”The Internet of Things is not a concept; it is a network, the true technology-enabled Network of all networks.” – Edewede Oriwoh said. SatoshiClub agrees with his words and wants to introduce you to the IOT much closer. And today we would like to tell you about the AMA session with our friends from IoTeX. The AMA took place on August 25 and our guest was Larry Pang, a Founding Member and Head of Business Development at IoTeX.
The total reward pool was 600$ and has been splitted in 3 parts.
In this AMA Recap we will try to summarise the most interesting points for you.
Part 1 — introduction and questions from the Telegram&Bitcointalk community
Serg | Satoshi Club: Hello, dear community. Our guests today are from @IoTeXGroup. Welcome!
Irina K. | @satoshi_club: Hi everyone 😊
Larry Pang: thanks guys, it’s a pleasure to be here
Irina K. | @satoshi_club: How is your day :blush:?
Serg | Satoshi Club: Please tell us a bit about yourself and about the project
Larry Pang: i love how active your community is! been peeking into some discussions here, very educated group 😉
Hi everyone, my name is Larry and I’m a Founding Member and Head of Business Development at IoTeX. I graduated from MIT in 2013 and spent five years as a Management Consultant at Oliver Wyman before joining IoTeX. I got into crypto after doing a consulting project in 2016 with the World Economic Forum on global payments and learned about Bitcoin. I was fascinated by how the financial world could be designed to be P2P and human-owned — when I learned about IoTeX, I had a similar realization that the Internet of Things (IoT) aka our smart devices can also be trusted, private, and human-owned. After two years at IoTeX, my belief in our vision has only grown!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larry-pang/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/larrypang
so that’s a little about me! feel free to add me on LinkedIn and follow me on Twitter. would love to share a bit about IoTeX now: IoTeX began our journey in 2017 as an open-source project. IoTeX is a platform that was built 100% from scratch (no forks) and is tailor fit to support Internet of Things (IoT) use cases and to power the next-generation of human-centered and private smart devices. The IoTeX team consists of 30+ top tier engineers and scientists from Uber, Google, Intel, Facebook, and other top tech companies.
IoTeX has a vision for the Internet of Trusted Things — an open ecosystem where humans and machines can interact with guaranteed trust, free will, and privacy. Our platform uniquely combines blockchain, secure hardware, and confidential computing to enable trusted data from trusted devices for use in trusted applications.
Serg | Satoshi Club: It sounds cool, Larry 🙂
Larry Pang:
that’s a brief intro to IoTeX — would love to dive in more throughout the AMA!
Irina K. | @satoshi_club: Already convinced me 😃
Q1 from bitcointalk user JonahAp
How
does the Roll-DPOS consensus mechanism work and what is it’s
difference from other consensus mechanisms?
Larry Pang: good question — a robust consensus mechanism is very important for a growing network
The IoTeX Network utilizes Roll-DPoS consensus, which we designed completely in-house. To support the high scalability required for IoT use cases, IoTeX decided to use a variant of the Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) design, but we also made significant improvements to traditional DPoS. Instead of a fixed number of Delegates (e.g., EOS has 21 block producers), IoTeX randomly selects 24 of the top 36 Delegates to mine blocks every hour. This randomness improves the decentralization and security of the overall network, without affecting the performance. Roll-DPoS enables IoTeX to be one of the fastest blockchains in the entire industry with 5-second block times and instant finality for transactions.
for the techies out there – here is a detailed Roll-DPoS yellow paper regarding our consensus design: https://res.cloudinary.com/dokc3pa1x/image/upload/v1559623484/Research Paper/Academic_Paper_Yellow_Paper.pdf
TLDR; Roll-DPoS is IoTeX’s in-house consensus mechanism that enables 5 second block times with instant finality. Lightnight fast!! ⚡
Serg | Satoshi Club: It means that 8 remain without rewards?
Larry Pang: basically every hour, 24 of the top 36 delegates (voted by the community) are randomly selected to produce blocks — there are different categories of rewards, more details can be found here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SvbsdfTofVccCULDkm97ZJniodwKzcEIDzKxD-O9ap4/edit
Serg | Satoshi Club: Thanks for the clarification. How much is distributed for the delegates? On average
Larry Pang: for normal staking, delegates will receive about 10% ROI and they share these rewards with their voters. as a staker in the IoTeX network, you can earn %8+ ROI by staking and voting for a delegate!
check out here for more detailed staking returns: https://www.stakingrewards.com/asset/iotex
Q2 from bitcointalk user george.bend
What
was the reason behind creating Ucam? Also, who processes the
information of my video call? where is it stored
Larry Pang: great question! for those that do not know about Ucam already, let me share a bit about it
https://ucam.iotex.io
IoTeX recently launched our first “Powered by IoTeX” product called Ucam, which was built in partnership with Tenvis, a major security camera camera manufacturer. Tenvis was founded in 2005 and has sold millions of cameras to governments, enterprises, and consumers — they are currently “Amazon’s Choice” for security cameras, but came to IoTeX to bring privacy to their users. Check out their previous product on Amazon, which has sold millions of units! Ucam is the world’s first absolutely private home security camera that lets you own your data. This year at CES, the world’s largest tech conference, Ucam won the CES Innovation Award for Cybersecurity & Privacy. Ucam uses blockchain-based identity and the encryption keys are generated using the IoTeX blockchain in a decentralized fashion to make sure only the user has a copy of the encryption key for full privacy. With Ucam, nobody can access your device or data except you, or people authorized by you. We have many exciting plans for Ucam — we are currently working with IPFS to add decentralized storage to the camera and are also planning to launch other form factors of Ucam, such as doorbell + outdoor camera. The great thing about Ucam is the firmware/software that IoTeX developed can be used on almost any camera, so we are actively exploring new types of cameras to power with IoTeX — Ucam is just one of many “Powered by IoTeX” products in the future!
Serg | Satoshi Club: How exactly are you bringing privacy to users? 🙂
Also, do you think
it’s possible to give some cameras for the community?
Maybe we
can make a contest after the AMA
Larry Pang: good question serg — with Ucam and other “Powered by IoTeX” devices, we use decentralized identity + blockchain technology to ensure data is end-to-end encrypted and only decryptable with the user’s private key. similar concept as using a blockchain wallet to protect your cryptocurrency, but we apply it to our data as well! a very sophisticated tech stake makes this all happen combining software, hardware, and firmware :+1:
yeah we would love to give some cameras away to the Satoshi Club community! let’s follow up after the AMA serg
Serg | Satoshi Club: Awesome 🤩
Larry Pang: Ucam is going to hit Amazon US and other global retailers in Q3 2020 — the world’s first blockchain-powered consumer IoT product is almost here!
don’t just take my word that it is an awesome device — you can see Newsweek’s review of Ucam here: https://www.newsweek.com/new-iotex-ucam-looks-provide-unrivaled-privacy-security-1517040
and also you can check out this unboxing video + tutorial that i made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sErLTqYXj8g
Serg | Satoshi Club: I will definitely try this camera 🙂
Q3 from Telegram user @ibramladen
Satoshi
Nakamoto said: Don’t trust, verify!
Your slogan is: Internet of
Trusted Things
Why should I trust? Please explain me the reasons
Larry Pang: good question! answering the reason why the Internet of Trusted Things is needed also requires some basic understanding of the traditional Internet of Things (IoT): These days, all types of smart devices like cameras, thermostats, and virtual assistants are being installed in our homes and businesses at a blistering rate. Even traditionally “dumb” devices, such as beds, mirrors, and toilets, are now equipped with WiFi and powerful sensors to make them “smart” — this phenomenon is called the Internet of Things (IoT). Whether you know it or not, IoT is part of everyone’s lives and allows people to interact with machines to drive efficiencies and create value. However, today’s IoT is owned and controlled by institutions (e.g., tech giants, governments) and not users (aka you and me). All of our highly sensitive IoT data, such as the videos from our home cameras or our health data, are owned by institutions and manipulated without our consent. Do we really have to accept a future where we are surveilled by institutions that collect our data, make our homes targets for hackers, and manipulate even the way we behave? No — we can build a better future with IoTeX!
This is why we need the Internet of Trusted Things — IoTeX’s goal is to enable a future that is connected, empowering and safe — no intrusive ads and surveillance, just privacy and peace of mind without sacrificing usability. The IoTeX platform enables builders to easily launch privacy-preserving IoT devices, apps, and networks. Just like Bitcoin has created a decentralized financial ecosystem, IoTeX is empowering a decentralized ecosystem for our smart devices — the Internet of Trusted Things.
Serg | Satoshi Club: Btw, do you also make the devices more secure? I mean that those devices can be hacked and someone can get access to your home basically
Larry Pang: yes definitely — not only do we enable privacy for devices but we also apply blockchain’s ultra-high security to the devices as well. that is why IoTeX is so important for the future of our smart devices — we put users in control of their devices and data instead of relying on corporations like Amazon/Google who have historically abused our data and trust. with IoTeX, we can prevent the centralized attacks that are everywhere these days like these Amazon Ring camera hacks that show the shortcomings of traditional devices: https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/28/21137692/tech-amazon-ring-hacks-security-blame
Serg | Satoshi Club: That’s awesome 🙂
Larry Pang: if you are in the market for a home security camera, then Ucam is a no-brainer! but it’s important to understand that IoTeX is NOT a camera company — the technology we built into Ucam can be applied to ANY IoT device, whether it is an asset tracker, healthcare device, autonomous vehicle, and more! the world now has 20 billion IoT devices and this number will grow to 75 billion by 2025. IoTeX plans to be a key player in the IoT industry and capture many of these devices to make them private and secure! the most exciting part is once users own their data, they can choose to do whatever they want with it — keep it absolutely private, share it with others in a secure P2P fashion, or eventually sell/trade it on IoT data marketplaces (something we call #DeFIoT) IoTeX is unlocking the potential of IoT data!
Q4 from Telegram user @cryptocivilizations
You
released IoTeX Mainnet GA which goal is to enable the interaction
between humans and the machines. What were the main reasons to switch
from Ethereum? What advantages did it bring to you?
Larry Pang: good question! IoTeX is a native blockchain now, but we started as a hybrid network between Ethereum + IoTeX blockchains. we issued our ERC20 token (IOTX-E) in 2018 and then launched our native network in April 2019. then we started to migrate away from ethereum throughout 2019+2020, and finally in june 2020 we launched our Mainnet GA, which made IoTeX a completely native network! that means the network uses $IOTX as the native coin and all smart contracts / transactions are all on IoTeX. IoTeX has always had the vision to be a fully native network, as the requirements for IoT use cases using blockchain are fundamentally different than other general purpose platforms.
this philisophy is not just talk — we have built it into our platform at every layer. IoTeX is much more than just a blockchain, we also have robust IoT middleware and dev tools that make creating trusted devices easy for developers. the platform consists of multiple layers to bring privacy-IoT use cases to life. something that ethereum or any other blockchain out there cannot do. TLDR; we respect ethereum and what they have done for the industry, but for IoTeX’s vision for the future of smart devices, ethereum is not designed for it. IoTeX is!
Serg | Satoshi Club: Yes, it’s always better to have your own blockchain than depending on others 🙂
Irina K. | @satoshi_club: IOT on blockchain will rock
Larry Pang: for those that want to learn more about the platform, you can read the “core concepts” section of our developer documentation: http://docs.iotex.io/
Q5 from Telegram user @Jonahapagu
Internet
of Things generate huge amounts of data some of which are private
data how does IOTEX ensure the security and privacy of this data?
Larry Pang: that’s a great question — let me explain the IoTeX tech stack that makes this all possible
Device Layer: IoTeX is all about generating trusted data from trusted devices to enable trusted applications. A critical piece of this is the device layer. To trust a device, it must have a decentralized identity and its actions must be verifiable by others, which is exactly what IoTeX enables by combining secure hardware and blockchain, which are both tamper-proof technologies.
Storage Layer: IoT devices generate a lot of data, and not all of that can be stored on the blockchain due to cost/scalability reasons. But today, more and more data validation and processing is performed “on the edge” or on the device itself, reducing the need to store large amounts of unfiltered data on servers. A scalable and flexible approach is to store/index pre-processed data on the IoT Cloud (e.g., AWS) or decentralized storage (e.g., IPFS, Sia) and “hash” them to the blockchain, which provides timestamped verifiability and data provenance. When needed, this data can be written to the blockchain for use in smart contracts!
Blockchain Layer: the root of trust for the entire IoTeX Network. Our blockchain is open source and one of the fastest in the entire industry — not only does it enable standard P2P transactions and smart contracts, but it is also used to register device identities and “hash” data (stored on Cloud/decentralized storage) to the blockchain.
the combination of these three layers provides great flexibility for developers and builders. for more information, please see our Blockchain & IoT Reference Architecture: https://iotex.io/reference-architecture
Irina K. | @satoshi_club: Does this mean that it will work only with a pre-approved set of devices?
Larry Pang: yes the devices require custom firmware that basically points the data to the blockchain instead of to a centralized server (as is the case with most devices these days). IoTeX is working on SDKs / toolkits to allow hardware device manufacturers to very easily onboard their devices to the IoTeX network.
for example, we are also working with Nordic Semiconductor, a billion dollar chip manufacturer company, to build Pebble Tracker: https://www.nordicsemi.com/News/2020/02/IoTeXs-Cellular-IoT-based-tracker-delivers-environmental-and-condition-data-for-assets-in-transit
Pebble Tracker is more of a developer-oriented device that tracks environment data such as GPS location, temperature, humidity, pressure, motion/vibration, and light and writes all of this data securely to the blockchain. this partnership with Nordic will bring trusted data to the blockchain so that developers can design new business/incentive models and companies using this trusted data!
Serg | Satoshi Club: You guys are doing very important things. The future looks bright for you if you will keep this good work
Larry Pang: definitely — we are just getting started, we are now looking into other types of smart home devices and also healthcare devices, which i am really excited about. nothing is as sensitive as the data captured by healthcare devices, and we want to make that data 100% owned by users. check out this podcast with HealthBlocks, one of our healthcare partners from the netherlands, for more details on the healthcare + IoT + blockchain space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV2WpjmI3S8
Q6 from Telegram username @Aleurich
Smart
products (with internet access) are usually more expensive than
traditional ones. How would IoTeX solve this problem with your
products? Would this project be directed only to people in high
society?
Larry Pang: having smart devices may seem like a luxury right now, but soon the world will be covered in smart devices in our homes, businesses, vehicles, cities, nature, etc. — our vision for the Internet of Trusted Things is about providing affordable and privacy-focused options for consumers to experience privacy and data ownership for the first time. for example, while most security cameras like Nest/Ring cost upwards of $150, the IoTeX Ucam is only ~$45, which is honestly a steal for such a great camera with guaranteed privacy.
if you think about an IoT device, regardless of what industry it is used in (healthcare, supply chain, smart home, etc.) — the anatomy of IoT devices are generally the same. we apply our technology to fit ALL IoT devices, not just the fancy and expensive ones. in the future we wan to equip users with great technology at an affordable price. the truth is, hardware is a difficult industry to break into — you really need partners that understand not only their industry/market but also have resources for manufacturing and distribution. so we are very selective about which partners (like Tenvis) that we work with, and having our partners share the same vision for affordability, great user experience, AND privacy is something we consider before working with any companies.
TLDR; IoTeX is launching affordable, feature-packed, and private smart devices for people around the world! starting with Ucam which is priced at <$50, you can buy Ucam right now at https://ucam.iotex.io and on Amazon US + other global retailers in september
Irina K. | @satoshi_club: Where is it based? Tenvis I mean?
Larry Pang: tenvis is based in shenzhen, the hardware capital of the world
for those that don’t know about shenzhen, i really enjoyed this video explaining what is going on there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY
Irina K. | @satoshi_club: I saw it. It’s very impressive
Larry Pang: it is the “silicon valley” of hardware — IoTeX is based in the real Silicon Valley, so this is a marriage of the “Silicon Valleys” of hardware + software! 😊
Serg | Satoshi Club: Ready for the live questions part? 🙂
Larry Pang: let’s do it!
Part 2 — live questions from the Telegram community
Q1 from Telegram user @Nickkiii
I’m interested in contributing to IoTex, Do you have any Global Ambassador Program, if yes, how do I apply ?
Larry Pang: love it!!! glad to hear you are interested in becoming an IoTeX Ambassador!
IoTeX has a global ambassador program that is active now — anyone that is interested in becoming an IoTeX ambassador can PM me for more details 🙂
Q2 from Telegram user @tungvodoi206
Now that there will be IoTeX Cross-Chain DEX, will the team be running a liquidity pool staking campaign to encourage long term staking/awards, and encourage using the platform as first choice to buy/sell IoTeX coins?
Larry Pang: great question — yes IoTeX is launching #DeFIoT, which will be a toolkit to allow users to tokenize their data and trade it in a decentralized fashion. an important component of this will be our Cross-Chain DEX, which is coming very soon! there will be great liquidity mining opportunities where you can deposit both IoTeX (XRC20) and Ethereum (ERC20) assets and trade them. for those that are active in the DeFi space, you can use IoTeX’s uniswap-style DEX to trade/arbitrage with MUCH LOWER FEES than ethereum. more information coming soon!!
Q3 from Telegram user @Idee01
IoTeX got featured in Forbes. Also as one of the top 5 Altcoins with greatest potential for growth in 2020, alongside big names like Ethereum, Chainlink etc. What are your greatest strength that makes your project better than IOTA?
Larry Pang: we get this question a lot 🙂
Regarding IOTA, IoTeX and IOTA are not enemies. Yes we are both working in the blockchain+IoT space, but we are actually working on different things. IOTA prides itself on enabling feeless M2M payments, while IoTeX is building a network for privacy-preserving, human-centered smart devices. Rather than debate IOTA vs. IoTeX technology, what I will say is that IoTeX in only two years vs. five years for IOTA has done things that IOTA has not:
1) Launched a fully decentralized Mainnet with DPoS staking maintained by 60+ global Delegates, including Blockfolio, CoinGecko, DraperDragon, and more
2) Launched REAL IoT products like Ucam, the world’s first private security camera built in partnership with Tenvis and Pebble Tracker, a decentralized asset tracker built in partnership with Nordic Semiconductor.
Q4 from Telegram user @Fumun
Why the name of project is IoTeX, what is story behind this name?
Larry
Pang:
nice question! IoTeX = IoT
(Internet of Things) + ex (extension, expand, etc.)
basically we
want to expand and extend the capabilities of the Internet of Things
= IoTeX! :sunglasses:
Q5 from Telegram user @CryptoLover97
Staking
is Most Popular Nowadays as it improves User Interest & Provides
Long Term Growth to Projects ..
— Does IoTex Support Staking ??
— What are Requirements for Becoming a Validator Node ??
Larry Pang: IoTeX is one of the most robust staking networks our there — right now over 50% of the circulating supply is staked, and you can see all of our delegates at member.iotex.io
you can participate in one of two ways: either become a delegate (run a node) or vote for a delegate. delegates will earn rewards for running their node / producing blocks, which they share with their voters. so delegates can earn 10%+ ROI while voters see ~8% ROI — we highly recommend everyone to stake! we also have a special campaign going where you can earn up to 20% annualized returns, check it out: https://medium.com/@iotex/iotex-tokenomics-burn-drop-to-bootstrap-1-million-iotex-devices-66a43a1a68d7
Q6 from Telegram user @uamos
If IoTex is currently promoting a decentralized smart device system, what do you expect for the future? What is your biggest goal in 5 years?
Larry Pang:
i like this question — IoTeX has HUGE goals for the next 5 years. as of today, IoTeX is already powering smart devices that allow users to own and control their data, but we have much greater long-term goals. our next steps are to enable privacy-preserving Dapps that leverage the trusted data and trusted devices that are running on IoTeX, and eventually form diverse human-machine economies that will power new decentralized ecosystems where humans and machines can interact with guaranteed trust, free will, and privacy. We are starting this process right now by launching our new developer grants program called Halo (https://iotex.io/halo) — check it out!
Q7 from Telegram user @jangrihwa
What is the utility of IoTeX ? What does determine the value/price for it, is there anything within your ecosystem that increases the demand for the IoTeX ?
Larry Pang: the $IOTX token is the lifeblood of the entire IoTeX Network — it is used for a variety of things including gas for txns/contracts, staking/voting for delegates and network upgrades, and also to register new devices and service providers to the network. lots of detail to explore, which you can start here to learn more about our tokenomics + utility of IOTX: https://medium.com/@iotex/iotex-tokenomics-part-1-utility-of-the-iotx-token-781ff9c866e3
Q8 from Telegram user @regard94
What have been the major difficulties down the road so far in the development of IoTeX? What has been the leading motivation to continue?
Larry Pang: lots of projects only talk about the good things, not many talk about the hard things. building new technology is hard, but IoTeX is even more complex than normal blockchain networks due to the integration of hardware as well. i think we have moved incredibly fast over the past two years, but it has not been easy to develop this first-of-its-kind technology. lots of trial and error, working with partners (some of which did not end up being the right partners) but through all of this we have overcame all obstacles and are now ready to launch the world’s first blockchain-powered IoT products!!
the journey is not over, but our ability to build these amazing products gives us confidence that we can conquer even more of the IoT industry.
Q9 from Telegram user @Babulal1
In the future, what are your goals? What do you do to develop the platform and marketing for the project better?
Larry Pang: Our main goal for the rest of the year is to welcome the world to build amazing things on the IoTeX platform. With Mainnet GA, the IoTeX platform is now ready to support a wide variety of use cases across blockchain, IoT, and privacy. Our goal is to build our ecosystem of builders and contributors that will bring great network effects to IoTeX — we are starting this process right now by launching our new developer grants program called Halo (https://iotex.io/halo).
In parallel, the IoTeX Foundation will continue to build infrastructure that makes it easier for people to build on IoTeX, as well as launch new products to unlock more IoT-privacy capabilities for developers.
Q10 from Telegram user @Truongkhanh
Defi is one of hottest toppic in crypto right now so What role does IoTeX want to play in the DeFi space?
Larry Pang: let’s break this down a bit — Ucam and Pebble Tracker are #OwnYourData devices that are “Powered by IoTeX”. after you own your data, you have three things you can do: a) keep it fully private (using DID + private vault), b) use it in a privacy-preserving fashion (using confidential computing), or c) you can sell/trade it. #DeFIoT on IoTeX is all about building infrastructure to enable c).
specifically for Ucam, here is a thought exercise:
1) what do cameras capture? videos + photos
2) how can we make these digital assets tradable? tokenize them on IoTeX as NFTs (access/ownership of a dataset) or fungible tokens (fractional ownership of a dataset)
3) what new tools are required to make this happen? wait for our next announcement and see 🙂
just remember that finance is not just about trading/borrowing/lending tokens that have no intrinsic value, it can also be about trading/borrowing/lending tokens + other digital assets that have intrinsic value based on the IoT data it represents. “if data is the new gold, then our IoT devices are the goldmines”.
Part 3 – Quiz Results
In the final part we tested your knowledge in terms of IoTeX. They’ve prepared 4 questions for this part. The total reward pool for quiz was 300$.
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