edge framework has been recognized worldwide as the leading open source software package for IoT, Edge, and Cloud interoperability, but a key element of this puzzle is missing. The distributed ledger technology. The IOTA Foundation’s first step towards open collaboration is to join the Linux Foundation to complete its technology package with distributed ledger technology and drive the development of a truly interoperable solution for integrating IoT, Edge and Cloud.Initially, the focus will be on integration with the EdgeX Foundry, where the IF will work with other members to demonstrate the performance of the IOTA protocol in terms of backup, scaling, and increased interoperability in the edge and fog areas of the software package. EdgeX Foundry focuses on the Industrial IoT Edge. The EdgeX Foundry uses cloud-native principles (e.g. loosely coupled microservices, platform independence), but is designed to meet the specific requirements of the IoT edge, including the inclusion of IP and non-IP-based connection protocols, security and System administration for widely distributed calculation nodes and scaling to low-resource devices.

Consortia

  • Hyperledger is an open source cooperation under the roof of LF Edge. The goal of the development is to advance cross-sector blockchain technologies. Hyperledger is by far the largest permissioned blockchain project in industry, but also for smaller companies and startups. It is a global collaboration developed and driven by the Linux Foundation (LF Edge) that includes the leading companies in finance, banking, the Internet of Things, supply chains, manufacturing and technology. In addition to Linux LF Edge, IBM and Intel, the driving forces behind Hyperledger include Fujitsu, Oracle, SAP, VMware, Cisco, Red Hat, Bosch and Samsung. Important: The project itself is subject to approval and is only accessible to a closed community,Hyperledger’s data functionalities requiring approval have been combined with IOTA’s data-free functionalities. When the IOTA Foundation joined the Linux Foundation, among other things to work together on LF Edge, it became known that the IF had been working on an internal Hyperledger bridge for some time (Connector) is working to further promote the distribution of IOTA’s license-free functions for data and value transfer. This development work was successfully completed and the IOTA technology was migrated to the Hyperledger ecosystem. As the Hyperledger Fabric project for supply chain and asset tracking projects is becoming increasingly popular in industry, the IOTA Foundation is introducing the IOTA connector, with which data from Hyperledger can be mirrored in the tangle Hyperledger can use all available IOTA functions such as free Iota token payments, encrypted data transactions and public / private message chains (IOTA streams). At this point, the IF regards the Hyperledger fabric DLT – in which all data is initially stored and managed – as the primary source of truth. Due to the symbiosis of these very different technologies, the IOTA Tangle can act as a connecting element between different Hyperledger Fabric-based systems requiring approval in different companies. Since Hyperledger is used more in internal company processes, the interaction of the two technologies enables tamper-proof external data exchange in data silo-based systems requiring approval, and direct monetary remuneration (Iota token) of this data is now also possible on request. Due to the symbiosis of these very different technologies, the IOTA Tangle can act as a connecting element between different Hyperledger Fabric-based systems requiring approval in different companies. Since Hyperledger is used more in internal company processes, the interaction of the two technologies enables tamper-proof external data exchange in data-silo-based systems that require approval. Due to the symbiosis of these very different technologies, the IOTA Tangle can act as a connecting element between different Hyperledger Fabric-based systems requiring approval in different companies. Since Hyperledger is used more in internal company processes, the interaction of the two technologies enables tamper-proof external data exchange in data silo-based systems requiring approval, and direct monetary remuneration (Iota token) of this data is now also possible on request.

  • The  Digital Twin Consortium ™ was founded by the Object Management Group® (see standards organizations) and the founding members Ansys, Dell Technologies, Lendlease and Microsoft. Digital twin technology enables companies to avoid problems before they occur, prevent downtime, improve customer experiences, develop new ways to drive innovation and performance, and simulate them Planning the future. The Digital Twin Consortium ™ members will work across industries to learn from each other, develop and apply best practices. This new open membership organization will drive consistency in vocabulary, architecture, security and interoperability, to advance the use of digital twin technology in many industries from aerospace to natural resources. Digital twins, virtual models of a process, product or service that enable data analysis and system monitoring through simulations can pose a challenge during implementation due to the lack of open source software, interoperability problems, market confusion and high costs. To ensure the success of the digital twins consortium, several leading companies dealing with digital twins technology joined the consortium prior to its creation. This category of early innovators, called Groundbreakers, includes Luno UAB, Geminus.AI, Air Force Research Lab, Idun RE Solutions AB,IOTA Foundation ,  IoTIFY (company of IOTA co-founder David Sønstebø),  imec, UrsaLeo Inc., Systems Analytics Solutions, Ynomia, Transforma Insights, YoGeo, Inc., Connector Geek Ltd, Association of Asset Management Professionals, IoT management, Bandora Systems , BEC, Autiosalo Ltd, ECS Solutions, ielabs, Ricardo PLC, Building 4.0 CRC, DataCities, Twin Building GmbH, Piprate, Jitsuin, Trendspek.

  • The Dig-it-Project is a research and innovation campaign (RIA) that brings together a consortium of 16 partners from across Europe. The Dig_it consortium will mobilize EUR 7 million over a period of 48 months to digitize the mining industry’s supply chain (gold, copper, charcoal) and create a more sustainable mining industry. Earlier this year, IOTA was recognized as one of the beneficiaries of the Dig_it grant, a new collaborative project funded under the EU’s Horizon 2020 program, following a competitive selection process. The project is coordinated by ITAINNOVA, a research and development organization based in Spain, and includes a number of technology partners and exploitation / adoption partners working directly in the mining industry. The appointed technology partners are: Brunel University, Core Innovation, Tau, Rotech-Technologie, LIBRA AI, ICCS Research, EUROCORE, STRATAGEM, Libra, SINTEF Molab, SINTEF Helg. & Schneider Electric and the IOTA Foundation. So that isIOTA the only DLT technology selected to create a trusted level of data exchange for the mine supply chain of the future. The goal of the Dig_it project is simple: collect data from the mining industry using a platform for the industrial Internet of Things and convert it into knowledge and measures aimed at the health and safety of workers in this industry as well as the effects of the industry to improve the environment.

Companies & startups

Here I don’t know where to start and where to stop, please just browse the guide, I only link a few selected promising projects here:

  • Alvarium with Dell and Linux, this is about creating inherent trust across very different systems. The project will bring together cross-industry systems to create a common platform that enables trust from data generation or on the chip to an operational platform.
  • BiiLabs from Taiwan has several projects at the start, and the company is also collecting additional partnerships in Asia.
  • Zühlke is working on the innovation “Machine-as-a-Service” for the industry, among other things, to enable subscriber and sharing models.
  • Espiota is an externally configurable device that enables IOTA payments for machines, meanwhile the startup also has its own website .
  • Freighter  is a distributed messaging service (second layer), which offers a solid possibility to interact with large amounts of data and to send them over secure channels.
  • DXC Labs has now created a secure framework for connecting cyber-physical systems using distributed ledger technology (DLT).
  • NKT / THINKT Digital  has developed a self-managing cable drum with its own wallet. A very good example of the new opportunities emerging through IOTA.
  • Selv is first of all a digital Covid-19 health passport, it is GDPR-compliant, freely accessible, private, secure, scalable and interoperable. The area of ​​application will be significantly expanded in the future, very exciting.
  • ST Microelectronics: Integration of the IOTA Tangle into the STM32Cube expansion software.
  • Jaguar : The new smart wallet technology from Jaguar Land Rover uses the IOTA Tangle for data and value transfer. With the help of the integrated smart wallet, the vehicle can not only make micro payments for services (refueling or parking), but also exchange information such as data, messages or small files, making the smart wallet a gateway for connected services.
  • EIT Climate-KIC  is a knowledge and innovation community (KIC) with currently over 370 partners that is committed to an accelerated transition to a CO2-free economy. With the support of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, you identify and support innovations that help society to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The KIC believes that changing the economy to a sustainable economy is not only necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change, but also offers a wealth of opportunities for business and society.
  • Areas of application & examples , here you can read over 60 further descriptions of partners and projects, I have sorted all projects into different sub-subject areas.

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