IoTeX Halo Grants — Announcing the First Batch of Approved Grants!
The IoTeX Halo Program offers grants for software and hardware development, research, and community efforts to fuel the development of the Internet of Trusted Things. Halo Grants are open for any project at any stage to apply to promote the growth and use of IoTeX technology.
Throughout the past two months, IoTeX received 10+ Halo Grant applications and had amazing discussions with a variety of passionate developers. Today, we are excited to share the first batch of approved Halo Grants:
- HealthBlocks: proactive and private healthcare service that allows users to own, analyze, and manage their health data
- Helix: integration of IoTeX blockchain data to BigQuery, Google’s open-source data platform, for advanced analytics
- Metanyx: integration of IoTeX with WooCommerce for IOTX and XRC20 payments on over 3 million E-commerce sites
- Smart Stake: detailed analytics dashboards for IoTeX stakeholders for Delegate performance, rewards, and more
- GameFantasy: integration of IOTX & VITA to web-based gaming ecosystems to fuel decentralized currency/points
In this blog, we provide details regarding each of the first five approved Halo grants. For more information on Halo, please see the Halo website, Halo Github, and original announcement.
HealthBlocks — Proactive & Private Healthcare
Perhaps the most important issue when it comes to managing our health is privacy. Today, data is generated through various applications and devices, and in most cases, you don’t own your health data. In cases where you do own your data, it is disparately held by diverse companies. What if all of our health data could be generated by trusted devices, owned exclusively by users, and analyzed privately via trusted applications? Welcome to HealthBlocks!
HealthBlocks is a Netherlands-based company that helps you proactively track and improve your health with built-in trust and privacy. HealthBlocks customers will receive a HealthBox with a variety of healthcare devices (e.g., trackers, monitors, scales) to track your biomarkers — your health data is owned exclusively by you and HealthBlocks provides personalized guidance on how to live a healthier lifestyle in a privacy-preserving fashion. As the owner of your health data, you may authorize use of your data to doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and more.
To make this vision a reality, the HealthBlocks system must be as trusted as possible. HealthBlocks and IoTeX will work closely on: 1) a blockchain-based data architecture to privately store health data from IoT devices, 2) health data dashboard for continuous monitoring, and 3) personalized guidance and coaching on personalized health plans. A minimum viable product (MVP) is targeted for Q4 2020.
For more information, check out the approved HealthBlocks proposal.
Helix — Blockchain ETL for Google Cloud (GCP)
Helix is a Cloud technology company that focuses on large-scale data management and cross-platform migrations. Helix blends deep expertise in traditional Cloud with blockchain experience working with MyEtherWallet, Coinbase, and CoinGecko. Helix will integrate their industry-standard Blockchain Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) tool to facilitate data science on IoTeX blockchain data.
Helix’s project will make all historical IoTeX blockchain data available for exploration on Google’s open-source data platform, BigQuery. While IoTeX blockchain provides robust OLTP capabilities (e.g., atomic txns, data durability), these may be supplemented using BigQuery OLAP (analytics). This technology will be made available to IoTeX users via Helix’s software system on Google Cloud that: 1) performs real-time extraction of data from the IoTeX blockchain, 2) stores the data to BigQuery and de-normalizes it to make exploration easier, and 3) derives insights from the extracted data with Data Studio.
By making data more transparent, users can gain a deeper understanding of how IoTeX’s blockchain systems function and how they might best be used in the future. In addition to integrating the Helix system and Blockchain ETL repository, this project will be listed on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Marketplace, making IoTeX public dataset available to the masses.
For more information, check out the approved Helix proposal.
Metanyx — Bringing IOTX to Global E-commerce
As England’s leading PoS validator, Metanyx is a devoted IoTeX Delegate and long-time supporter of IoTeX. Metanyx at its core is a network of passionate blockchain enthusiasts that collaborate and share their collective skills and knowledge to mature the ecosystem.
Metanyx will create the foundation for IoTeX to be used as a cryptocurrency on eCommerce websites starting with with WooCommerce, a Wordpress online sales platform. There are currently over 3 million E-commerce sites around the world that are powered by WooCommerce. By developing an integration for WooCommerce, Metanyx will make paying with IOTX and XRC20 tokens a reality, as well as demonstrate the speed of the IoTeX blockchain that can achieve transaction finality in 5 seconds, making it a viable alternative to traditional credit card processing.
This project called IoTeXPay will provide exposure to the IoTeX blockchain by a large community of users, as well as developers that can utilize Metanyx’s open-source codebase. Integration with ioPay will be developed for the Desktop wallet first and a Chrome plug-in will be pursued in the future.
For more information, check out the approved Metanyx proposal.
Smart Stake
Smart Stake is a new IoTeX Delegate and Canada-based staking validator that contributes to blockchain networks by building dashboards to understand Delegate performance, rewards, and other detailed metrics. As a top validator for Aion, Harmony, and more, Smart Stake will now offer their user-friendly dashboards to the IoTeX Network.
The Smart Stake dashboard will introduce new performance metrics and configurable visual charts to assess the performance of Delegates in both short to long-term time frames. Performance metrics will allow IoTeX stakeholders to asses the absolute and relative performance of Delegates, allowing for greater decision-making, transparency, and trust. All historical data across all aspects of the IoTeX Delegate program will be readily available to everyone. The Smart Stake toolset allows for easy interpretation of complex underlying processes regarding block production and rewards.
During the first approved phase of development, Smart Stake will produce a Performance Dashboard with performance assessments of each Delegate, including Delegate list, returns index, visual indicators, Delegate details screens, voter list screen, expected returns index, and a basic Telegram bot.
For more information, check out the approved SmartStake proposal.
GameFantasy — IOTX & VITA for Gaming
GameFantasy is a devoted IoTeX Delegate and Ambassador. As the Chief Software Engineer at China-based 31° North Latitude, a subsidiary of online game developer Giant Interactive Group Inc., GameFantasy is bringing his expertise in the gaming industry to the IoTeX Network. We are excited to approve this this Halo Grant to bring the first IOTX & VITA-enabled game to life!
Blockchain-based games benefit from powerful anti-cheating and anti-fraud protections. GameFantasy believes that blockchain-based games are the future and should not be limited to gambling games. Although games can be design in a centralized fashion, decentralizing the currency and points used within games will unleash amazing new possibilities. A great gaming experience should allow players to achieve consistent and continuous progress — even after they finish a specific game, the value and reputation they earned can live on.
GameFantasy’s first “Powered by IoTeX” game is called Cats Around the World, a web-based simulation game where players can raise virtual pets/cats and engage with other players from around the world. In the game, players can use IOTX & VITA to upgrade their cats, unlock new game permissions, and recharge various functionalities via IoTeX smart contracts.
For more information, check out the approved GameFantasy proposal.
What’s Next?
The first batch of Halo Grants is now officially live and we can’t wait to see these projects come to life over the coming months! IoTeX is committed to continuously improving the Halo Program over time and onboarding more exciting projects to the IoTeX Network. We hope this first diverse set of Halo projects inspires you to apply for a Halo Grant — cannot wait to see what you will build!
For more information, please see the official Halo Website and Halo Github.
- Github Repos: https://github.com/iotexproject
- Documentation: https://docs.iotex.io/
- Codelabs: http://codelabs.iotex.io/
- Dev Forum: https://community.iotex.io/c/research-development/7
- Dev Chat: https://t.me/IoTeXDev
About IoTeX
Founded as an open source platform in 2017, IoTeX is building the Internet of Trusted Things, an open ecosystem where all “things” — humans, machines, businesses, and DApps — can interact with trust and privacy. Backed by a global team of 30+ top research scientists and engineers, IoTeX combines blockchain, secure hardware, and confidential computing to enable next-gen IoT devices, networks, and economies. IoTeX will empower the future decentralized economy by “connecting the physical world, block by block”.