The IOTA of China? How IoT Chain ($ITC) Is Securing The Internet Of Things – 71 Republic
Today, the internet is all around us. Constantly updating and transacting, it lives in many of the things we interact with on a daily basis and will only grow in use case and market size heading into the future. By the year 2020, experts assert that IoT (Internet of Things) will consist of close to 30 billion interconnected objects with a total market cap expected to swell over $8 trillion dollars. Coined by Kevin Ashton, the British technology pioneer and co-founder of MIT’s infamous Auto-ID Center, IoT is a term that defines the connection between all objects from a cup of coffee, to the table it sits upon and the house you live in. By 2025 almost ever object is expected to be an intellectualized ‘smart network’ tied to a stream of data requiring each their own IoT operating system that relays and synchronizes networks in a fast and cost-effective way. The Singapore based startup IoT Chain (https://thecryptocurrencynews.info/) aims to be the go-to platform for this massive new ecosystem of virtualized physical reality. Dubbed “a high-security lite IoT OS,” IoT Chain (or call sign $ITC) seeks to provide a safe, secure platform that protects against Botnet attacks of user data while lowering the prohibitive cost of centralized architecture by utilizing blockchain technology.
Currently, trading on the Singapore exchange Huobi (Huobi ITC/BTC) and the Chinese exchange OKEX (https://thecryptocurrencynews.info/), ITC has maintained strong volume and stability for investors since its introduction to the market in early December. After raising $15 million dollars in a private fundraising round this Fall, IoT Chain’s market cap (IOT Chain Marketcap) has already X3 in value and is currently hovering around $50 million dollars. The industry standard at the moment, IOTA, has a current valuation of close to $12 Billion dollars proving both the need for platforms in this space and also the sizeable market that looks set to greatly expand in the coming decades. ITC’s circulating supply is 50 million tokens with another 50 million locked-up to prevent extreme price fluctuations. Recently, IoT Chain announced a partnership with Acute Angle Cloud one of the leaders in the globally distributed cloud computing field and also reached a strategic cooperation with Adzar Energy to work on building a clean energy market using the blockchain.
The company is led by CEO Xie Zhuopeng, a blockchain professional who has been engaged in the smart hardware field for half a decade. Their CFO, Zhao Tan, holds an MBA from MIT China and was the former Asia Pacific CFO of Kerry where he oversaw the hedging of millions of dollars across foreign exchanges. ITC’s advisory team consists of Liang Ran, co-founder of RippleFox and Ji Xinhua, an expert in credit card encryption and winner of first prize for Shanghai’s science and technology advancement award. They are backed by large investments from some of China’s strongest blockchain incubators including FBG Capital (funders of OmiseGo & 0X Decentralized Exchange) and Link Capital Finance boasting over 40 years of experience specializing in developmental finance. Other partnerships include Shanghai High Flying Electronics, Shenzhen Galaxywind Network, Shanghai BeTiger Network and Telink Semiconductor.
IoT Chain has identified two major challenges to the IoT market that they intend to solve. First, ITC tackles issues of security to objects within the IoT ecosystem. ITC’s whitepaper highlights the effects of The Botnet of Things or a massively connected network of computers which are capable of utilizing DDOS (Direct Denial of Service) to shutter popular websites and internet-based applications around the world. With smart hardware filling our homes in the coming century, the implications of malevolent botnet networks used against the community or individual user becomes a looming concern. This past year we witnessed major outages to the influential and gigantic American websites Twitter & Netflix with the trend set to continue heading into 2018. To combat this, IoT Chain has adopted asymmetrical encryption that keeps data from being cracked even if it is collected. Further, all of the nodes in ITC are equal helping to protects users’ privacy. Secondly, the ITC team points to the high cost of centralized architecture that is currently keeping the Internet of Things from achieving mainstream adoption. Similar to issues faced in the growing field of A.I. and throughout the greater blockchain space, these platforms must be able to function with speed and efficiency or else risk poor adoption from the public. IoT Chain promises scalability and a massive node network to meet the demands of data storage in a convenient and cost-efficient through the blockchain.
2018 looks to be a big year for IoT Chain as their roadmap outlines several key events that should boost ITC’s valuation and establish their platform as a major player in the greater cryptocurrency space. Their main-chain testing stage has already begun and a wallet client looks to be ready for Q2 of 2018. They expect their main-chain wallet to be finished by May and then will begin work on their DAG network with the final main net coming online after NYE of 2018. From an investment standpoint, IoT Chain is relatively unknown in the West and has yet to make it to Western markets although the asset is currently rumored to land on Binance. In terms of competitors, IoT Chain features the lowest market cap of all DAG networks and is considerably cheaper than similar platforms. ITC is currently valued at $50 million vs. StreamR at $170m, ByteBall $400m, RailBlocks $460m and of course, Iota at $13 billion.
You can find more information about IoT Chain on their growing telegram group (IoT Chain Telegram) that already features close to 4,000 users with barely any coming from the Americas or Europe. I believe the IoT Chain team possess the relevant experience and resources to corner a substantial part of the IoT marketplace. Chinese investors have shown a tendency towards sovereignty with companies and products from the region and IoT Chain should be no different. Where NEO is the Asian counterpart to Ethereum, so too can IoT Chain become the IOTA of China. When investors outside China learn about this platform, I expect to see a sharp rise in price and at the current value of $50 million dollars I think the risk/reward is highly in favor of the investor and anticipate this platform will soar in value when it eventually finds its way into Western markets in the early months of 2018. The future of society is manifesting in front of our eyes and the demand for low-cost architecture to connect devices and stimulate functionality grows rapidly every day. When we get there we will want to ensure the safety and security of those devices and the data they collect. IoT Chain looks to be one of the investment opportunities of next year and the time to invest is soon before the token finds its way onto exchanges with higher volume and new wallets. As always, I highly recommend researching the asset fully and formulating your own opinion before investing but recognize the huge upside that this platform represents. So you tell me… IoT Chain, the IOTA of China?
