Thank you to everyone who has participated in this live Telegram AMA co-hosted with Crypto Calibur. Please find below a summary of the session.
What’s the use-case/utility of IoTeX token in your whole ecosystem? Why investors and holders should attract toward IoTeX token. TG ID: redrose2
The IoTeX token is a key part of our network — IoTeX uses the gas utility model, where IOTX represents network bandwidth. But it also is used to register devices to the network. We are still working on the crypto-economics behind this, but in the future when registering a decentralized identity (DID) for a person/device, IOTX will be burned. So it is deflationary!
Companies are usually resistant to trying new tech which they see as relatively new and unproven. IoTeX has done a fabulous job so far. What is the strategy for on-boarding IoT companies and easing their resistance and pain points? TG ID: Amazongirl
Right now, you see public protocols/platform doing one of two things:
- Being their own VC and self-funding DApps/products on their platform
- Being their own best customer and building their own DApps/products
We are doing both of the above, but more focused on #2 right now. Our vision for blockchain+IoT+privacy is agreeable by most but many developers don’t know how to get started in building their vision. So lots of the things we are working on (like Ucam and our other IoT products launching soon) are about providing a template for future developers/businesses to build similar products. Have to teach people how to use privacy + blockchain for the IoT!
Why choose IoTeX ? What are the important motivations and goals of IoTeX? What is the unique technology of IoTeX? TG ID: wrigad
IoTeX is building the Internet of Trusted Things, where all physical and virtual “things” — humans, machines, businesses — will be able to exchange data/value at global scale!
The Internet of Trusted Things
Can you please highlight more on the decentralization aspect using IoTeX technology. Also in the future, is it possible to quantify the level of decentralization and economic incentivization? I am interested to know the transaction capacity of IOTX, how much transactions can be done in 1 second? In times of lag/congestion, how does IOTX thrive? TG ID: Mission2000
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Decentralization is extremely important for IoTeX. Our vision for the future Internet of Trusted Things requires decentralization. Right now, we are already fairly decentralized, with 60+ Delegates in our ecosystem and 36 of them are eligible to mine. We hope to increase this more in the future.
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TPS for IoTeX is 2,000+ right now, and blocks are produced every 5 seconds. In the future we will be able to scale this even further, as we use interoperable sidechains. It is a different approach than many sharding Layer 1 chains, but we feel it is more suitable for IoT as well.
How does IoTeX assess the importance of the user community? Does IoTeX have any plan to expand the community? For example, there are promotions, awards… TG ID: alttire
We have campaigns all the time to educate people on IoTeX. But the real way to attract more users to IoTeX Network is for them to use our upcoming IoT products: https://www.iotex.io/securehardware
We are also working on bringing in non-crypto people into the IoTeX ecosystem through initiatives / DApps such as VitaMart, which is our decentralized IoT marketplace — check it out: vitamart.io
What do you think of the current crypto market? What impact will the changes in the crypto market have on the price of IoTeX token? How did IoTeX survive in during long bear market? What is your teams strategy to gain more adoption? Can you share some recent achievements that your team is most proud of? TG ID: LikeABirdd
I think the current crypto market (from a price perspective) is a bit confused. So many different positive/negative news are coming out simultaneously, and what’s more interesting is some news that seemed positive also has negative twists. But overall, I think this is just media trying to get attention.
At a higher level, I’m extremely bullish on blockchain, more than ever. Just looking at all the things IoTeX has done in the blockchain+IoT space, it’s interesting to think about all of the other projects applying blockchain to their specific verticals too. 2020 will be a big year!
When can we expect the native wallet with ledger integration? How it will help IoTeX? How IoTeX differs from other IoT projects? TG ID: Shingchong
I just met with the Ledger team in SF blockchain week a couple days ago. They mentioned we will be in the “next batch” of ledger apps, so should be very soon. 
IoTeX differs from other IoT projects due to our focus on privacy and interoperability. Many projects say they do what we do (because it makes sense) but if you look into the details, IoTeX is the only project that can bring true privacy and trust to IoT.
For now, the use cases we are most interested in are providing IoT products to consumers that let them own their data/identity. See more details here: https://www.iotex.io/securehardware
Whenever you started this project, what points did you have in mind? How many members are there in your team? What qualifications are required for future new members who want to be part of your team? TG ID: dakhu123
IoTeX has one of the strongest teams in crypto — you can see our team here: https://www.iotex.io/about-us
Amazing blend of academics, engineers, and leaders in Silicon Valley. Right now we have ~30 full/part-time resources in Silicon Valley, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Southeast Asia. Looking to expand to Europe soon!
There are a few coins out there right now that seem to be aiming towards IoT, what sets IoTeX apart? TG ID: uatmoon
PRIVACY and DATA OWNERSHIP are what sets IoTeX apart. Many other projects we feel are focusing on using blockchain for different reasons. Blockchain for IoTeX is the root of trust/decentralization for our network, but we also incorporate other technologies like secure hardware and decentralized identity to do things that no other project can do.
How many AvoBoards are being released and what types of companies are interested? TG ID: rinku43
AvoBoard will come out in 2020 — our first product will actually be Ucam, a home security camera that is powered by IoTeX. The reason for this is AvoBoard is not really a consumer product, it is a developer product, we need to make more SDKs and tools are available for developers to use Avoboard.
Can you tell us which IoTeX analytics playground use cases will be the most popular? How can it help developers in that industry? Why do you think your project needs the blockchain at all and more specifically why its own token? Why can’t you just use ETH? TG ID: Mission2000
Analytics is just a way for developers to more easily understand what is going on in the IoTeX blockchain. It lets you query different metrics, like blocks, txns, contracts, etc.
Blockchain and IoT are extremely synergistic technologies. If IoT is the tech that generates data, then blockchain is the one that adds trust to that data. The token is needed to balance the incentives of the network — having a native token is important as we see our network as operating independently from other blockchains, but also building future bridges to maximize usability.
People are often interested in asking about technology and useful token. But I want to ask about your financial resources. To research and develop many products, surely the costs you pay are not small. So where do you get all the profits from? How do you reduce costs and maximize profits? Can you tell us how much your profits have been up to now? TG ID: molly789
We raised ~$30mm USD in January 2018 from 50+ accredited investors. We did not do an ICO, only this private sale. But this amount of money is a lot … I feel like crypto has made people crazy about spending tons of money on marketing to prop up their projects, but the more serious projects (like us) are in it for the long run. We know how to manage a startup and don’t look at what others are doing — we just focus on us.
Right now, we do earn some revenue from technical consulting / working with our partners (like Tenvis) but the goal is not to make profits right now. The goal is to help OTHERS make profit by using our platform.
Given the amount of IoT devices out there in the world and their lack of security and privacy how hard would it be to retrofit various devices to make use of IoTeX? TG ID: SENTlover
This is exactly what we are working on right now. We are working with Tenvis and other hardware manufacturers to build IoTeX blockchain into their hardware. It is actually not an easy process — it has taken us a bit of time but a) this is great training for the IoTeX team to do more integrations in the future and b) this provides a great template / reference for others that want to do this type of integration themselves.
Blockchain + IoT + privacy is such a BRAND NEW market, that IoTeX feels the need to show our community how to best use our platform / tools. So we are super excited to launch Ucam later this year in partnership with Tenvis.
Here is one of Tenvis’s old products btw: Amazon.com
What will be the security measure to prevent root chain to be unaffected by sub-chains that do not function well or under attack or have bugs etc. Will IoTeX privacy feature cover the transaction data or also smart contract data? Can you mention some of your competitors in blockchain industry and how your project is beating them? TG ID: Mission2000
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IoTeX privacy covers both the transaction data and the contract data. In fact, our vision for privacy is to provide both transactional and computational privacy. This covers data at-rest, in-transit, and in runtime.
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We do have some competitors that are working on similar things, but we feel that IoTeX is developing the most advanced blockchain + IoT products today. We will have the first ever blockchain + IoT consumer product launching later this year — Ucam.
What’s your secret in making IoTeX, and what we will see in future? How can token holders benefit with from IoTeX tokens? How does $IoTeX team engage governments and businesses using your platform ? Can you share about the niche market, and target market and the broader market that $IoTeX aims to? TG ID: cryptollll
IoTeX talks to governments all the time — for example, I just met with the digital transformation officer from Catalonia the other day: https://twitter.com/iotex_io/status/1189252671557033991?s=20
Many governments are interested in building blockchain into their future, specifically to give more power to the people. I personally love that vision and look forward to delivering.
If you were going to explain what IoTeX does to someone who is completely new to crypto, in a few sentences, how would you explain it? For example, to a child, what would you say to give them a clear idea of what the company does? TG ID: uatmoon
IoTeX is a brand new technology that allows consumers, not corporations, to own their devices, data, and identity. This means you have full freedom to live your life!
What the major difficulties that you faced while starting IoTeX project ? And what was your motivation to continue this project? TG ID: l3mbek
Working in startups is hard — especially coming from a big company, it’s interesting to jump into a smaller company with less resources, but it does make you focus deeply on what really matters. So just going through the process of a) cutting out noise from the industry and b) focusing on what WE are doing and not what others are doing I would say is a challenge. But it gets easier day by day!
What do you predict IoTeX largest challenges will be in the future? How do you plan to address them? TG ID: heruttt
Our largest challenge will be to make more traditional/mainstream people care about what we are building. Everyone can agree that having a more private and more secure Internet of Things is important, but people are so comfortable with their existing lives. Making people care about privacy is starting to become easier, but our challenge is not that we cannot build great tech, but it’s turning it into products that will be usable and private for the future world.
Can you explain about risking and security of IoTeX ?
Because IoT can be misused and cause big problems. TG ID: zona_wm
There are many issues with IoT today — all the way from devices to connectivity to Cloud. This is why IoTeX believes in using many technologies (blockchain, secure hardware, trusted computing, etc.) to build full end-to-end trust for IoT use cases. You can learn more on this website: https://www.iotex.io/securehardware
What is the uniqueness of the IoTeX? Why should investors (including me) invest in IoTeX? TG ID: kelere
Because we are doing things that no other project is doing, and are also launching REAL products to first the consumer market (security cameras + smart locks running on IoTeX) and next the enterprise market. IoT is a trillion dollar market, and blockchain will have a big role in the growth of IoT. And IoTeX will be the leader in this new market — it’s a no-brainer.
I know that IoTeX is launching two secure hardware devices and embedding decentralized identities (DIDs) into real world IoT devices. Please tell us what these devices are and what these decentralized identities (DIDs)? Please tell us what is Internet of Trusted Things? What is your strategy for attracting new users to the IoTeX platform with already tough competitors in the market? TG ID: bitboyss
Great question — the first device we will be launching that will use IoTeX decentralized identity (DID) is called UCam. It is a home security camera where YOU own all of your data (not corporations). This is why DID is so powerful — you can read more about it here: Decentralized Identity, Blockchain, and Privacy | Microsoft Security
We wrote about this in detail here: The Internet of Trusted Things. A machine-driven, automated, and… | by IoTeX Team | IoTeX | Medium
Does IoTeX have any competitor in the crypto space? If yes, what are you doing as a company to deliver a better product and to be more preferred than your competitors? TG ID: gus0000
Yes, there are others working in the blockchain + IoT space. However, we don’t see many other projects launching REAL products. Most are fake proof of concept with lots of marketing wrapped around it — unfortunately, this is where the crypto industry is right now. IoTeX is different — we don’t fake our progress. Real products and real apps that are not just betting games and things that people wouldn’t really use in real life are what we are focused on.
What has so far been the most fulfilling experience ever since starting IoTeX project? TG ID: Teretet
The most fulfilling part of working at IoTeX has been in the past 3 months or so. Before that, the project was still very theoretical. We thought a lot about the design of our platform and were sprinting for 2+ years to build our tech. AND NOW … the tech is almost ready and we are entering into a new phase of IoTeX, where we will use our platform to build brand new IoT products that are fully private. This is world-changing stuff, and it feels really great to be moving from theoretical to practical.
Do you see IoTeX having a role in home surveillance and home automation and if so what kind of smart home and home automation? TG ID: Sent13
Yes — IoTeX will definitely have a big role in smart home / smart city. Many people confuse blockchain + IoT as just storing IoT data on the blockchain, but it is way more than that. Blockchain and digital signatures can revolutionize the way we share access to our IoT devices and data. Transparency is one of the biggest issues in IoT today, and blockchain can provide that. But we also need to think about privacy, which is why IoTeX is so special.
We are achieving this goal by working directly with hardware manufacturers to build IoTeX into their products. One device at a time — the Internet of Trusted Things is coming!
Who is your competitive at present time? How to come first position in all them? Security, scalability, data privacy are very important how did you handle these issues? TG ID: molly789
Answered the competitor question several times now, so will skip that one 
Security is inherent in blockchain — simply having distributed servers running our IoT infrastructure is a huge improvement to today. But we need more — IoTeX has built one of the most robust blockchains in the industry.
Scalability is managed by our blockchains-in-blockchain architecture. We think Layer 2 scaling has a lot of promise, and we are building out these capabilities now.
Privacy is managed by secure hardware and decentralized identity. With IoTeX products, you will be able to own your data+devices instead of having them owned by corporations today.
What role do you think IoTeX plays in increasing the adaptability of the blockchain on the global stage? TG ID: redrose2
We are bringing the first REAL products to the blockchain+IoT industry. This will help people understand that using blockchain products does not mean giving up user experience. We will show people that blockchain can add convenience, trust, and privacy to their lives!
What is the progress of business development and what are some of your commercial partnerships? TG ID: meh10gn
We are currently partnering with hand-selected hardware manufacturers to launch fully private IoT products for consumers. You can find more details here: https://www.iotex.io/securehardware
Basically, these are more B2B2C relationships (working with businesses that have end customers). We are also working on a number of B2B relationships (getting businesses to use IoTeX for their own purposes, not customers).
What is the uniqueness of IoTeX that cannot be found in others projects that’s been released so far? TG ID: tablen7
Nobody is doing the things we do — this article summarizes our work well: The Internet of Trusted Things. A machine-driven, automated, and… | by IoTeX Team | IoTeX | Medium
To what extent have been the effects of the recent bearish market on IoTeX platform? Have the recent poor market conditions hindered or stunted the platform’s progression and goals to be achieved in the nearest future? TG ID: Mission2000
Overall the bear market has not affected IoTeX that much (at least the tech side of things). It has given us time to really focus on building out our platform and also pursuing new business opportunities. The marketing side obviously has taken a hit because of the poor token price, but we have full confidence that IoTeX will be a Top 50 project very soon. I truly think we are one of the best kept secrets in crypto.
Where can you and your team see the world of blockchain in the next few years, and how will IoTeX change the landscape of the cryptocurrency space in the next few years? What do you think are the biggest problems that teams cannot solve with other projects and why are they important to solving them? TG ID: redrose2
While many other projects are only worried about very blockchain-specific issues, IoTeX is thinking even bigger about how our technology can be applied to the real world. It’s not just about who has the most TPS, it is about whose technology can have the most impact for real world use cases. IoTeX will win in this respect.
Why the name of project is IoTeX, what is story behind this name? TG ID: tablen7
Good question — IoT is obviously a big part of our project, and “ex” is for extension or expansion. So we are expanding the capabilities of IoT
In the future, what are your goals? What do you do to develop the platform and marketing for the project better? TG ID: molly789
Our future goals will be to continue to build out our platform, but also to build out new “plug-and-play” frameworks for people to use our technology. We have a concept called “Powered by IoTeX’” we will offer as an easy way for companies to hook up IoTeX to their IoT devices. This is going to be a big focus for us in 2020. We are also working on pushing IoTeX as a global standard for IoT.