IoTeX Technology Update

IoTeX Team -

IoTeX's mission to empower DePIN builders with state-of-the-art infrastructure continues with the groundbreaking release of Mainnet v2.1, which unleashes the latest EVM compiler and gas burns (EIP-1559) to the IoTeX Network. But that's not all - the IoTeX tech stack has evolved tremendously over the past months with innovative upgrades to ioID, W3bstream, DePIN Infrastructure Modules (DIMs), public goods and more. In this blog, we provide a holistic update of everything you need to know about IoTeX technology, as well as a sneak peek into what is coming next (hint: DePIN x AI).

IoTeX serves as the backbone for DePIN ecosystems, enabling seamless coordination and operation of decentralized networks that connect physical hardware and virtual resources to blockchain. With IoTeX, DePIN teams can create robust, scalable, and verifiable networks that democratize access to critical utilities like computing power, energy, wireless networks, and geospatial data. DePIN has the potential to empower everyday people and businesses by providing economic opportunities through tokenized rewards, effectively transforming traditional infrastructure models from centralized, top-down systems to collaborative, community-driven networks that prioritize privacy, security, and collective economic interests. Let's explore the technology that makes DePIN work.

A Bird's Eye View of IoTeX Technology

If you've been following IoTeX over the past months, you will have seen many standalone announcements regarding new releases and upgrades to various components of IoTeX. The launch of ioID, new proofs of concept with W3bstream, integrations with The Graph and Streamr, and of course the recent Mainnet v2.1 upgrade are just a few of the exciting technology updates that underpin the constantly evolving IoTeX tech stack. While these standalone updates are impressive independently, they are actually part of a much more exciting bigger picture.

  • Real world devices are deployed by people and/or businesses, where IoTeX acts as a bridge between the physical world and crypto world
  • ioID assigns decentralized identities (DIDs) to devices, registering them on-chain as on-chain agents, providing crypto wallets to devices, and verifying their liveness and legitimacy
  • W3bstream utilizes zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) to verify the real world activities of devices, ensuring trustworthiness and provenance before settling to the blockchain
  • Other DePIN Infrastructure Modules (DIMs) integrated to the IoTeX tech stack verify various parts of the DePIN value chain, including connectivity, sequencer, and data availability/storage
  • Once verified, devices can contribute their data, resources, and services to DePIN Dapps where device owners receive tokens for their contributions
  • Verified devices and their data/resources will also be compatible with a new suite of DePIN Public Utilities hosted by IoTeX, including artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, marketplaces, DeFi, and more, which enable additional revenue streams for owners and unlock exciting cross-DePIN use cases

The intersection of DePIN and AI is the next frontier for crypto, and IoTeX is readying our tech stack for this massive opportunity. AI agents, inference, and training all require high degrees of verifiability -- the output of AI is only as trustworthy as the inputs it is trained upon. The IoTeX tech stack is built-for-purpose to verify DePIN devices and their utility, providing the most trusted source for real world intelligence to feed AI. Stay tuned for more updates on our plans to pioneer the DePIN x AI landscape!

IoTeX Blockchain: Mainnet v2.1 Upgrade

The IoTeX blockchain has successfully upgraded to Mainnet v2.1 on December 17, marking a major milestone for the network. Since its initial launch in 2018, IoTeX has undergone numerous upgrades to enhance its security, performance, and decentralization. This latest version marks a significant milestone in DePIN's foundational base layer, introducing support for EIP-1559 (Transaction Fee Market) and EIP-4844 (Shard Blob Transactions) for DePINs. Here are the key highlights:

  • Dynamic Transaction Fee Markets (EIP-1559): Introduced in Ethereum's London upgrade, EIP-1559 optimizes transaction fee markets while improving user experience in many ways including transparent and predictable gas fees, smoothing congestion, and reduction in fee spikes. Gas fees now consist of a Base Fee, which are mandatory transaction fees in $IOTX determined dynamically by the network that increases during congestion periods and decreases during low usage periods, and a Priority Fee, where tips are paid to Delegates as an incentive to prioritize specific transactions. With this feature, the base fees of the IoTeX L1 will go to the Roll-DPoS rewards pool, while priority fees will be earned by Delegates, incentivizing them to provide better service for network throughput and reliability.
  • Shard Blob Transactions (EIP-4844): Known as Proto-Danksharding, the groundbreaking EIP-4844 upgrade from the Ethereum research community introduces an innovative temporary data storage mechanism called Data Blobs, which significantly reduce data availability costs for L2 networks launching on top of IoTeX. Data blobs also substantially expand IoTeX L1's performance capabilities, laying the foundation for millions of transactions per second (TPS) in the future. Furthermore, we are leveraging Blobs as the data availability mechanism for W3bstream (i.e., off-chain compute for DePINs), enabling massive storage and performance enhancements for developers.
  • Access List Transactions (EIP-2930): EIP-2930 introduces access list transactions that enhance network security while addressing state access cost issues. It optimizes gas fees for transaction execution and improves network performance and user experience. Access list transactions are particularly beneficial for DeFi protocols that require multiple complex contract interactions as well as cross-contract calls or large-scale data operations.
  • EVM Upgrade: Implements Cancun EVM opcodes, allowing developers to utilize the latest Solidity compiler for more advanced smart contract functionality
  • P2P Networking Upgrade: Enhances the blockchain’s P2P networking via LibP2P, leading to improved connectivity and network stability

Thank you to the IoTeX Delegates around the world for upgrading your validator nodes to the latest Mainnet v2.1 and continuing to participate in the decentralization of IoTeX.

ioID

Last month we formally launched ioID, the world's most advanced on-chain identity solution for smart devices. ioID not only provides DePIN builders with a suite of tools to register and manage device identities on-chain and off-chain, but also equips devices with their own smart contract wallet and private key to sign data on-device and verify their real world activities. The issuance and binding of a device's ioID NFT and DID is facilitated by the IoTeX Hub web portal and a suite of smart contracts on the IoTeX L1 blockchain. Furthermore, ioID serves as a gateway for devices to interact with the rest of the IoTeX 2.0 tech stack including DePIN Infrastructure Modules (DIMs) for connectivity, storage, compute, and more. With ioID, we are bringing devices on-chain as self-sovereign assets and introducing a new universe of use cases for the DePIN sector!

Along with the launch of ioID, we have begun integrating ioID with native IoTeX projects including Network3, Nubila, and WatchX and announced first-of-its-kind partnerships with DePIN projects on other L1s such as GEODNET and NovaNet. Track the adoption of ioID on our Dune Analytics dashboard and stay tuned for more exciting partnerships with top-tier DePIN projects in the near future!

W3bstream

W3bstream is a verifiable compute protocol tailor-fit for DePIN that utilizes Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) to validate the computations it performs on real world data/metadata provided by devices. As a permissionless and chain-agnostic computing engine, W3bstream provides the foundation for DePIN builders to verify the real world activities of devices (i.e., Proof of Utility). For example, for a renewable energy DePIN, W3bstream will ingest data directly from solar panels or other energy hardware and produce a validity proof using ZKPs regarding the amount of energy produced, enabling anyone to verify for themselves the output of an individual device and the DePIN network as a whole. In addition to verifying the utility of DePIN devices, W3bstream is natively integrated with ioID, where signed data from ioID-equipped devices will be processed by W3bstream for end-to-end verifiability of device identity and utility. The $IOTX token will be incorporated into the design of W3bstream, where decentralized node operators will stake $IOTX and DePIN projects will spend $IOTX to drive the tokenomics of W3bstream.

W3bstream DevNet is currently live with W3bstream Testnet launch coming in early 2025. For the past months, we have been extensively testing W3bstream internally and with partners such as GEODNET. For more details on W3bstream and our vision for end-to-end verifiability for DePINs, please see our recent blog on Modular Infrastructure for Verifiable DePINs.

DePIN Infrastructure Modules (DIMs)

In addition to the physical devices of a DePIN that perform jobs in the real world, there are many other technologies modules involved a DePIN’s end-to-end process. The end-to-end process will differ depending on the DePIN’s use case, but all processes will involve some form of transmitting data (data in-transit), storing data (data at-rest), and computing over data (data in-use). Just like the physical devices of a DePIN, the servers and nodes that are involved across this "DePIN value chain" must also be verifiable, as the value chain is only as strong and trustworthy as its weakest link. Along with IoTeX's in-house modules (e.g., ioID for device identity, W3bstream for verifiable compute, L1 blockchain for smart contracts), the IoTeX tech stack consists of integrations with leading infrastructure partners -- Streamr for connectivity, Espresso for sequencing, NEAR DA for data availability, Filecoin/Irys for storage, The Graph for data indexing, NovaNet for embedded ZK, and more. For more information on IoTeX’s modular tech stack and our DIM partners, see this blog.

Public Goods & Tools

The technologies detailed above (e.g., ioID, W3bstream, DIMs) are primarily targeted at developers, but IoTeX has also made great strides in user-facing public goods and tools. This category of technologies improve the user experience of interacting with the IoTeX Network, contextualize the activity that happens on the IoTeX Network, and aggregate tools in convenient hubs for users. IoTeX has committed enormous amounts of effort throughout 2024 and especially in the past few months on our user-facing public goods and tools, which we summarize below:

  • DePINscan: the leading explorer for the DePIN sector now tracks over 300+ DePINs and 20M+ devices; most recently, we've launched the DePIN Wave newsletter and added a news portal covering the top headlines across DePIN, and in the coming weeks will be introducing a "Learn & Earn" feature and launching revenue tracking for DePINs
  • IoTeX Hub: your go-to place for navigating the IoTeX ecosystem on desktop, including staking, trading, registering devices, and much more; we recently added native Ledger support and Get GOATed campaign tracking, with more direct integrations of your favorite things to do in IoTeX coming soon
  • ioPay: the leading mobile wallet for DePIN supports IoTeX and other top blockchains, including Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, and more; we recently added a native DePINscan integration to browse DePIN progress on your phone, and have been continuously adding support for every major DePIN token to make ioPay the DePIN wallet of choice for users across all blockchains
  • ioTube: the first and highest volume cross-chain bridge now supports cross-chain transactions between IoTeX, Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, and Binance Chain, providing IoTeX users the ability to trade the most popular DePIN tokens and other crypto-assets on IoTeX DEXs and DeFi products, and gives developers on other blockchains the ability to launch multi-chain on IoTeX
  • DePIN Liquidity Hub: throughout this year, IoTeX has been adding support for DePIN tokens via ioPay and ioTube, but also via mimo DEX where we have launched the DePIN Liquidity Hub; this is a venue where users can trade bridged DePIN tokens and earn fees for providing liquidity via farms; most recently, we added support for Uprock and Natix which launched on Solana

What's Next?

The convergence DePIN and AI represents a groundbreaking frontier with unlimited possibilities. As these two technologies continue to advance rapidly in their own lanes, the intersection of DePIN and AI is poised to revolutionize how we distribute computational resources, incentivize network participation, and create more democratic infrastructure ecosystems. The symbiotic nature of DePIN x AI is bidirectional – DePIN has the potential to contribute verifiable, crowdsourced data to train AI models, while AI has the potential to intelligently automate DePIN devices to optimize resource allocation, predict network needs, and generate more revenue for their owners. IoTeX has prepared for this intersection for years now, and our focuses on verifiable DePIN infrastructure will serve as a critical prerequisite to the DePIN x AI revolution. Stay tuned, there is so much more to come.