WELCOME TO THE FIRST ISSUE

Hello, World!

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

You are holding the first issue of the einfachIOTA Magazine in your hands. Thank you! We now explain IOTA in a simple way - both on paper and on the internet. Together with numerous supporters from the IOTA Ecosystem and the IOTA Foundation, we were able to bring this magazine into being in no time. We would like to say hello, world and invite you to join us on a journey through the IOTA universe. This issue is special to us in two ways: it is our debut magazine and the 2019 annual edition at the same time. As for our debut, we are placing special emphasis on presenting the IOTA Foundation and the Tangle in detail and introducing the basics in a newcomer-friendly way. IOTA is especially characterized by its strong values, which we explain in the Focus section. In the following section, we introduce the einfachIOTA team and our mission.

As for the 2019 annual edition, we would like to present the people, projects and events that meant the most to us this year. In the Retrospective section, we illustrate the developments and key events of the last few years with a roadmap. You can find the latest news about the IOTA Foundation in the News section. The People section is all about the people behind our projects. Under the heading 5x5, we have asked five people from our Ecosystem five questions each. For our spotlight A Day in the Life of... we have interviewed IOTA co-founder Dominik Schiener. The Events section deals with past and future events. We report on the most important IOTA meetups of the year 2019 and present the events you shouldn‘t miss in 2020. Within our Project of the Week report series on our website, we have already presented many projects. You can find all of them in the Projects section, where we also put the spotlight on the Project of the Year selected by the Community. In the Explanation Corner, things get a little more techy. We give you an introduction into the technical basics of things like the Coordicide, masked authenticated messaging and proof of work. For the tinkerers among you, the Tinkering Corner focuses on several hardware projects, for example a guide to making your own cost-efficient hardware wallet. Last but not least, we have some guest contributions for you.

We are incredibly proud of our team, our many helpers from the IOTA Community and every single one of you who have pre-ordered this magazine. Without you, this magazine would not be here. Thank you so much! We are always available for feedback and questions on our Discord server. We hope to have raised your interest in knowing more. Have fun reading on!

Sebastian Heußer Editor in Chief, einfachIOTA

Sven Reiser Creative Director, einfachIOTA

IOTA

What Is IOTA?

The big hype around Bitcoin and blockchain in the last few years has escaped hardly anyone‘s attention. But what has really changed up to now? Cryptocurrencies still haven‘t taken root, because they normally entail long waiting times and transaction costs. Additional scalability issues and exorbitantly high energy consumption contribute to the growing number of sceptics. Against the backdrop of these developments, the German IOTA Foundation has made it its business to solve exactly these problems and to create a network where innumerable devices can exchange values and data freely. This network is based on the Tangle, a technology that has been developed in-house and which is an advancement of blockchain technology. It allows us to exchange values and data without any transcation costs and with considerably lower energy consumption. This means that we could pay our coffee or sandwich, or even amounts of less than one cent, with it. In our Focus section, you will learn how the Tangle was invented and get various insights into the IOTA world.

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

The Genesis of the Tangle

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

The Tangle is the basic technology on which we intend to ground the economy and data transfer of the Internet of Things. It is a protocol that allows us to exchange values and data free of charge within a distributed system. But why can‘t we just use a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin for this? In order to understand this, we need to look at the projects and their basis in detail. Let‘s go back to the start.

In the Beginning There Was Blockchain

In 2008, the fist blockchain – Bitcoin – was born. A software developer still unknown to date pulished the soure code as well as a statement paper titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The term peer-to-peer means that devices communicate with each other directly and without any additional interfaces. Bitcoin made it possible for the first time to exchange values in a decentralized way, without any central authority, and it quickly became known as digital money. For the first time, it was possible to send and receive money without having to open an account with a bank or on a website. The Bitcoin concept soon became a success and was also used as the basis for further projects and ideas. You could download Bitcoin‘s open-source code, make some changes and thus easily create and operate a new blockchain. Many developers have made use of this, leading to countless copies of the Bitcoin blockchain being published, which in most cases differ from Bitcoin only very slightly. Each blockchain has its own units which are traded in online markets much like shares. The values created within a blockchain are called tokens. The programmers define in the beginning how many tokens exist on a blockchain and at what point new tokens can be created. New bitcoins are created with each new block, but the number of tokens created decreases step by step until the maximum number of 21 million bitcoins has been reached. Transfering bitcoins is secure and anonymous up to a certain level, but it is not free of charge. Transcation costs serve as an incentive to add ever new blocks to the blockchain after generating the previous bitcoin. This validation process is carried out by so-called miners which generate random numbers using vast amounts of computing power. These random numbers are part of the cryptographic puzzles, which are solved roughly every ten minutes by a miner from the network. The miner to first find a possible solution writes the next block with the new transcations and receives the newly generated bitcoins as well as all transaction fees for the transactions contained in the block. This has spurred a race for more computing power among miners. Who has more computing power can generate random numbers more quickly and thus enhances their chances to score the reward for the next block. This race has led to the Bitcoin miner network becoming restricted to big computer centers, which has in turn made Bitcoin less decentralized.

The enormous computing power that is necessary to find a valid random number has another important drawback – very high energy consumption. One single transaction consumes roughly as much energy as an average US household in 21 days. This carbon footrpint is comparable with the one of the entire country of Denmark, and this is just for calculations that stand similar chances to success as scratch cards. In short: a lot of waste and just one winner.

So, the transactions checked for their validity by the miners are added to the blockchain in blocks. But what happens if many transactions are to be processed, that is, if very many people want to make payments with bitcoins? For a better understanding, let‘s have a closer look at such a block. Blocks are restricted to a certain size. This means that only a limited number of transactions fits into one block. Since new blocks are only added every ten minutes, some transactions literally have to wait for the next block. If there are very many transactions, some of them may get incorporated into the blockchain with a huge delay – or never. We call this the bottleneck of the blockchain. The image below illustrates this. We can see that in the case of a large number of transactions, only part of them can actually be incorporated into the blockchain. Since miners get the sum of all transaction fees in the block as an incentive, they obviously choose the transactions with the highest fees. As a consequence, the transactions with the lowest fees automatically get pushed back in the queue. This entails that we need to pay a high fee if we want to make sure that a transaction is processed and incorporated into the blockchain.

< TODO: blockhain svg> The bottleneck of a blockchain

Then There Was Swap

Bitcoins, just like many other cryptocurrencies, can be exchanged for currencies like euros or dollars in swaps. This gives the tokens a certain value. Because transaction costs for bitcoin are also paid in bitcoins, transaction costs increase according to the token‘s value. For example, if the number of bitcoins that we have to pay as the fee for a certain transaction was worth one euro and then bitcoin‘s exchange rate doubled, we would still pay the same number of bitcoins for the transaction, but it would cost twice the amount in euros. During the 2017 high, the general interest in bitcoin transactions increased rapidly, which meant that people had to pay higher and higher fees to secure a place on the blockchain. When the bitcoin reached its peak price of approximately 20,000 US dollars per BTC, the transaction cost rose to 60 US dollars. However, even at a low exchange rate the transaction fees are just too much for us to pay our coffees or after-work beers in bitcoins.

The Blockchain Is Not Scalable!

Many software developers have realized that blockchain technology has scalability problems and are searching for new solutions. IOTA founders Sergey Ivancheglo, Serguei Popov, Dominik Schiener and David Sønstebø have taken on the challenge. They wanted to find a new approach and developed a system without scalability and cost issues, a system that can be used to exchange values and data, open or encrypted, free of any charge and in a decentralized manner. The team built their system on a directed acyclic graph, which is a mathematical construction. There were neither blocks nor miners here. The transactions and the users took center stage. The Tangle was born and was described in detail in a white paper by mathematics professor Serguei Popov. During the following year, the first IOTA reference implemantation, IRI for short, was carried out in the Java programming language. The basic rule is simple: if someone wants to send a transaction, they must validate two previous transactions that are randomly chosen. This way, we avoid the blockchain‘s bottleneck and arrive at a scalable system. We do not need immense computing power any longer, and at the same time, the system becomes quicker the more it is used. The Tangle is thus something like a multitrack transaction chain. We can describe how the Tangle and blockchains function with the analogy of a two-story department store. The entrance is on the ground floor, whereas the tills and the exit are on the first floor. The blockchain department store offers its clients a lift that takes them upstairs. This lift arrives every ten minutes, and there is a corruptible ticket machine that lets whoever pays the most enter first. At least clients get up to the first floor very comforatbly – as long as they can keep up with the ticket prices. Whenever there are many clients, the whole thing gets uncomfortable quite quickly. Compared to this scenario, the Tangle department store would have a simple staircase. Clients can use it free of charge, and everybody can climb the stairs on their own without having to wait. The scalability in case of a visitor rush would be limited by the breadth of the staircase. This is true for the Tangle as well, as its capacity is eventually limited by the internet bandwidth.

The image below illustrates the basic structure of the Tangle. Every transaction references two other transactions. The blue transactions are regarded as definitely confirmed already, while the gray ones have been referenced only recently. The white blocks are called tips. Tips are unconfirmed transactions that still need to be referenced by new transactions. Currently, transactions are not regarded as confirmed until they have been referenced directly or indirectly by the Coordinator. This Coordinator is what currently gives rise to most criticism against IOTA with regard to decentralization, because the Coordinator centralizes the Tangle in a certain way.

< TODO: tangle svg> IOTA Tangle

However, the Coordinator can only confirm transactions. Neither can it evade consensus rules nor can it create new tokens, freeze or abstract them. The Coordinator‘s source code is publicly available, as are the plans and prototypes to decentralize it. The removal of the Coordinator goes by the project name of the Coordicide and is the IOTA Foundation‘s top-priority project.

IOTA – More Than a Cryptocurrency

IOTA tokens, much like bitcoins, are traded in exchanges and have a certain value. However, our vision clearly transcends a mere currency. IOTA wants to become the open standard of the Internet of Things, a standard for the exchange of values and data in the future. The Tangle will make it possible for cars to pay for charging, tolls and parking autonomously. Drones delivering packages will receive their destination data and updates from the Tangle, all the while being sure that these data come from a reliable source. Because there are no transaction fees, so-called micropayments are possible, that is, payments worth less than one cent. These can be used, for example, to buy data and energy in tiny quantities. New business models that go by the motto “pay what you use“ become feasible in all sorts of areas. The Tangle is more than just a cryptocurrency. It paves the way for the next industrial revolution. It provides the protocol that enables people and machines to exchange data and values securely and free of charge.

Data in the Focus

Data are regarded as precious goods already today. In the future, we will collect and store more and more data. The number of devices connected to the internet and thus the mass of stored data is continuously increasing. But what is the value of these data? A huge part of today‘s data are only privately avaiable or stored in enormous data silos which are exclusively avaiable to a few companies. With IOTA, these data can be made available for everyone. The creators of the data can decide whether they would like to make the data freely available or offer them for sale on a market. Completely new business models can grow out of this. Consolidating large amounts of data enables us, for example, to prevent traffic accidents or errors in production processes.

The Tangle also allows us to send transactions with data packages. These transactions do not need to contain IOTA tokens and can be created and sent by anybody. So even the smallest devices can continuously send sensor data to the Tangle. Technologies that build on the IOTA protocol, such as MAM (masked authenticated messaging) make it possible to store data on the Tangle in encrypted and interlinked form. Interlinked transactions allow us to open so- called data channels and publish ever new data through them. A time stamp is applied to these data which is unchangeable. Only who has the according authorization can add new transactions to the channel. An example for this would be a temperature or carbon sensor that publishes the results of new measurements through a channel. This way, complete data sets can be offered on markets for sale or subscription. Buyers get admission to a channel and can then use the data sets belonging to this channel.

Not Yet Fully Decentralized. But Soon!

To date, the Tangle has been monitored by the so-called Coordinator. The Coordinator sets the clock for the Tangle‘s synchronization of the full nodes. Full nodes are the servers on which the IOTA reference implementation is carried out. Because of the Coordinator, the Tangle is currently still centralized. However, the databases themselves, which are located on the full nodes of the network participants, are scattered all over the world and are thus already decentral. The IOTA Foundation is currently working on shutting down the Coordinator and thus removing the last centralized part from the Tangle. You can find further information on the Coordicide in the article What Is the Coordicide? on page 58.

Values Check

• Free of Charge
• Scalability
• Data Integrity

A German Foundation

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

On November 3, 2017, after more than a year of meticulous preparations by the team, the IOTA Foundation was officially registered in Berlin by the State Secretary for Justice. This makes the IOTA Foundation the first entirely regulated non-profit foundation in the cryptoworld, and the first with a seat in Germany. The IOTA Foundation is led by its founders and the foundation council, namely David Sønstebø, Dominik Schiener and Serguei Popov. The IOTA Foundation has various alliances with businesses, start-ups, research centers and other non-profit organizations. The Foundation‘s core is formed by the software developers, researchers, consultants and business developers who develop the IOTA protocol and promote its acceptance.

Diversification

The IOTA protocol is extremely versatile and can be used for a range of purposes – from Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things to Web 3.0 and data exchange of the future. Each of these domains brings different possibilities and challenges, which require different areas of expertise. The IOTA Foundation is constantly enlarging its team of experts from all over the world who are working on numerous projects in interdisciplinary groups and collaborate with businesses and research centers.

A Non-Profit Foundation

In order to establish the IOTA Foundation, the IOTA Community donated 5 percent of all IOTA tokens, which amounts to roughly 140 Ti (1 Ti = 1 teran IOTA = 1 trillion IOTA). With a rate of 0.25€ per Mi (1 Mi = 1 megan IOTA = 1 million IOTA), these are worth approxiamtely 35 million euros. This money is primarily used to finance the team and the further development of the technology. The IOTA Foundation intends to become self-sufficient in the future. There are many possibilities to ensure the continued existence of the foundation in the long run, for example, business consulting, selling educational certificates or participating in public tenders.

Our mission

The IOTA Foundation‘s primary objective is to develop and standardize the IOTA core protocol. This obviously includes providing tools and documentation for the developers. The IOTA Foundation furthermore plays an active role at conferences and hackathons related to topics like the Internet of Things, digitization and Industry 4.0.

The IOTA Foundation publishes new content through several channels on a daily basis, including a podcast with exciting interviews about future-related topics, videos with hands-on application examples, and even live streamings where developers demonstrate how to use the Tangle and the new tools.

Values Check

• Non-Profit Status
• Regulation
• Transparency

Staff From All Over the World

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

The IOTA Foundation has grown rapidly in the last few years. Since its establishment in 2015, it has hired more than 100 employees. The main goal of the first few years was to establish a stable organizational culture. To stay on top of things with a team that is spread all over the world and growing at such speed is an unparalleled challenge. How does IOTA meet this challenge concretely?

SumSum

To really act in concert, the team members need to get to know each other in person and develop personal relationships. For this purpose, there is the annual SummerSummit, or SumSum for short. This event is organized for the team to celebrate successes, present news and novelties and discuss new ideas. The SumSum also is the perfect opportunity to get to know the person behind an online username. This article‘s header picture shows the IOTA team at the 2019 SumSum.

IOTA Hubs

With team members from more than 23 countries, a large part of the communication obviously happens exclusively over the internet. To give the team the opportunity to work together more closely, we have more and more offices spreading around the world, the so- called IOTA Hubs. Currently there are hubs in Berlin, Tel Aviv, Oslo and Taipei. In these hubs, the team can work together and also meet with important partners.

The picture above shows the Tel Aviv team, which is led by Alon Elmaliah (on the right). Tel Aviv is a renowned center of technology, which keeps popping up in top 10 start-up reviews. Tel Aviv is home to many start-ups and companies. Also big software companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Intel are established in Israel. The biggest sectors in the Isreali technology scene are cyber security and biotechnology. IOTA‘s four current hubs are just the beginning. Stay tuned to find out when and where the next hub will open its gates.

Strong Team of Developers

The team behind the Tangle, the tools and the libraries consists of many experienced software developers. The fact that these developers are spread all over the world and live in different time zones enables us to keep developing around the clock. Our open- source code is updated hourly. The Community takes part here in two ways: as developers and testers. The Community is formed by roughly 70,000 people, many of whom are looking at every single change in the code with a critical eye, thus actively taking part in the development process. There is also a council of elected Community members responsible for the latest full node software, which takes the Community‘s insights and experiences to the IOTA developers. There are now libraries for working with the Tangle in almost every existing programming language. Various tools have been developed, for example a program that can install an IOTA full node with just one mouse click. All this is the result of close cooperation between IOTA developers and the Community. Special chat channels were opened to speed up the exchange of ideas and problem solutions. The Community has even managed to get its own section on the popular developers‘ platform Stack Overflow. Stack Overflow helps developers to find solutions to urgent technical problems.

Academic Research Council

In 2018, the IOTA Foundation announced its academic research council. An impressive research team has been put together, consisting of globally leading professors, doctoral students and other scientists. The council will cooperate closely with the research departments to define the strategic orientation of the technology and to place the IOTA reasearch in an academic framework. In September 2019, Professor Jon Crowcroft, one of the internationally most renowned researchers for distributed computing, joined the council.

Values Check

• Diversity
• Remote Culture

The Ecosystem Development Fund

TEXT FELIX REICHARD

Many people have good ideas as well as the knowledge and skills to implement these ideas. However, non-profit projects in particular often have difficulties in finding appropriate funding. Making ideas reality usually requires money. For this reason, the IOTA Foundation established the IOTA Ecosystem Development Fund (EDF) in the beginning of 2018. This fund is meant to close the financial gap between the ideas and their actual implementation.

Why a Fund?

IOTA still is quite a young technology. To promote it, we need pioneers who develop projects based on IOTA. This includes proofs of concept (PoC) but also projects that go beyond that. Many companies are already building their own solutions on the basis of the IOTA Tangle. But many projects are also created in private by Community developers who like doing new stuff. They want to carry the technology forward and to use the arising opportunities for their own business ideas. Luckily, the IOTA Community is packed with these smart heads. Some projects, however, are so big that the expenses go beyond the private budget of the developers, who are often still very young. The IOTA Foundation has brought a fund to life, so these ideas are not just given up. Developers can pitch their projects and apply for financial support here.

A committee formed by members of the IOTA Foundation decides on the relevance of the given projects and determines whether it makes sense to support them in the long term. First and foremost, of course, projects that demonstrate the technology‘s full potential are favored. But also awareness campaigns like the “Everything Tangle“ Youtube channel are supported. This channel has been funded with 8,000 US dollars, so it can produce further high-quality videos in various languages. After all, it is not only the technology that needs to mature – we also need to raise awareness and promote understanding for IOTA. Since IOTA‘s Tangle functions in a completely novel way and does not have much in common with the notorious blockchain, much educational work needs to be done in this area.

For the Community, by the Community

The money available in the EDF for the main part consists of donations from Community members who invested in IOTA early on and thus received a high return on investment (ROI). These people wanted to share a part of their revenue with the Community and support the IOTA project with it. These immensely generous donations amounted to approximately 20 Ti (teran IOTA). This is an enormous sum, which grants support of the ecosystem for many years ahead, even at a low exchange rate.

The Procedure

If a developer would like to receive funding, theiy need to make an application. For the funding to be granted, certain requirements need to be fulfilled. For example, the project should be open source, it should have been initiated by Community members, and it should be relevant for IOTA, of course. A project‘s pursuing commercial ends is not a criterion for exclusion, however, the project needs to constitute an enrichment for IOTA and the protocol behind it. Once a project has successfully gone through this procedure, the beneficiary receives the amount requested in several instalments. Some milestones are defined beforehand at which payments are then made. By the way, payments are made in – what else could it be? – IOTA. Numerous projects have been funded already. Thanks to the EDF, they could be implemented and made reality. One of the first was the “Smart Flood Protection“ project. This was a proof of concept, which was supported with 26,500 US dollars.

Crypto Core FPGA

One of the best-known projects among the IOTA Community to have been approved by the EDF committee is “Crypto Core FPGA“, which was submitted by a Community member called MicroEngineer. The Crypto Core FPGA enables embedded systems to carry out IOTA‘s basic funtions securely, efficiently and, above all, quickly. It makes address generation, PoW (proof of work), seed management, and much more, accessible via an API. The IOTA technology can thus be easily implemented into existing or new systems still to be developed. This project was financed with 59,110 US dollars by the EDF.

MicroEngineer says about the EDF: “I think the EDF is great, because it enables developers to focus on their project completely and without any financial pressure. Without an initiative like the EDF, many complex projects could not be realized. I also would like to use this opportunity to give a huge shout-out to the team of the Ecosystem Development Fund – Mark Schmidt, Dave de Fijter and all the others involved – for the great cooperation.“

XDK2MAM

If you are dealing with IoT (Internet of Things) topics, that is, with data and concepts in this field, the Bosch XDK will probably not be completely unknown to you. The XDK is an all-in-one developers‘ platform that is specifically oriented towards applications in the field of IoT in terms of its hardware and the software it provides. A large number of sensors, e.g. for temperature, humidity, brightness, and motion, as well as built-in WLAN and Bluetooth modules make this small device the ideal tool for various applications.

Since IOTA‘s main focus lies on the Internet of Things, the idea to connect this hardeware component with the IOTA Tangle is an obvious one. Daniel De Michele and Alejandro Elustondo have addressed this interface. With their XDK2MAM project, they intend to provide a tool that makes an easy connection between the Bosch XDK and the IOTA Tangle possible for everybody. XDK2MAM is already a partner of the Bosch XDK Ecosystem as well as the IOTA Data Marketplace.

Its main goal is to one day publish data coming from individual sensors on the Tangle automatically and without any intermediate steps. This would mean a huge step for everybody who wants to offer some kind of data, for example on the IOTA Data Marketplace. The project by Daniel De Michele and Alejandro Elustondo was funded with 85,150 US dollars from the EDF.

Daniel De Michele says: “Today, XDK2MAM is an open-source-code hub with instructions, video tutorials and all software necessary to make the XDK110 ready for use immediately in line with your favorite method. Needless to say that all this would not have happened without the EDF funds.“

IOTA Industrial Lab Aachen (IILA)

One of the most influential projects is the IOTA Industrial Lab Aachen (IILA). To date, this initiative has been funded for the most part by the RWTH Aachen University. It gives students and representatives of various branches of the industry the opportunity to do research on topics such as artificial intelligence, M2M communication, machine economy, and of course IOTA technology. The 50,000 US dollars granted by the EDF are mainly used to create and advance proofs of concept for the industrial Internet of Things‘ (IIoT) supply chain. In more concrete terms, this is about storing encrypted data from precision cutting machines on the Tangle in real time and in a tamper-proof way. Like this, a so-called digital twin is generated, which makes process data reviewable in a tamper-proof way.

Daniel Trauth, Chief Engineer of the WZL at RWTH Aachen and founder of the Industrial IOTA Lab Aachen, and his team have already gained a good deal of attention in this area and made representatives of various sectors of the industry aware of IOTA‘s advantages through many talks and presentations.

Daniel Trauth says about the EDF: “The IOTA Foundation‘s EDF has made us, the Industrial IOTA Lab Aachen at the WZL of RWTH Aachen, pioneers in the industrial implementation of a machine economy use case. Even if it has become more quiet around us recently, we are still busy perfecting the use case that has been made possible by the EDF, and we will be able to come out with some news soon. The EDF is the perfect means for building up convincing use cases quickly, while avoiding overly bureaucratic funding authorities.“

Transparency

Transparency plays a central role in all areas of the IOTA Foundation. This is obviously also the case for the Ecosystem Development Fund. At fund.iota.org you can see the actual amount of funding money remaining at any time. The page transparency.iota.org shows in detail which projects have already been approved and what sums they have received to date. All this information is recorded on the IOTA Tangle.

Mark Schmidt says about transparency: “The Ecosystem Development Fund has been brought to life with the Community‘s donations. It is a particular concern to us to share the resulting progress with the Community and to be transparent about every detail of the related payments and grant documents.“

Conclusion

The Ecosystem Development Fund is a brilliant initiative. Through it, developers and other parties promoting IOTA‘s progress get an opportunity to make their ideas and visions reality. Without such a funding scheme, many projects would probably never come to life. Thanks to the EDF and the related IOTA Ecosystem, an ecosystem of developers, visionaries and pioneers has formed that drives the advancement of the IOTA technology in a way that had been unthinkable before.

Values Check

• Community
• Funding

IOTA

IOTA Links

Want to find out more? Here are the IOTA Foundation‘s most important links.

• Official Website
• Trinity Wallet
• News
• Ecosystem
• Ecosystem Development Fund
• Data Marketplace
• Industry Marketplace
• Qubic
• The Automation Series Podcast
• Coordicide
• Developer Course
• Documentation
• Coordicide

INTRODUCING OURSELVES

einfachIOTA

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

What Is einfachIOTA?

Our Mission

TEXT SEBASTAN HEUSSER

There are lots of publications, documentations and news coming from the IOTA Foundation and the Community, most of which are in English. Our team of authors collects and publishes relevant content on our website and translates it into German as well. Like this, we provide a collection of important information both in English and German. At einfachIOTA.de you can also find some articles written by our own team of authors about projects and events from the IOTA Ecosystem. We interview interesting people and even make our own videos.

Project of the Week

We are constantly looking out for exciting projects that are related to IOTA in some way or the other. In our Project of the Week format, we zoom in one such project every week. By interviewing the founders we often gain new insights into the project and the vision behind it. We would like to give more attention to the projects with this series but also provide new space for networking, as many of the projects need to solve the same problems. We provide the teams and companies with a space to recognize such problems and to solve them together in a sustainable way. Projects get their own channel with us, where they can report on problems but also share news and experiences.

IOTA Meetups

IOTA meetups are held all over the world. We support them with marketing, planning, assistance during the event itself, and of course with follow-up work as well. We also try to do on-site reporting, for example with live streamings, and record video content which our media team edits into awesome videos. If desired, we can also bring our exhibition stand. The stand illustrates various IOTA application examples and contains information on exciting projects from the IOTA Ecosystem.

Workshops and Tutorials

Many people would like to start programming. However, apart from a technical barrier, there is often also a language barrier. We therefore offer workshops and tutorials in programming for for everybody – from beginners and IOTA newcomers up to experts. The Community provides step-by-step tutorials and tools for working with the Tangle and constantly improves them.

Videos and Audio News

Our VoiceNews team reads and records certain news bits, so you can listen to the most important news on your way to work. We now have our own YouTube channel, too, where we publish videos about our meetups, presentations and other entertainment stuff, such as einfachCozmo. Cozmo is a little smart robot who likes IOTA a lot and who explains things in a playful way. Check it out!

We Provide Answers

Do you have any questions about IOTA? The einfachIOTA Discord gives you the opportunity to ask your questions. Either the einfachIOTA team or the Community will sure be able to help you. In our What is...? series, we answer the most frequently asked questions with an article and a video.

Introducing Ourselves

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

Normally, we ask the teams behind the projects from the IOTA Ecosystem these questions. As we basically are an IOTA Ecosystem project ourselves, we have answered our questions ourselves this time.

Please describe your project briefly and simply.

It is our task to collect and publish content related to IOTA and to explain it in simple terms. We work towards the goals of the IOTA Foundation and make content from the IOTA Ecosystem available in English and German.

How did the idea come up?

There just wasn‘t a website that explained IOTA in simple terms, and even less so in German.

Which target group does your project address?

We would like to help newcomers understand the IOTA technologies better and to deliver new, exciting content to IOTA enthusiasts.

What‘s the vision you‘re building on?

To make complex things understandable and to provide opportunities for an exchange of knowledge. Our vision is a large, supportive community.

Does your project have concrete goals? If so, what are they?

We translate every blog post into German as quickly as possible and make it available to the Community. We would like to do the same now more extensively for projects as well. With what we are doing, we want to encourage the exchange of news and knowledge between experienced teams and the Community.

Where do you use IOTA technology?

We operate a website with a content management system and thus only have small use cases for IOTA. But we are running a few sample projects with IOTA for testing. For example, we count the people who visit our website with the help of the Tangle. This procedure is completely anonymous, because every visitor sends a transaction without any content from their browser to a certain address. We simply read how many transactions are on this address and thus get our total visitor numbers. From the timestamps of the transactions we can also see when a visitor opened the website.

Which IOTA technologies do you use?

For our visitor counter we used the Javascript library. In our articles, tutorials and workshops, however, we touch upon many other libraries and technologies. For example, we have a tutorial in which we transform an ESP32 into a hardware wallet. The whole thing was programmed with C and the belonging library. You can easily follow the tutorial step by step.

What hardware and software do you use apart from that?

For our connection to the Tangle, we use the nodes from TangleBay. org, a community-run node load balancer, which consists of very many nodes. For our articles, we use Ghost. This is a very good open-source software for writing articles. Our website is built with Vue.js and has the advantage of providing a progressive web app, which means that it can be saved on your smatphone‘s home screen.

Did you consider other DLTs?

Ha ha, einfachBitcoin already existed. No, seriously, we have looked into the other technologies in depth and realized that blockchain has major loopholes. Almost all of us started with Bitcoin, then went to Ethereum and finally ended up with IOTA. And we are still convinced of it.

What is your main reason for opting for IOTA?

The technical aspects that convinced us the most are its scalability at no transaction cost and the possibility to send data only. The easy access to development and the huge, solution-oriented and very supportive community are further reasons.

Who is responsible for the project and who else is in your team?

The person currently responsible is Sebastian, also known by his nickname Huhn (chicken). He joined our team of authors last year in November and is now responsible for the planning and execution of articles and projects. Our team now has 14 members: Steffen, a.k.a. NO8ODY, takes care of the einfachIOTA infrastructure. Volker, a.k.a. vrom, is our Social Media Manager and twitters faster than his shadow. Thoralf helps with all questions related to software development. Tobi, a.k.a. RonQen, is an author who also represents einfachIOTA on stage at meetups. Further authors are Kai (Kaineahnung), Mario (impi), Patrik (pstrump), Ze$Ty and playnight. The beautiful design is made by our designers Sven (r3p0x) and Richard (rck). Just recently, three more members have joined us who will focus on the Community. They are Kryptonaut, IoTAngle and PIOTA.

What are your skills and experiences?

We are a colorful team with various backgrounds, but most of us do have rather technical skills. Our team has been following the developments and reporting on them for a while now. Just this year, we have translated more than a hundred articles by the IOTA Foundation and reported on many projects and meetups in detail.

What motivated you to launch this project?

It is amazing to see how much you learn when you try to explain things to other people. We want to understand and catch everything ourselves, so einfachIOTA became the place where we collected our information and where we could discuss with each other. The whole thing went down well with the Community, so we just kept on doing this.

What motivates you to continue it?

It‘s a lot of fun to report on the different projects and to try out new formats. The Community keeps giving us great feedback, so we can keep improving our content. With einfachIOTA we stay on top of everything that happens around IOTA, and this is just very exciting!

Can the Community help you? If so, how?

Of course! It‘s always a question of what you would like to do. We are open to new ideas, but we can also use help in almost every regard of implementing our own ideas. Be it writing articles, proofreading, shooting or editing videos, designing something, programming, doing research or just asking or answering questions on the Discord chat server... There is so much to do, and it keeps getting more.

“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.“

• Alan Turing

einfachIOTA Links

Want to find out more? Below are our most important links. At linkliste.einfachIOTA.de there‘s even more.

• Webseite
• Community
• News
• Magazine

The Big Retrospective – From 2015 Until Today ��� 24

Looking back at the beginnings

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NEWS FROM THE ECOSYSTEM

News

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What‘s New?

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

October 23, 2019

On the Way to Open Collaboration

FIWARE is an open-source initiative that defines universal standards for context data management and facilitates the development of intelligent solutions in various sectors such as smart cities, smart industry, smart agrifood and smart energy. The IOTA Foundation has announced that it will collaborate with the FIWARE Foundation more closely in the future in order to reach their common goals more quickly.

September 23, 2019

IOTA and Linux Foundation Collaborating on LF EDGE

The LF edge framework has been recognized as the leading open- source stack for IoT, edge and cloud interoperability. However, a key element of this jigsaw puzzle is missing: DLT. Through the official collaboration between IOTA and the Linux Foundation, this missing piece is to be added. The Linux Foundation has the lead role in the open source community, advancing the kernel for the Linux operation system, among other things.

October 28, 2019 Partnership between IOTA, Dell Technologies and Linux Foundation The IOTA Foundation announces its new official collaboration with the Linux Foundation and Dell Technologies on a project by the codename Alvarium. The Alvarium project is a milestone in open- source development regarding distributed technologies, digital trust, data security and trust in data.

July 23, 2019

Collaboration with STMicroelectronics

The IOTA Foundation is now collaborating with STMicroelectronics, a globally leading manufacturer of semiconductors, to create a new level of access to the Internet of Things (IoT). This partnership was entered after STMicroelectronics had developed an IOTA implementation for their STM32 microcontroller on their own. This development with the name of X-CUBE-IOTA1 became a cornerstone of the collaboration.

October 1, 2019

Partnership Between IOTA and Zühlke

IOTA announces its partnership with Zühlke. It is their joint goal to investigate new models for production, machine-to-machine communication and real-time payments. The Zühlke Group is a service provider for innovative projects that provides its business clients with products, services and new business models. The group has already realized more than 10,000 software and product development projects with success.

September 19, 2019

The First Decentralized Industry Marketplace

After the data and telecommunication marketplace, the IOTA Foundation has now also presented a cost-free, open and decentralized marketplace for the industry. This marketplace serves as a demonstration case and will be developed further with partners from the industry. The Industry Marketplace will function as a producer and sector-neutral platform that automatizes trading with physical and digital goods and services.

WHO DRIVES THE PROJECTS

People

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5x5 Questions

Antonio Nardella @antonionardella Antonio works at the IOTA Foundation as a community manager, technology consultant, meetup organizer, speaker and leader of the #STODT project. How did you end up with IOTA? I must admit that I came across IOTA quite late. Reading an article in the business paper in South Tyrol, I became aware of Dominik Schiener and IOTA. That‘s when the research and the tinkering with IOTA started. What are you working on at the moment? Currently I am working on some technical “meetup packages“. These are a series of presentations, background information and explanations for starting local and independent IOTA Community meetups from scratch. How do you catch up on news? In the IOTA Foundation‘s internal Slack workspace ;) Apart from that, I use Twitter, several Telegram groups, Reddit, the official Discord or the IOTA Digest app by Rafael Rohden. What do you miss at IOTA? I cannot say that I am really missing anything. Being Italian, I would love to be able to just walk into someone‘s office sometimes and invite them for a coffee. What inspires you most about IOTA? I feel so encouraged by the members of the IOTA Foundation, their vision and their commitment with which they invest into this world-shaking technology every day.

Janna Zielinski @jz_berlin Head of Strategic Projects, IOTA Foundation How did you end up with IOTA? Before I started working with IOTA, I worked as a strategy and digital consultant for three years. Through this job I got to know our IOTA founders during a project at the beginning of 2018. I was thrilled by the innovative capability that both Dominik and David, as well as the team existing at the time, had. What are you working on at the moment? I have various tasks. Among them are acquiring and attending to new industry partners and projects, representing the Foundation at external events, supporting the adoption of the technology by helping to evaluate use and business cases as well as developing new data-driven business models together with internal and external co-workers and partners. How do you catch up on news? At the IOTA Foundation, we manage our information flow mainly on Slack with some topic-oriented channels. Besides that, I follow IOTA on Twitter and LinkedIn. What do you miss at IOTA? We are a completely decentralized organization that offers an innovative workspace with flat hierarchies for over 120 co-workers in more than 23 different countries. The downside of this is that it can lead to increased efforts for communication and coordination at times. What inspires you most about IOTA? For me, the international team and the opportunity to work on disruptive business models with our partners constitute the biggest added value that I get from my work for the Foundation.

Arne Flick @rionord Arne is a digital entrepreneur who runs several digital learning companies in Berlin and Shanghai, namely repeatmobile GmbH and IOT1 Academy. He has entered an exclusive partnership with the IOTA Foundation for IOTA courses. How did you end up with IOTA? In 2016, I organized a status blockchain event for 30 Chinese entrepreneurs, and Regine Haschka-Helmer brought Dom in for an IOTA talk.This awakened my interest in IOTA. What are you working on at the moment? We are currently working on an IOTA onboarding course for managers, which is going to be presented at the IOTA Foundation‘s Xmas Event. We will mainly impart the advantages and benefits of IOTA, including use cases. This is an important course which has stirred worldwide interest already. How do you catch up on news? I use the Discord and Telegram channels and Twitter, but I am also very lucky to have wonderful contacts at the Community and the Foundation. Even in the digital era, personal contacts are crucial for developing new things. What do you miss at IOTA? I think we could use more of the simplest use cases in business environments which demonstrate that IOTA is very well operationally deployable. And of course the Coordicide. ;) What inspires you most about IOTA? How much the Community sticks together and the vibe that it has. This is fantastic and very rare. And of course the great potential of a tecnology that will dwarf everything else, which only a few people will have known from the start. ;)

Hans Moog @hus_qy Hans is a software developer and researcher with the IOTA Foundation. He works on the software that tests the Coordicide solution. How did you end up with IOTA? Before IOTA, I worked in an area using cryptocurrencies for automated micropayments. With the growing popularity and increasing fees, bitcoin beacme too expensive at some point. Looking for alternatives, I came across IOTA and fell in love. What are you working on at the moment? I‘m currently working on goshimmer – a modular IOTA node of the research department, which tries to put the Coordicide concepts (but also topics like sharding, colored coins, reusable addresses etc.) into practice. How do you catch up on news? The crypto field is so short-lived, it gets difficult to stay on top of things all the time. But if someone has a breakthrough somewhere, you usually find out rather quickly via personal contacts. What do you miss at IOTA? I would love IOTA to be a bit more open in their handling of information. For example, we have concrete sharding concepts up our sleeves which will make all the difference between a good DLT and a game changer. What inspires you most about IOTA? The combination of vision and technology! IOTA for me embodies the ideal of a perfect cryptocurrency which connects the right ideals with the right technology.

Thomas Pototschnig @ThomasPototsch1 Thomas is a Linux system administrator who is known for his IOTA hardware, which he makes in his free time. How did you end up with IOTA? Very unspectacularly, through a computer magazine. I was immediately inspired by the concept, because I have known blockchains and their scalability problems since 2011. This is why I never invested in bitcoin, by the way, because I thought, ”This is never going to scale!“ Who could have known that these problems could be delayed for such a long time ;-) What are you working on at the moment? After my Crypto-Core project funded by the Ecosystem finished in August, the task is now to make practical use of this work. This will be done with a Raspberry-Pi HAT used as a development board for the FPGA module, for which there are already some industry customers. How do you catch up on news? I read a lot in the IOTA Discord and on Twitter – but I still miss most of the important things anyway. Big shout-out to vrom, who keeps me updated via Twitter and with the occasional private lesson :-) What do you miss at IOTA? That there is no information about Jinn^^. Hardware developers are especially curious about that. What inspires you most about IOTA? The IOTA Foundation, which has laid very solid foundations, which is absolutely important for IOTA‘s success. And of course the people behind the IOTA Foundation.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF

Spotlight: Dominik Schiener

INTERVIEW SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

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Events

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MEET THE COMMUNITY

Upcoming Events

IOTA Meetup Karlsruhe IOTA Meets Business The focus of this meetup is on the IOTA technology and concrete use cases from real life. This meetup is the ideal place to make contacts, find inspiration and gain insights into an IOTA technology you might not yet know. FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik Haid-und-Neu-Straße 12, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany Tuesday, December 10, 2019

IOTA Sternstunden 2019 in Berlin - Review of the Past Year and Outlook on 2020 The year is coming to a close, and we think that this is a good opportunity to look back on what we have achieved in 2019 – both as a foundation and an ecosystem. Space Shack Coworking Akazienstr. 3a, 10823 Berlin, Germany Wednesday, December 11, 2019

#TwoToTangle IOTA Meetup in Bolzano (IT) Drop by, meet your friends from the IOTA Ecosystem and talk about IOTA. The TwoToTangle Meetup has already existed since 2018 and is regularly organized by Antonio Nardella, the IOTA Ecosystem Manager. DGTL Circus Via Max Planck 33, 39100 Bolzano, Italy Tuesday, December 17, 2019

IOTA München Stammtisch The first regular Stammtisch (regulars‘ table) took place in Munich. There is beer, there‘s news and there is also gossip about IOTA. Drop by and be inspired to organize a Stammtisch in your own city as well. The Stammtisch ususally takes place on the first Monday of every month. If that Monday is a holiday, the Stammtisch is held on the following Tuesday! Alter Wirt Thalkirchen Fraunbergstraße 8, 81379 Munich, Germany Tuesday, January 7, 2020

IOTA Meetup Würzburg – IOTA and Machine Learning – 1st IIoT Meetup Machine learning is a big topic at IOTA. Data published in the Tangle are used by intelligent algorithms to gain revealing insights. One central topic is predictive quality analysis. EMnify Landsteinerstraße 4, 97074 Würzburg, Germany Thursday, January 16, 2020

IoT Tech Expo GLOBAL 2020 The IoT Tech Expo provides a platform where you can discover the latest technological developments on the market. Exhibitors get the opportunity to present their latest creations to 12,000 participants. More than 500 speakers and more than 300 exhibitors will be present. The IOTA Foundation will be there as well and also is a Platinum Sponsor of this event. OLYMPIA GRAND 7239 Olympia Way, Hammersmith, London W14 8UX, UK Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Hannover Messe 2020 The Hannover Messe is an industrial fair with an international scope. It takes place every spring in Hannover (Germany) at the Messegelände Hannover, the largest exhibition grounds in the world. The organizer of this event is the Deutsche Messe AG. Last year, we saw many IOTA use cases, including Fujitsu, e-Cl@ss and many more. We are looking forward to reporting on next year‘s fair. Messegelände Hannover Messegelände, 30521 Hannover, Germany April 20-24, 2020

ODYSSEY Hackathon Since 2017, thousands of people from all over the world have traveled to Groningen in the Netherlands to co-design the latest ideas and developments for our society. This diverse global movement and event has become known by the name of Odyssey. Of the 99 teams present at the last Odyssey Hackathon, nine were IOTA teams. How many are there going to be this time? Location to be announced, Groningen, Netherlands April 2-6, 2020

HANDS-ON MEETUP

Munich Meetup

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LET‘S GET PRACTICAL

Projects

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THE PROJECTS OF THE WEEK

All Projects of the Week

powsrv.io powsrv.io is an external service that provides fast proof of work for IOTA transactions.

PIRI Piri is a proxy and load balancer for one or several IOTA nodes.

Qubic Lite Qubic Lite (also QLite) is a preliminary implementation of the IOTA Qubic protocol.

IOTA Address Notifier The IOTA Address Notifier (I.A.N.) is a bot that notifies users about new transactions on an IOTA address.

ioTipBot With the ioTipBot, every user can send IOTA tokens very easily via various chat platforms.

Node-Red-MAM Node-Red is a free development environment and a visual editor for the Internet of Things.

IOTA.partners iota.partners is an interactive tutorial on how to install an IOTA node on a Linux server.

TWO – IoT Waste Management The first application areas include public buildings such as shopping centers, airports and underground stations.

Tanglenodes.io The tanglenodes.io web service provides the most comfortable solution so far for setting up nodes for the IOTA network, the Tangle.

publicIOTA As an independent group, we would like to accompany and positively support the possibilies and applications of IOTA.

TheTangle.org It is our goal to provide a fast and readily available service for searching the IOTA Tangle.

Untangle Care In our project, we basically develop the necessary open-source technology to use IOTA in the healthcare sector.

TangleSheep TangleSheep is a website where you can feed sheep with IOTA.

TangleID (BiiLabs) TangleID enables users to create a self-sovereign, verifiable digital identity.

IOTA Controlled agenT The IOTA Controlled agenT is a lightweight IOTA node for the IoT that builds on swarm logic.

IOTA-Talk IOTA-Talk is a website where you can find information such as news, articles and tutorials.

The Tangle Bay The Tangle Bay is an IOTA Community project where you can buy your coffee with IOTA without any transaction costs.

Thinktangle Thinktangle is about presenting ideas and thus letting new ideas develop.

IOTAlink.directory IOTAlink.directory is a webseite with many useful links related to IOTA and its Ecosystem.

IOTA Beginners‘ Guide Almost 100 pages of condensed knowledge about IOTA from A to Z in German.

XDK2MAM XDK2MAM enables the Bosch XDK110 sensor node to send collected data to the Tangle via MAM.

einfachIOTA Wiki This wiki conatins all information from the former IOTA Developer Documentation Portal in German.

IOTA Coordinator Monitor This projects provides a lot of useful information on the IOTA Coordinator in real time and with graphic illustrations.

ProductID ProductID is a Crypto Smart Card-based solution for securely identifying products and objects.

Hello IOTA The Hello IOTA page welcomes its visitors with a friendly hello and stunning pictures.

Tangle Bay Tangle Bay is a website giving the IOTA Community the opportunity to discuss various topics.

IOTA Seed Saver Loosely speaking, the IOTA Seed Saver is a perforated steel plate that saves a seed phrase and that cannot even be destroyed by fire.

Deposy Deposy is an innovative deposit system and a new way of dealing with waste.

CUBE-IOTA1 by STMicroelectronics Easy access to the Tangle in embedded systems which are based on the widely used STM32 microcontroller.

einfachIOTA It is our task to collect and provide IOTA-related content and to explain it simply, mainly in German but increasingly in English, too.

PROJECT OF THE YEAR

Deposy

Please describe your project briefly and simply.

With Deposy we want to define waste recycling in a new way. It is our goal to sort and separate packagings accurately. In order to achieve this, we want to offer people a financial incentive for returning plastic packagings or collecting them in the environment.

How did the idea come up?

The idea came from Markus Gebhardt, who in his summer vacation was shocked by the immense pollution on a beach and then started to think about how we could somewhat curb this global deluge of waste. In his public IOTA blog, he wrote down the idea and looked for support for the project.This is how our small, motivated team was formed.

Which target group does your project address?

Advantages for companies using Deposy: • Marketing (environmental awareness, image gain) • Commitment to CO2-neutral production by 2050 • Conservation of resources • In some areas: deposit system saves production costs • Government support programs • Compliance with legal requirements Advantages for participants: • Financial advantage – more money returned than paid in deposit • Clear conscience (environmental awareness) • Plus point for individual carbon tax Economic advantages: • Economic costs (40 billion per year) • Achievement of national/international climate targets • Health consequences

What‘s the vision you‘re building on?

The use of secondary raw materials reduces the energy required for the production of plastic products by up to 50 percent. The fact that manufacturers can avoid producing new plastics thanks to high- quality recyclate also contributes to climate protection. Both have a positive effect on the CO2 balance. Deposy can thus contribute to achieving the climate targets that have been set.

Where do you use IOTA technology?

IOTA is used for the payments, because we can avoid transaction costs here. Moreover, transfer and validation of the product data are carried out via the Tangle. The plastic packagings thus are given a sort of identity that is stored unchangeably.

Which IOTA technologies do you use?

The Trinity wallet, selective permanodes and the Pyota Python library are currently in our focus. Over the course of further development, more might be added.

What hardware and software do you use apart from that?

We are currently building our prototype on a Raspberry Pi as a Python program and have chosen two cameras to capture the QR codes. One is an infrared camera and one an ordinary webcam. We then transmit everything to an external monitor. We are also considering some external possibilities provided by our partners, for example an API by Omoku and a hard/software solution by Lidbot. Did you consider other DLTs? No, we already had been convinced of IOTA and its technological possibilities right from the beginning.

What is your main reason for opting for IOTA?

The system we have been developing is based on IOTA‘s characteristics which are perfectly suited for our purposes, namely distributed ledger technology. IOTA is a young cryptocurrency that enables fast, secure and cost-free transfer of data and finances. A traditional system relying on bank transactions could not meet the requirements. The preconditions for successful implementation are scalability without exponentially increasing costs, a transparent system as well as decentralized and secure process control. With IOTA, micropayments can be made together with a transfer of data. The Deposy project aims at keeping plastic waste accurately separated with the help of a specific deposit system and by offering people an incentive to collect and sort plastic waste. We hope to curb the global deluge of waste somewhat like this.

Does your project have concrete goals? If so, what are they?

Targeting CO2 emissions. Deposy can be used to collect reusable plastics and to actually reuse them. For example plastic cups, if the overall ecological balance makes sense and if there is a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. In addition, it can lead to plastic waste being more accurately sorted, which in turn enables us to recycle it appropriately. Recycling not only conserves our natural resources by recovering valuable raw materials, but it also relieves the climate.

Who‘s behind the project?

The basic idea for our system came from Markus Gebhardt. Within our team, which formed via Telegram, we are now elaborating it, trying to implement the best possible ideas in our prototype.

What are your skills and experiences?

There is a lot of knowledge in our team. Among us are engineers, developers, project managers, electronics specialists, designers and sustainability experts.

What motivated you to launch this project

and what motivates you to continue it? Our passion for the IOTA technology and our wish to shape a sustainable world keep driving us to give our best time and again. The positive feedback we received when we went public with our idea motivated us even more to go ahead with full steam.

Can the Community help you? If so, how?

First and foremost, it is important to spread the word about this idea and to sensitize the broad public for it. To date, we are also still depending on donations to be able to pay for the costs involved and for the first prototype. Constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement are always welcome, too, of course. We also would like to use some of the ideas that are already around in the Community, for example the AION (selective permanodes) developed by Olaf van Wijk (https://ecosystem.iota.org/projects/aion).

Concluding...

Deposy offers an incentive to return used packagings. If you buy a product equipped with a special QR code, an additional deposit is charged. After using the product, you can return the packaging to a Deposy machine and get the deposit back, for example in the form of an IOTA payment to your digital wallet. Via certain cooperation partners, the deposit can also be paid to your account in the national currency.

Explanation Corner

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

What Is the Coordicide?

TEXT HAGI

To understand the great expectations connected with the so-called Coordicide, it is worth while taking a little trip into the past. The origin of the name goes back to the Coordinator, a central unit of the IOTA protocol which has been used to date preventively as a protective measure against fraud. The Coordinator generates so- called milestones in regular time intervals. Other transactions must be oriented towards these milestones directly or indirectly in order to be confirmed as genuine transactions in the network. Since the Coordinator as the central unit of the Foundation constitutes a sort of guardian ensuring law and order, security is guaranteed, but an elementary aspect of the DLT promise, decentrality, is not given (see illustration above). Critics never tire of emphasizing this weak point in comparison with other projects, because as long as decentrality is not given, the IOTA protocol only has a limited value for Industry 4.0 and the new data era (“Data is the new oil”). After all, the users are supposed to regain control over their own data, which is hard to imagine with a central unit in action.

So, let‘s note: The Coordicide is intended to act as a foundation for scalability, security and decentrality. Estimates expect 75 billion networked IoT devices until 2025. The illustration above shows the core objectives of distributed ledger technology (DLT). Since no project to date has managed to reconcile security, decentrality and scalability, we refer to a trilemma. In order to get closer to a solution of the trilemma for the first time in the young history of DLT, according to the developers, more than 20 employees of the IOTA Foundation are currently (as of October 2019) working on research and technical development for this fundamental change.

The Next Steps

With regard to the timeframe in which to expect a possible test network, the research results remain thrilling as well as unexpected for the outsider. Enthusiasts need to get used to the idea that the IOTA Foundation may be close to a solution but the research around this cutting-edge technology keeps unexpected barriers in stock, which have to be overcome in a sustainable and, above all, secure way with the help of meaningful test results and studies. Let‘s remember that the protocol is supposed to become the backbone of the Internet of Things. Billions of devices will be networked one day, exchanging sensitive data and monetary transactions in real time. A gross error with regard to security may cost us the crucial trust we need in order to inspire big players in the industry for this promising technology. If the monthly newsletter is not enough for you and if you would like to take part in the further development and the latest research findings more closely, you can broaden your horizon at discord. iota. org and follow the smart discussions there.

Conclusion

With the Coordicide, that is, by eliminating the Coordinator, IOTA wants to be a pioneer in leaving behind an apparently insoluble problem in the DLT area. Scalability, security and decentrality should not be limited. Therefore, we keep putting down stone after stone every day for a strong foundation on which eventually an industry worth trillions will be placed.

What Is MAM?

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

IOTA was created for the Internet of Things and machine-to-machine communication. With masked authenticated messaging, sensors and other devices can encrypt entire data streams and save them in the IOTA Tangle in a quantum-safe way. Only authorized persons can read the entire data stream or add new data. Basically, MAM works like a radio, where only those who know the right frequency can listen to a certain station. Channels may be public or encrypted, and only the station can feed new data into the channel. There are three options from which the station can choose if they want to publish a new message on their channel. Public: Anybody can read the content of the message. Private: Only the station (i.e. the seed owner) can read the message. Restricted: There is the possibility to specify a key, which can be shared. If you have this key, you can read the content of a message, but you can only add new messages to the channel if you have the seed phrase. This key is called sideKey in the source code. Libraries for MAM are available for Javasript and C. It is advisable to closely observe the instructions in the code repository, because this project still is at a very early stage of development. A good option for for staying tuned on information, discussions and questions is to join the #mam-dev and #mam-discussion channels on the IOTA Discord.

What Is the Ternary System?

TEXT SCHMUCKLOS

What is the ternary sytem, and does it come with any advantage?

The ternary logic applied to IOTA is found throughout the whole project. Ternary logic is behind the JINN microcontroller, the Troika hash function, the seed, which only contains the capital letters A-Z along with the number 9, and also behind the fact that there are exactly 2,779,530,283,277,761 IOTA tokens.

The basics

Before explaining why IOTA builds on ternary logic, we need to have a closer look at the two basic systems that are relevant for this article. The binary system: one bit (binary digit) can assume exactly two (21 = 2) states: 0 and 1. Eight bits make one byte (28 = 256) and can thus represent 256 combinations. The ternary system: one trit (trinary digit) can assume exactly three (31 = 3) states: -1, 0 and 1. Three trits make one tryte (33 = 27) and can thus represent 27 combinations.

The opposite of every balanced ternary number is identified by swapping every -1 with a 1 and vice versa. Negative numbers can thus be depicted just as easily as positive numbers, since – as opposed to the decimal system – there is no need to note down a negative sign. This makes certain calculations more efficient in the ternary system compared to the binary system. As trytes are even more complex than bytes, it is important to make them more readable. They are therefore converted into a sort of different language. The IOTA development team has created the tryte alphabet for this purpose. It consists of the number 9 and the capital letters A-Z. This means that it contains 27 digits, just as many as there are combinations in a tryte. So, every combination of a tryte can be depicted by one digit. IOTA uses this alphabet for the seed, addresses, hashs etc. The seed itself consists of 81 digits, that is, 81 trytes.

An example

  CIIXLALQIZSAYXTYLOGYHMY9MSCDGCRXQFOHTZRXFRSFBQJJFFXRMVOJQWZJAILCKFSYEFWNLFWIHISEF

Every tryte has 27 combinations. So the IOTA seed has 2781 combinations. Expressed differently, these are ~8.71 * 10115 combinations, which is by far more than there are atoms in the entire visible universe. Chances to guess a seed are virtually zero percent. For comparison: Bitcoin‘s private keys are virtually impossible to guess, too, and they have only 2256 = ~1.1577 combinations. In the case of quantum computers and back calculation from addresses to seeds, or private keys respectively, IOTA is ahead of Bitcoin due to its considerably higher number of possibilities.

Why are there exactly 2,779,530,283,277,761 IOTA tokens?

This number also has to do with the trytes. Trytes balance themselves around the value 0, from -13 to +13. This is why we also speak of a balanced ternary system. We have 27 combinations and the maximum value 13. We can also calculate this mathematically: (33 - 1) / 2 = 13 combinations with a positive value 33 trits make the maximum supply: (333 - 1) / 2 = 2,779,530,283,277,761 IOTA Note: It was important to create a high number of tokens, because they are intended to be used for micropayments between machines, for which high token prices are a hindrance. If in the distant future it should become necessary to raise the maximum number of tokens, due to very high demand, this would be possible.

Why do exactly 33 trits define the maximum supply?

The value field of a transaction is 81 trits long, 33 of which are currently in use. This makes exactly (333 - 1) / 2 or 2,779,530,283,277,761 IOTA, a number which can still be depicted with a 64-bit integer (data type for whole numbers). As 81 trits have been reserved for the value field, the maximum supply can be raised to (381 - 1) / 2 if necessary. In this case, every current owner would still own the same part of the total value, but the amounts could now be subdivided into smaller units. Example: If you had 1 MIOTA (1 megan IOTA = 1 million IOTA) in your wallet before the increase, you will have 1 GI (1 gigan IOTA = 1 billion IOTA) afterwards. This does not change anything about the total value; there will just be smaller units available than before.

Why do current computers use the binary system?

In the beginnings of computer technology, mechanical calculators were superseded by electrical calculators. These first computers worked with relays, which can assume only the two states on and off. However, since relays with their high percentage of mechanical parts are very interference-prone, they were replaced with transistors. These can also assume only the two states on and off (voltage on, voltage off). As transistors make do without mechanical parts, they can have very small dimensions. Today‘s computers consist of many connections and components that are used to transmit and store data and to communicate with other components. The biggest part of storing, transmitting and communicating is executed by digital electronics these days. These still use the binary system with the two clearly separated states, on = 1 and off = 0.

Binary systems are still employed, because they are very fast when it comes to changing switch status. Transistors are very fast and effective switches. Combining a range of transistors and their states, different signs can be depicted and mathematic calculations can be carried out quickly. The disadvantage here is the following. To enhance the speed of a chip based on electrical transistors, more transistors need to be incorporated in the chip. This means that either the chip needs to be bigger or the individual transistors need to be smaller. The current trend is towards smaller transistors. However, the downside of this is that more heat develops and the chip becomes more prone to errors.

The advantages of a ternary system

Employing a system with three states would have the advantage that we could build on other basic elements than transistors to make more efficient IC‘s (integrated circuits). A ternary system is more efficient, because it provides the highest densitiy of data representation among integral bases (2,4...). In a ternary system, we can thus accomodate bigger numbers in less memory. For example, the decimal number 6 is represented by 110 in the binary system (needing 3 bits), while it is represented by 20 in the ternary system (one digit less). The efficiency of a base 3 number system is higher than that of a base 2 number system (by factor 1.58, approximately). We could thus save memory space, and calculations could be carried out faster, while the chips would have lower clock rates.

The effort necessary to build a complex logical circuit in the CPU based on a ternary system can be reduced to roughly 36% compared to an equivalent binary system. Besides resulting in a more space-saving design of the microcontroller, this would also lead to energy savings. Ternary components have not yet been used in the IT sector, because realisation of the hardware is much more complex. Moreover we are still lacking the broad support of the mass market. Once the realisation of the necessary hardware has been accomplished, the new microcontrollers will be significantly more energy-efficient and powerful than their binary equivalents.

With the advent of mass-produced binary components for computers, ternary computers (which already existed at the time) were unfortunately degraded to a small footnote in computer history, although the balanced ternary system allows for a more efficient mathematical number representation than the binary system. In the 1970s, development of ternary computers largely came to a halt, because binary systems could be developed further more quickly and cheaply. As has often been the case in the past, what prevailed over time was not the technically superior concept but the concept that was the easiest and cheapest, in terms of hardware, to implement for the mass market. One ends up wondering at what point ternary computer technology would be today if it had been continuously developed, too.

In view of the elegance and efficiency of ternary logic, computer expert Donald E. Knuth predicts a revival of ternary computers in the future. One possible way to develop ternary computers further in the future would be to combine optical computers with the ternary system. A ternary computer with optical fibres could use dark as 0 and two orthogonal polarizations of light as 1 and -1, respectively.

What Is Proof of Work?

TEXT THORALF MÜLLER

be proven consists in a math problem that has to be solved by a computer. With most blockchains, this work is done by so-called miners. IOTA uses proof of work as a protection against spam. Of course we want to avoid spam, which everybody knows from emailing, in a decentralized system as well. To prevent the network from becoming flooded with spam, we use PoW. Whoever wants to feed a transaction into the system must expend some computing power. This essentially makes spamming unprofitable, because a lot of spam causes a lot of energy costs. IOTA‘s PoW serves exclusively as a spam protection and is not needed for consensus. For this PoW, being difficult to produce but easy to validate is key. For every transaction, the PoW needs to be carried out, so that the transaction is accepted by the nodes. The nonce (the last 27 trytes of a transaction) is changed, and then the transaction is hashed with the changed nonce. If the transaction hash, converted into trits, eventually has as many zeroes as necessary for the respective network, the transaction is valid. If not, the process is repeated until there are enough zeroes. The number of minimally required zeroes is given in MWM (minimum weight magnitude). For the mainnet, the MWM value is 14, while for the devnet it is 9. The higher this number, the more intricate it gets. 3 trits with the value 0 are represented as 9 in the tryte alphabet. There are therefore always several nines at the end of valid hashs in trytes.

Hash example The last 9 trytes of the hash are converted into trits, with 14 zeroes at the end:

TRSJAIDFMDPA9DRRVMTQPSIKIWHJMEEUXTASVRKWGJCFASU99UFBVKFBJZSNQXMDXTL9YS9EvFBRMA9999

0, -1, 1, -1, 1, 0, 0, 0, -1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

The PoW can either be executed locally on the device itself or remotely on a different device. The advantage of a local PoW is that you are not dependent on anybody. However, if you do not have a powerful device, the PoW may take a lot of time, which in turn may lead to a lower probability for the transaction to be validated. In Trinity, you can adjust this yourself in the settings (remote PoW only works with nodes that support this option). If you would like to use remote PoW, you can either use public nodes or a service like https://powsrv.io/ oder https://tanglebay.org/. These work with FPGAs and can therefore carry out PoW very fast and efficiently.

https://powsrv.io/ is particularly fast in carrying out PoW (approx. 50 ms/transaction), however, it is a fee-based service. You can buy PoW for a certain number of transactions there and then use it as you like. For example, you can spread your allotment over several months or use it all at once. Currently, the service can validate approximately 90 transactions per second. If you would like to carry out a PoW locally and very quickly, you can install a proxy server for this purpose. The proxy only carries out the PoW and passes all other requests on to an IRI node. You can find instructions on this procedure here: https://docs.iota.org/docs/ node-software/0.1/iri/how-to-guides/install-a-pow-proxy. In your browser, you have the option to carry out PoW with WebGL2 (GPU), however, this option is not supported by all browsers. To do this, you can import curl.lib.js and iota.js into your browser and then override attachToTangle (the PoW function): Try it yourself at https://thoralf-m.github.io/Devbox/ by simply sending a transaction with a message. Click on “localPoW“, then on “message tx“, and then on the “Run“ button. In the GPU utilization you can see that it is actually calculated locally.

var iota = core.composeAPI({
        provider: `https://nodes.thetangle.org:443`,
        attachToTangle: curl.localPoW 
    })

There are also ideas around to replace PoW with a different spam protection in the future. For example, we could limit transactions per second to the physical position, which would be especially interesting for the IoT.

Tinkering Corner

TEXT SVEN REISER

Developing IOTA Apps in Under 5 Minutes

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

You have an idea, or even an application already, and you would like to incorporate the possibility to process IOTA payments? No problem! The IOTA Payment Module brings along an IOTA wallet for Javascript apps and takes care of everything IOTA-relevant for you. The module comes with its own webserver, communicates with your browser or with other applications via HTTP and websockets, and offers many settings options.

Due to its easy installation and integration, the entire module is ready to use in just a few minutes. You just need to define in your own code what should happen. Developers can thus define exactly what should happen if an IOTA transcation has been received and confirmed. With the websocket server, you can give the user important feedback, for example “Your transaction has been received” or “Your payment has been confirmed.”

The difference between the IOTA Hub and the Payment Module is a very simple one. The IOTA Hub was developed for applications like crypto exchanges, that is, applications with several users who have a wallet. With the Payment Module, in contrast, there is only one wallet, which can also be used and configured with the provided frontend.

The Payment Module still is at a very early stage of development, but nevertheless, it has been successfully integrated by several developers already. For example, the payment function of the einfachIOTA Magazine online shop has been realized with the Payment Module. The pay button was outsourced as an extra frontend module in the form of an additional package, so frontend developers can extend their application with an IOTA pay button by means of one line of code. You can find an article on Hackster. io which describes how to implement the Payment Module on a Raspberry Pi and display the addresses as QR codes on an e-ink display.

The project – just as IOTA itself – is still in the development phase. It is quite normal to have daily updates. If you notice any errors or possibilities for improvement, you are welcome to create an issue on GitHub. We are constantly looking out for support to make the Payment Module ever more secure and ever faster.

Payment Module https://github.com/iota-pay/iota-payment-module

VueJS Pay Button https://github.com/iota-pay/vue-iota-payment

Raspberry Pi Tutorial on Hackster�io https://www.hackster.io/huhn/raspberry-pi-as-iota-payment-provider-8f1e0f

Hardware Wallet with ESP32

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

The ESP32, in contrast to the Raspberry Pi, is only a microcontroller. It is roughly comparable with an Arduino, just that the ESP32 has much more power and functionalities. For example, it has an integrated WLAN and Bluetooth chip and can thus easily communicate with the home network. Similarly to the Raspberry Pi, you can connect sensors, switches and other parts to the GPIO pins. The ESP32 costs around 10 euros and is available with different components, for example with a camera or a small display. But attention: the ESP32 with cam does not have a USB port. You need an appropriate USB module to be able to write on it.

Now that the CClient v1.0.0-beta has been published, it is possible to implement a hardware wallet on the ESP32. We are using the version by Tim Rappe here, which builds on the IOTA Foundation‘s code but makes the initial installation even easier for us. Have fun tinkering!

Your Machine Wallet

It‘s basically as simple as this: 1. Install all necessary software 2. Download the Machine Wallet software 3. Upload the software to the ESP (flash) 4. Enter your seed and send transactions Of course, this is only theory. In real life, things do not always work out that easily. If you experience errors and get stuck, you can register yourself in our Discord and ask for help in the #hardware channel!

Step-by-Step Tutorial

Follow the step-by-step tutorial on einfachIOTA.de (in German, Englisch version to be published soon) and make your own hardware wallet ready to use in no time. We advise you to use the devnet for this, since the library is still at a very early stage of development.

Step-by-Step Tutorial (in German) https://www.einfachiota.de/#/post/iota-machine-wallet-auf-einem-esp32

ESP Integration https://github.com/magnisinfo/IOTA_ESP32_integration

CCLibrary https://github.com/iotaledger/entangled/tree/develop/cclient

MEET OUR PARTNERS

Partner Contributions

The IOTA Ecosystem is growing day by day with ever new and exciting ideas. In most cases, an idea results in a team and this in turn often results in a business. We have asked some of our friends and partners to write an article with a presentation for our magazine. In line with this issue‘s slogan hello, world! we give them the opportunity to introduce themselves to the Community here.

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER

Lidbot

TEXT SEBASTIAN HEUSSER AND ALEX LEHNERT

Our vision is to create an ecosystem in which waste management is transparent and autonomous. Our goal is to create a future in which businesses work together to keep cities clean and to build infrastructures that can map the entire lifecycle of a garbage bag and track it until it reaches the dump. But every beginning is hard, and first we need to find our place in this gigantic ecosystem. Lidbot is a level sensor that notifies teams when the garbage and recycling bins are full. Lidbot also collects important smart data on our garbage and recycling. Lidbot is meant to help both companies and cities to track their garbage and recycling systems properly by collecting intelligent sensor data. Lidbot also uses the IOTA DLT, the Tangle, to give a new home to data on garbage and recycling. A home that is safe and unchanging.

The Team Behind Lidbot

Ham Karami is the CEO and founder of Lidbot. Since his school years, Ham has been fighting for the environment and working on various projects that have contributed to making the world a better place. Andrzej Miller takes care of developing the Lidbot analysis platform. This is where distributed ledger, artificial intelligence and a user-friendly design meet. The design of the contents and the sensor is Lead Designer Alex‘s area of responsibility. The team is complemented with a three-person design and web team as well as a three-person hardware team, the so-called “Hardware-Engineer Magicians“. The team is organized decentrally and spread all over the world. However, the majority comes from Taiwan and Germany.

Lidbot in Detail

We just know far too little about our waste. Who produces how much, who collects it, and what really happens with it? In Germany, the whole system may be rather well-structured. We put our full waste bin out on the street, and companies take care of it. In other countries, this is unfortunately not the case. Garbage is simply thrown into rivers or woods. The consequences such as heavy pollution are hardly ever made a subject of discussion. With time, companies have learned that there is a lot of money in recycling. Meanwhile, this has assumed such alarming proportions that garbage is traded illegally. With Lidbot, we would like to make all of this much more transparent but also optimize it with the help of technology and innovation, in order to make the environment cleaner and, above all, keep it clean.

Our fist product will be a sensor that measures the filling level of garbage bins. We envision a living system that issues notifications autonomously whenever a garbage bin needs emptying. Like this, employees of cities or big department stores only need to pass by the full bins and can avoid detours past empty ones. This saves a lot of time and money which in turn can be invested in something else. The sensor has been built in a way that it can be incorporated into existing infrastructures easily. The system works without any additional technologies. Just attach the sensor inside the waste bin, register on the platform, and voilà – the sensor delivers the data. Plug and play via the mobile network in 146 countries.

Why Lidbot? – Our Vision

We would like to help building intelligent and clean cities. We are excited to be working on a project that will have a substantial impact on our planet. We can help cities and companies to save money while exerting a positive influence on the environment. With the Internet of Things and the growing digitization, we will increasingly see self-driving cars and robots in our daily lives in the future. We are building the foundation for these smart systems to know where the next waste bin is. Like this, autonomous garbage trucks can drive around the city and empty the full waste bins on their own.

Current Status

After putting many working hours into this project, we have now implemented a functioning, updated version of Lidbot. We are currently negotiating mass production of the sensor‘s casing. Furthermore, licensing procedures for our hardware are costing us the odd hour and lots of money. Many countries require hardware to go through a national certification process. We are currently trying to cover the associated costs, so Lidbot can come onto the market soon. We hope to be able to provide our clients with sensors by the beginning of 2020.

Ham Karami CEO and Founder

Twitter @lidbot_

Email ham@twoiot.com

Website https://lidbot.com

Accessec

Founded in 2008 in the town of Groß-Bieberau, accessec GmbH successfully provides IT-security consulting for businesses and institutions from nearly all sectors of the economy, both in Germany and internationally. accessec was one of the first consulting companies in the DACH countries (German-speaking Europe) that focused on identity-centric strategies and solutions for the IoT, automotive security and Industry 4.0. Our success lies in the great innovative strength of our team who keep dealing with ever new technologies and methods in the manufacturing industry and the automotive sector in Germany, underpinned by our strong research activities. Based on this and on our fascination with the potential of IOTA, a partnership with the IOTA Foundation started to form roughly a year ago, to make the world a tiny bit safer.

Sorry, Who?

Since April 2019, accessec has taken on board two new managers: Markus Soppa and Sven Feuchtmüller. They are taking over the helm from Sebastian Rohr, who, among other things, was co-responsible for accessec‘s security testing of the Trinity Wallet. Sven and Markus will further push the new strategic orientation towards distributed ledger consulting with a focus on IOTA both with accessec and within the Community. The company will also focus more strongly on developing their own IOTA-based products.

Identities for All!

Due to its experience in the field, accessec already saw the potential of a decentralized identity solution facing the main challenges in the field of industrial IoT early on. The accessec team would also like to involve IOTA technology in motorized traffic, which is facing the biggest change in its entire history, due to the development of autonomous, automated and networked driving. Vehicles will be able to communicate and drive autonomously. To achieve this, it is crucial that technical systems can be used independently of their manufacturer and that general interfaces are created both on the conceptional and the technical level. A procedure like this rules out proprietary solutions. Communication in the future will happen not only between all sorts of vehicles but also with the road network and the IT infrastructure of manufacturers, road operators and others. Moreover, we can expect communication infrastructure to assume a new role by providing central components in addition to its decentrally executed functions and even taking over special partial functions in automatization.

Wasn‘t That Called Libra?

This is exactly where accessec sees the great potential of the IOTA technology. Following the development of its own vehicle DID solution, Cyonis, accessec will test its feasibility and usability in a real environment during the next few months. The envisioned product name Libra, which had originally been suggested by the IOTA Community, had to be dismissed again two weeks later when Facebook launched its own cryptocurrency by the same name.

Sven Feuchtmüller Technical Director Accessec

Email info@accessec.com

Website www.accessec.com

Smart Plastic Waste with Deposy

It is the age of climate change. The big global problems need to be addressed quickly to prevent the worst from happening. Among the big problems are global CO2 emissions and a flood of plastic waste. The topic of a sustainable society is becoming ever more pressing. Many states, cities and companies, but also private persons, already are committed to a sustainable society now. Of course, many of those who live in an affluent society do not want to give up the achievements of this society. But we undoubtedly need to change our way of thinking. From my point of view, there is no doubt that we need to employ new technologies in order to change things while at the same time preserving a certain part of our wealth. This is why we, the BIOTA e.V. (i.G.), are working on a novel deposit system based on IOTA and the Tangle technology.

The Economic Costs of Plastic Waste Are Constantly on the Rise

With the novel Deposy deposit system, we would like to tackle several problems at once. That is, we would like to contribute to a reduction in plastic waste and cut down CO2 emissions at the same time. Before I describe the system, I would like to present a few important facts and figures. According to a study by the management consulting firm McKinsey, more then 30 percent of all plastic wrappings do not end up in a sorted recycling circuit but are disposed of in different, polluting ways. The economic costs arising from this are estimated to be 40 billion dollars per year. Microplastic particles, which form when plastic waste deteriorates, are taken in by humans and animals via food and air. Experts consider this to entail increased health hazards. In times like these, where the greatest efforts are made to prevent damaging greenhouse gases on all levels, plastic recycling makes a significant contribution to climate protection. For each kilogram of recycled plastic, around 2 kg of CO2 can be saved, depending on the type of plastic. However, without proper waste separation and sorting, there is no recycling, because everything that ends up in the household waste is burned in incineration plants. If, in contrast, other types of garbage than plastic packagings are thrown into the plastic recycling circuit, this makes sorting, and thus the whole recycling, more difficult. The sorting machines are specialized on packagings; everything else is combed out and burned. Unfortunately, this often leads to a significant loss of recyclable plastic.

Fighting Plastic Waste and Cutting Down CO Emissions with IOTA 2

All of this was reason enough for us, BIOTA e.V., to start the innovative Deposy project. The project‘s approach is to obtain well-sorted plastic waste with the help of a special deposit system, which also gives people incentives to collect and sort plastic waste. The system we have developed is based on IOTA‘s characteristics, which are perfectly suited for this purpose, namely distributed ledger technology. IOTA is a young cryptocurrency that allows for fast, secure and cost-free transfer of data and finances. A traditional system processed via banks could not meet the requirements. Because of the energy-consuming mining, that is, the generation of new units, cryptocurrencies have been facing increasing criticism over the past few months. Experts estimate the mining activities for one US dollar‘s worth of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Monero to have taken up the following average amounts of energy between January 1, 2016, and June 30, 2018: • Bitcoin: 17 MJ • Ethereum: 7 MJ • Litecoin: 7 MJS • Monero 14 MJ

With IOTA, this is different, because no mining is needed for this innovative technology. Of course, IOTA nodes and transactions also require computing power and thus consume electricity, but compared to the energy consumption caused by traditional blockchain technology, this is insignificant. This is another reason why we at Deposy are using the IOTA/ Tangle technology. We want to go for sustainability right from the start with this system.

Results Through Incentives

The basic precondition for successfully implementing IOTA consists in its scalability without exponentially increasing costs, its system transparency and decentralized, secure process control. Micropayments can be made together with data transfers. Furthermore, the system can be used outside of the insitutions normally necessary for deposit systems such as shops, for instance. If you think globally, this characteristic may be tremendously important. There are several things that make the Deposy system stand out from others. The population is given a financial incentive to collect, sort and return plastic waste. They get paid more than they paid for the deposit in the first place. Application is easy. It is based on IOTA, a modern distributed ledger technology, and could be implemented world-wide. Collectors receive deposit payments either into their IOTA wallets or, thanks to cooperations, to their bank accounts in their local currency, e.g. in euros. Automatic sorting of plastic waste is still difficult today and also consumes a lot of energy. Moreover, recycling plastic consumes far less energy than producing new plastic from scratch. This way, the deposit system helps to cut down CO2 emissions and to reach the climate goals. The system facilitates reaching the recycling goals for the industry, because it renders the expensive, automatic sorting step unnecessary.

Product IDs Make Plastic Smart

As described above, Deposy uses the characteristics of the IOTA cryptocurrency in combination with the Tangle. IOTA is used for payments to avoid transaction costs, while the trasmission and validation of the product data is carried out by the Tangle. This way, every plastic packaging is given an unchangeable identity. For the implementation of the Deposy project, the following aspects are key: • Protection of the environment • Security • Product identity • Trust

There are a few examples of barcode-based deposit systems, such as the German PET deposit system for reusable plastic bottles. However, through manipulations of the deposit system with copied labels, frauds are estimated to have summed up to more than 100 million euros since 2014, according to experts. This is a huge sum. We want to avoid this with Deposy. In our system, plastic parts are given identities by means of QR codes. This ID is unambiguous and is invalidated upon return of the deposit. This means that any QR code can only be used exactly once. This procedure helps to build trust with plastic producers and system participants. What else is a product ID useful for? For us, the Deposy product ID means that important information on the product is stored securely on the Tangle throughout its entire lifecycle. There may be vast amounts of information, but the most important bits for our system are product properties and the carbon footprint of plastic. The product properties grant proper sorting within the machines. With the help of the product property information, recyclers can register the composition of the plastic waste exactly. The carbon footprint information may become important in the future if we want to register the amount of carbon saved. Much more information can be registered on the Tangle with further development, if desired. During the last few weeks, we have been discussing a lot with stakeholders from the industry and companies. We have recently made funding proposals for the implementation of this system, and research institutions are going to accompany this project from a scientific point of view. A few offers have been made for test stands already. If everything goes down well, we hope to be implementing a test system within the next six months.

Markus Gebhardt Chairman BIOTA e.V.

Email info@deposy.org

Website https://www.deposy.org/

IOTA Team Karlsruhe

The IOTA Team Karlsruhe does not have an official founding date but rather has been growing continually since January 2019. Starting with the degree thesis of one of our members, we begun establishing contact with the IOTA Community and were quickly able to find further IOTA enthusiasts from Karlsruhe. After first meeting and getting to know each other, we quickly took the decision to hold the first Karlsruhe meetup and to strengthen our contact with the IOTA Community. Driven by the idea of speaking about more than just the theoretical aspects of the IOTA technology at the meetup, we developed our own IOTA prototype. Our goal was to illustrate the techncial characteristics of the IOTA protocol for our visitors at the meetup and thus allow for a direct interaction with the Tangle. Motivated by the visitors‘ positive feedback and the successful publication of our first IOTA prototype for an open and decentralized mobility marketplace, our steadily growing team is currently working on the technical challenges posed by the Tangle. We see ourselves as a young team of researchers who, together with the Community, would like to design the future of machine economy and an open and scalable networking between various machines. For this purpose, we take on different tasks, such as flexible access management of continuous IoT data streams on the Tangle (Raphael Manke), with secure and accelerated hardware (Marvin Gnad), scalable and decentralized identity and trust management (Christian Fries & Robin Lamberti) as well as automated trade with small amounts of data (Felix Kretzer).

The Team Markus Lücking Research Associate at FZI Mechanical Engineer (Dipl. Ing.) Discord: Malue#6170

Robin Lamberti Master Student of Informatics at KIT Discord: crossing#3428 GitHub: cr0ssing

Christian Fries Master Student of Business Engineering at KIT Twitter: @KIT_strong_WING Discord: karlsruhe-node#9791

Raphael Manke M.Sc. in Information Engineering and Management (KIT) GitHub: RaphaelManke Twitter @RaphaelManke

Marvin Gnad Master Student of Electrical Engineering at KIT Discord: Tassenpudding#5503

Felix Kretzer Master Student of Business Engineering at KIT Discord: Felix - iotawatch.it#8563

Thank you! You Are the Best

NO8ODY, Olsche, Marcus & Frida, Peter Schiff, Markus, playnight, Bender, Bender, D. Dorsey, Martin Neubauer, Kryptonaut, SammyTS, Daniel T. 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