The development of IoT is impossible without the creation of a decentralized environment. Linking devices to remote servers of IT companies is the initial, not the last stage in the evolution of the Internet of Things.
As the number of devices grows, the centralized model reveals its weaknesses: insufficient bandwidth and vulnerability of data passing through the servers. The answer should be to build a multi-agent system, each participant of which is endowed with greater autonomy and is able to perform a wider range of tasks. We are talking, for example, about the ability of a device to independently accept orders and payments for their execution, as well as conclude a contract with another device without human mediation.
Ethereum smart contracts make it possible to bring such a concept to life, but only to certain limits – due to limited bandwidth, high cost of transactions and the lack of a “common language” with other blockchains – unless the developers have come up with a special “bridge” for a specific case.
Polkadot, the flagship project of Parity Technologies and the Web3 Foundation, a sharding protocol that provides inter-blockchain communication, has more chances to realize the idea of Web 3.0 and open the possibility of connecting millions of smart devices to the global network. Below we will break down the reasons why the IoT industry has become one of the main beneficiaries of internetworking protocols and take a look at the most promising IoT projects on Polkadot.
The Ethereum 2.0 network update, launched in phase zero at the end of 2020, should open a number of functions stipulated by the Proof-of-Stake consensus, and in the future, when moving to the next phases, to deploy an experimental, so-called. sharding model. In fact, it will be 65 new blockchains: the existing Beacon Chain from phase zero and 64 new shards interacting with it. The deployment of smart contracts and economic activities is planned for the following phases.
However, Ethereum 2.0 is not the first project to try to apply the sharding model to enable inter-blockchain communication. Polkadot, the flagship project of Parity Technologies and the Web3 Foundation, is ahead of Ethereum in realizing the idea of Web 3.0 and the ability to connect millions of smart devices to the global network.
Why is there so much talk about polka dots?
Six months after the launch of the Polkadot blockchain, the network clearly boasts developer recognition. According to Coingecko, at the time of writing, DOT is ranked seventh in market cap at $ 6.58 billion. These results are impressive, especially if you pay attention to the fact that the ICO in 2017 attracted a large amount, but not comparable with today’s capitalization – USD 145 million.
This market reaction is due to the widespread demand for the interblockchain protocol on the part of developers of decentralized applications, primarily in the field of DeFi. The Web3 Foundation’s three-year product solves bandwidth and scalability issues through the ability to connect different blockchains.
The Polkadot protocol is based on sharding, that is, dividing the network into segments with separate transaction validator nodes. Unlike Ethereum, where each node calculates each transaction and processes each transaction, the sharding model divides tasks between the nodes, allowing multiple transactions to be validated in parallel. This greatly increases the speed of transaction processing.
According to PolkaProject, the number of projects deployed in the Polkadot network is approaching three hundred, which is a third more than at the beginning of September. The IoT sphere on Polkadot has not yet been spoiled by the attention of specialized media, so we decided to conduct a small study of projects in this area.
Why devices are still not smart
Unlike the DeFi segment with 21 projects available for attention, the IoT section offers only three projects – Nodle IoT, MXC and Robonomics. On first examination, there is a noticeable similarity between them.
MXC is committed to building a global network for the communication of IoT devices. MXC itself (Machine eXchange Coin) is a protocol that leverages LPWAN (low-power wide-area network) technology, an energy efficient long-range network. Simply put, a wireless technology for transmitting data between sensors, meters and sensors. The project offers a smart bidding system for the right of sensors to access the network, as well as a data market that unites various blockchains.
Like two other projects in this niche, MXC declares the goal of creating a decentralized environment for many smart devices. The number of such devices today is measured in the billions. However, the fact that a smartphone, scooter or vacuum cleaner is equipped with sensors and microprocessors does not make them “smart”.
In order to be such, they need a permanent internet connection to receive and transmit data, as well as the ability to interact with other systems.
IoT operation via smartphone
Providing constant online access to millions of devices and sensors is not cheap, but not the most difficult. The second and more important issue is security. Smart home devices can be hacked and become dangerous – like a kettle that is turned on when there is no water in it. Needless to say about an industrial enterprise with expensive equipment. No warehouse of goods will agree to give all the dirty work to IoT devices without a guarantee that the system will not be hacked and disabled, say, electric cars in a warehouse with goods on the shelves.
The decentralized network Nodle offers constant access to the Internet for IoT devices and sensors. It involves custom smartphones that act as hubs for IoT devices. Mobile phones with Internet access provide devices with Internet access through the Bluetooth Low Energy mechanism.
The user installs an application on the phone and thereby allows nearby IoT devices to transmit updated data to the Internet. In exchange for a useful action, the smartphone owner receives a reward (proof of connectivity) in the form of the currency of the Nodle network. The smartphone acts as a secure translator of data from the device to the cloud, while maintaining the user’s right to anonymity.
What the Nodle ecosystem has in common with two other IoT projects at Polkadot – MXC and the Robonomics Network – it enables machine-to-machine communication and opens up a market for robotic data for businesses, municipalities and individuals.
The Nodle website highlights the applicability of the solution to the logistics industry, as well as scooter and bike rental services that can track the location of vehicles and their routes. In fact, you can equip anything with sensors – for example, a parcel or an electric car operating in a warehouse for the purpose of tracking and analyzing movement data.
Substrate for IoT
Like other projects in the same niche, the Nodle network needs to scale – in particular, in order to be able to send millions of microtransactions to smartphone owners as rewards for keeping the network running. For this, a development strategy was chosen on Substrate – a set of tools developed by the Parity team for creating customized blockchains for DApps. This open-access technology, written in Rust and integrated with Polkadot’s interoperability protocol, allows autonomous IoT networks to be created connected to other blockchains.
This opportunity was seen by the developers of the Robonomics Network platform created five years ago. According to its leader Sergei Lonshakov, Substrate is “the most direct route to launching parachain at Polkadot.”
In the case of Robonomics itself, we are talking about a parachain built to control robotics. By allowing Ethereum and Polkadot to be combined, the platform plans to open up a wide range of applications for decentralized networks for automation tasks.
Judging by the 13 scenarios for using the platform at different stages of implementation, Robonomics waited for Polkadot like no other. The arsenal of her cases, from environmental drones monitoring the quality of river water, to trading between cars for space on the road, clearly lacked the power of Ethereum. To expand its capabilities, the platform relied on the experimental Kusama protocol from the creators of Polkadot, also built on Substrate.
The Kusama network was created last summer as a testing ground for developers looking to deploy their own parachain and understand the capabilities of Polkadot itself. Robonomics plans to use this polygon for two years, having previously rented a slot for this purpose from KSM token holders and in the meantime preparing to switch to the Polkadot Relay Chain.
The team plans to attract developers of IoT services with a set of tools called Robonomics Web Services (RWS) – a decentralized analogue of Amazon Web Services for the Internet of Things. However, the analog has ambitious intentions to bypass its cloud competitor in terms of technical capabilities and security.
Unlike Amazon tools, RWS will allow not only technical, but also technical and economic transactions between IoT devices in a single environment that unites various blockchains. Simply put, a smart vacuum cleaner will be able not only to transmit data on the consumed electricity, but also to pay for it independently, interacting with devices from different developers.
The development of projects on Polkadot can be expected in the very near future, which means that soon hundreds of millions of people will be able to easily interact with artificial intelligence carriers, and businesses will have the opportunity to deploy services based on autonomous devices without the risk of outside interference. Such perspectives give a clearer understanding of the hype surrounding Polkadot with its growing capitalization.
