Moonaco Podcast TL;DRs

[ - by Ness]

Moonaco Podcast Episode 64: In this episode, Thomas was joined by Dave de Fijter of the IOTA Foundation.

Dave de Fijter got into crypto back in 2010/11, when Bitcoin slowly started making its way into the world. He started mining, collecting, and trading coins but somehow left the space again. In 2017 Dave came back and had a closer look into Ethereum. But he was left being disappointed by its performance. On Reddit, he finally discovered IOTA and got involved. As a moderator, at first he became the bridge between the IF and the community. Today, Dave is the Director of Engineering of the Smart Contracts team and a member of the Technical Committee.

What are Smart Contracts? To put it simply: “Programmability added on top of a distributed ledger”. People can rely on the authenticity of the program, which creates trust. Smart Contracts can be used for voting, governance and financial things – just to mention a few – without relying on one single party hosting the infrastructure.

When it comes to IOTA, the foundation is currently working on the ShimmerEVM to bring Smart Contracts to IOTA. While other chains are just taking the EVM, put it on top, and they’re done. IOTA went the extra mile. They created a dashboard and a specific consensus module. In the last year the focus was on the specific output types of the chain as well as on the work with native assets like NFTs. Furthermore, they needed to be able to anchor the EVM to Layer 1. At the current state, Dave is pretty happy with how things are turning out. They also extended the EVM support and the next step would be to put the ShimmerEVM on the testnet.

Compared to other chains, the architecture of IOTA allows anyone to start a Layer 2 and a lot of chains can run in parallel. They are able to communicate directly via Layer 1, and you can transfer L1 assets to a L2 chain. This is also called “magic contract”. You just send L2 tokens to it and they “magically” become an ERC20 token.

Why would people and projects from other networks move to IOTA/Shimmer? Besides the scalable and flexible architecture of IOTA, especially Shimmer provides a good reason for this change: the first mover advantage. A lot of projects want to become market leaders, but this is hard on established networks. If Shimmer is successful, chances are high, the projects can profit from it. Dave himself doesn’t see a problem in spreading the word and attracting people from outside our ecosystem to use Shimmer and IOTA.

And last but not least, we all want to know about the timeframes of the ShimmerEVM. Unfortunately, Dave couldn’t give us an exact timeline. But here are some of the upcoming steps:

• During the last months: working hard to make the release testnet ready
• Currently: setting up the testnet, doing some general tests and the first projects already started internal testing
• Coming up: ensure that the chain is running stable and is ready for value use
• Launch of the Shimmer EVM
• After extensive testing, it will be launched on IOTA as well

Dave expects that in the best case scenario, it will take a couple of months, until everything is available on IOTA as well.

[ - by Ness]

EnergieKnip has built a local green currency on IOTA to drive energy efficiency in homes. The non-profit organization BlockchainLab Drenthe started with spreading knowledge about blockchains, giving guest lectures at university and building several blockchain applications.

When the city of Emmen reached out to them to find a solution to grant people subsidies for saving energy, EnergieKnip was born. They designed an app that the city can use to give out the subsidies, and the people can only spend it on energy saving measures. Since crypto is tightly regulated in the Netherlands, they first had to go into talks with the National Bank to ask if they were allowed to launch a local currency in the municipality of Emmen. The National Bank agreed, and EnergieKnip launched their own currency based on IOTA.

They designed an app with two purposes:

1. Collect information anonymously.

2. Reward people for sharing that information by giving them subsidies they can spend in local hardware stores.

To comply with the GDPR rules, EnergieKnip did a physical air drop. They gave a letter with a QR code to 50,000 households, that they randomly distributed. By doing this, no one knows which QR code belongs to which household. On January 11th, 2022, the first letters with a QR code were distributed.

By scanning the QR code, people can download the app and install the wallet on their phone. After that, they are asked to answer 27 questions about their behavior, their house and their energy saving measures. The answers are then sent to the municipality of Emmen through the IOTA tangle. As a reward for answering the questions, the people receive an equivalent of 50 euros on their wallet in the local cryptocurrency. They can use this subsidy to buy energy saving measures in ten different hardware stores in Emmen.

The shop owner of the participating stores also received a QR code and a wallet. When somebody paid with the local currency, they send the coins back to the municipality and receive the euros directly to their bank account.

But why did they choose IOTA to build EnergieKnip? Basically, there are four reasons for that:

1. Feeless

2. Enough capacity

3. Fast enough

4. And most importantly: it uses very little energy!

After introducing EnergieKnip the participation went crazy. Prior to this, when the city of Emmen gave out paper vouchers as subsidy, only 16% were claimed. With EnergieKnip 100% of the money was claimed within 13 days. So, the city decided to double the money, and again it took only 11 days until all the subsidies were claimed. A huge success and a win-win-win-win situation for the municipality of Emmen, the people living in Emmen, the retailers and the environment.

EnergieKnip in Emmen was such a big success, that two other cities in the Netherlands contacted them and the first two spin-offs were created. The first spin-off, VitalityKnip, rewards 1,000 employees by giving them 50 euros per quarter in a stable coin. The second spin-off in the city of Heerlen uses the system to distribute money to people who can’t pay their energy bills. The city gave the purpose-bound money to 20,000 families who were in financial trouble. In total, they gave out five million euros.

What’s next to come?

There are already three successful projects in the Netherlands, but this is just the beginning. Adri sees a lot of potential in their system and presents some other areas where it could be used.

- Tourism: Giving tourists the opportunity to answer questions regarding their stay by providing QR codes in hotels. They are then rewarded with coins they can spend at local stores or museums.

- Battle heat stress in city centers: People who are living in the city center could receive a QR code and a subsidy. They could use this money to buy plants for their garden that offer shadow.

- Promote health and enable people to visit a fitness center.

- Weapons buyback program in the US: The police buys back guns at market price, but instead of USD people would receive a local crypto currency that they can then use in local retail.

- Opportunities for children: Especially children of poor families don’t always have the opportunity to participate in a local sports team. Municipalities as well as organizations could use the system to offer subsidies to low-income families.

- Arts and culture: In Germany teenagers who turn 18 receive 200 euros to spend on local arts and culture. This could also be done via a crypto wallet with a purpose-bound coin.

Those are only a few ideas of what is possible with the EnergieKnip system, and in the future they also want to work with projects outside the Netherlands. Even the German Bundesbank already contacted them to talk about regional currencies.

As a next step, BlockchainLab Denthre is working on a MultiKnip where people can have several coins for several purposes.

And to give you some hopium: “IOTA is one of the best projects at the moment.” But Adri gives one advice for other projects: Just start building instead of waiting for what’s coming next. IOTA is developing so fast that there will always be something better to come, but you can’t wait forever to finally start putting your idea to action.

[ - by DigitalSoulx]

In an attempt to fix the issues that plagued the early IOTA protocol (~2018), Hans completed much research. Only 5 or 6 distinct approaches could be found in the various cryptocurrency white papers of the time.

At its heart, a DLT is essentially a “voting mechanism”. Satoshi’s Nakamoto Consensus had two notable innovations:

1. This consensus included a mechanism to infer knowledge about the chain with the most votes by encoding information through a simple hash. This allows consensus to be reached without the exchanging of votes.
2. Rather than asking every node to make a decision, you ask a random subset of nodes.

These innovations allow Nakamoto Consensus to scale well, but still, confirmation times are slow.

The IOTA protocol has evolved such that development has converged on the current solution — as if it had been there all along, waiting to be discovered. For this reason it makes sense that the solution would confirm our current understanding of physics and nature. It turns out that this is the case: the parallel-reality solution allows for the superposition of multiple ledger states until one reality “wins” and the others collapse and die (similar to “Schrödinger’s Cat” in physics). However, coding this solution is quite difficult, because there are actually 7 or 8 DAGs that are overlaid on top of one another!

In the future, it makes sense to assume that users will migrate to a network that is faster, more secure, or cheaper than their current network. So, it is conceivable that many of the current networks will eventually be obsolete in favor of a handful (L1 or L0 networks) with the best tech. We are almost at the point where it is not a question of “if” the tech works, but “when” it will be available to the public. Hans’ biggest concern at the moment is not tech-related, but financial. He is concerned about the IOTA Foundation’s runway and ability to weather the current economic storm.

Philosophically, DLT is an evolution of how humans keep track of things (bookkeeping, for example) and how we organize ourselves. DLT improves on the time-tested accounting methods humans have developed. Instead of single-entry or double-entry accounting, IOTA incorporates triple-entry accounting: rather than simply maintaining separate ledgers for the parties involved in a transaction, the transaction instructions are stored on a public ledger.

One way to further improve the scalability of IOTA in the future is through ZK Rollups. This approach can prove that a statement is true without directly referencing the statement, and this information can be used to compress computations off-chain (via L2). Then, a statement can be posted on-chain to prove an entire batch of computations. This can vastly improve network throughput while preventing “cheating” by validators.

One possible criticism of ZK Rollups is that if they gain popularity, what use might remain for the base layer? The vast majority of transactions could be rolled into batches off-chain, reducing the usefulness of the underlying network. Hans would prefer to use the ZK tech to prove correctness of an adjacent shard within a network to enable horizontal scaling.

Regarding the use of Mana in IOTA 2.0, it’s ready for deployment in its current format but it will eventually be changing. Currently in the congestion control algorithm, Mana can be spent in predefined intervals, for example every few hours. In the future, Mana accrues and can be spent as needed. In the end this is just a scheduler issue and not particularly difficult to code. However, the improved Mana algorithm may not arrive until after coordicide.

In Hans’ view, the user experience is the most important concern and the best way to bring new developers to the IOTA ecosystem. Tools must be made available to devs and they must be easy to use. Some innovative tools that are currently being considered are Layer 1 Smart Contracts, MoveVM, Fuel, etc.

Hans has been vocal in his criticism of Assembly. This is primarily because Assembly effectively takes use-cases away from the Layer 1 (IOTA). DLT’s are in the business of selling block space. The only way that Mana increases in value is if the network is congested and Mana can be sold for throughput. The IOTA token is in a similar situation. A possible solution is to implement Layer 1 Smart Contracts: this would drive value and use-cases for IOTA and the IOTA token.

Recently, Hans has been working on refactoring the way states are organized (for instance, how to handle transactions if a node crashes). While this work is done now, it took longer than expected. This is because the technology is so new and different, existing modules from other block-based protocols could not be reused.

When the MVP is stable (at the latest mid-Feb per Hans), there are still a number of steps that will need to be completed before IOTA 2.0 will be on the mainnet (non-exhaustive):

• The code will need to be moved to the hornet codebase
• Audit companies will need time to review the codebase
• The new framework will need to integrated with APIs
• The wallet software will need to be updated
• Exchange integrations can take a significant amount of time (as we know)

In closing, Hans mentioned that the most important thing for IOTA now is to regain market confidence to overcome the mistakes of the past.

[ - by Ness]

Moonaco Podcast Episode 49: In this episode, Thomas was joined by Kappy of Nakama Labs.

Kappy has been working in traditional finance for 15 years and experienced the inefficient processes there. When he dived into DeFi, he saw all the opportunities crypto provides, and they started Nakama Labs.

Nakama Labs is a web3 venture fund focusing on Shimmer. The team currently consists of 20 to 25 people working directly or indirectly via partnerships for Nakama Labs. Right now, Nakama Labs is following two strategies:

1. Building and partnering with builders in the ecosystem
2. Direct investments in web3 teams

The community though can’t invest directly into Nakama Labs since there are many legal hurdles for the project to receive funding from too many people. But the team is currently working on creating a system and Tokenomics that benefit all stakeholders to launch a token in the future. For now, the community can get involved in the underlying projects of Nakama Labs like Accumulator and DeeprFinance.

Accumulator is a yield aggregator that compounds the interest that you can earn on a DEX, whereas DeeprFinance is a lending protocol. The protocol allows you to borrow assets based on overcollateralized positions. Before borrowing an asset, you first have to lend another asset into the market. You can also create leverage positions and by borrowing an asset at a low interest, there is the possibility to create arbitrage opportunities.

As soon as the Shimmer EVM Beta goes live, both platforms will be launched shortly after. With the launch of a lot of DeFi projects on the Shimmer EVM, Kappy sees a big disadvantage of the community. Most of the people haven’t experienced much in the web3 and DeFi world so that it is key that the community educates themselves on the opportunities and the risks that arise with dApps. Accumulator as well as DeeprFinance will both provide tutorials and articles about how to use the platforms. Users can then test the platforms with a test token. To incentivize the community to learn and test the platform, the team plans several airdrops of tokens and NFTs. Even if you are not a tech-pro, you can still take part in these airdrops. On DeeprFinance for example, you will have to perform tasks like providing collateral or borrowing an asset to qualify for the airdrops. Details TBD.

When deciding on which network to build on, the team quickly came to an answer: IOTA. And for its new staging network Shimmer, Kappy sees three major UPS:

1. The randomized order consensus: in other EVMs the highest bidder is normally the first transaction within a block. The Shimmer EVM however randomizes the order consensus. By doing this, validators and bots can’t manipulate the order to steal value from other users.
2. Feelessly mint tokens and NFTs and transfer them feelessly since the Shimmer consensus is on Layer 1.
3. Transaction finality within seconds and without fees. Compared to traditional banking systems where you pay high fees and sometimes have to wait for days for your transaction to pass, this fast and feeless finality is huge.

[ - by Ness]

Moonaco Podcast 44: In this episode, Thomas was joined by the bestselling author Anndy Lian.

Anndy Lian bought his first Bitcoin back in 2013. Since 2017 he is diving deeper and deeper into the crypto space. Starting as a project owner, he is now working as advisor for governments and companies. Understanding how governments think makes it easier for projects and investors to know which steps to take and which risks to avoid. Besides his job, he is also investing privately in different projects.

Two months ago, he published his second book “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and already sold over 9,000 copies of it. The book is also available as NFT book. Anndy mentioned two main reasons that inspired to him to write the book:

1. Many consultants in the crypto space charge extremely high sums and make NFTs sound like a really complex thing. So, Lian wants to help people understand what NFTs are, how you can launch a NFT project and how you can implement it in your portfolio, to prevent people from being scammed.

2. Especially now, many people claim that “NFTs are dead”. Anndy proves them wrong and published his book as a NFT to show the community that everything is possible.

Right now, he sees one major problem in NFTs: there is no way to grow as long as people see NFTs only as JPGs or GIFs. In his eyes, NFTs need real utility to be successful. Therefore, NFTs should be speculative and usable at the same time. As an example, he mentions tickets as NFTs. They provide utility by allowing the owner entrance to the concert. At the same time, the NFT could rise in value, if it is a ticket of the last concert of a band.

NFTs are also a great opportunity for big companies. Anndy describes some low-hanging fruits for companies, like royalty point cards, that could be easily converted into NFTs. As an advisor for several large companies and governments, he knows exactly how far the implementation of crypto technology is. Besides almost all large Korean enterprises, there are also a lot of charity projects that are already using crypto technology.

Anndy is not only a fan of NFTs, but he also believes in IOTA. Back then, IOTA was one of the first cryptos he put his money in. Although he sold his IOTA in the meantime, he truly believes that IOTA has the chance to grow since the people are still around and believe in the success of the project. If it were up to him, IOTA would also be the one to successfully integrate crypto technology in the automotive industry. But there were also two things he had to criticize:

1. The board of the foundation should be more divers and include more Asians who know the Asian market.

2. IOTA needs to re-strategize its marketing. (Which wasn’t possible so far due to the strict regulations in Germany)

As an early supporter of the technology, Anndy is looking forward to getting to know the foundation and the founders themselves better and to talk to them about possible opportunities.

Anndy’s message to the crypto world: Crypto is not a war! Don’t make the whole crypto scene look silly by fighting over different projects. You can still compliment another project or currency other than your favorite one.

So stay tuned for upcoming talks with Anndy and the IF!

[ - by Ness]

Moonaco Podcast 38: In this episode, SpecWeekly host Kutkraft is taking over the podcast to speak with no less a person than Dominik Schiener.

Currently there is one thing we all want to know more about: the Shimmer launch.

According to Dom, the technology for the Shimmer launch is pretty much there. So, the one major thing that determines the timeline at this moment are the exchanges. As soon as Shimmer is live, we don’t want to wait for another month to be able to make use of our Shimmer token. That’s why Shimmer will launch as soon as the exchanges are ready to list the token.

The Shimmer network launch will include three major components:

1. The launch of the Layer 1 network: Shimmer provides the opportunity to simultaneously confirm transactions. Through the extension of a native asset framework, anybody can then create, mint and transfer assets on the protocol.
2. The listing of the Shimmer token on exchanges: With the launch of the Shimmer network, the Shimmer token can be transferred freely within the network. To establish a more or less stable price of the token, it is important that it is listed on exchanges.
3. The Shimmer EVM launch: Shimmer EVM will be the first blockchain on the Shimmer network, while the long-term vision of Shimmer is to become a multichain network. You can then use any smart contract from any chain on the Shimmer EVM. With the Shimmer launch, the stardust protocol update is also feature complete.

With the launch of Shimmer some might think that IOTA could be neglected. But this will not be the case since IOTA is a core part of the strategy with Shimmer. As Shimmer is the staging network for IOTA, new features will first be tested on Shimmer before IOTA will then implement them. However, the plan for Shimmer is to become an independent Layer 1 network within the IOTA ecosystem.

The further evolution of Shimmer can be considered as soon as IOTA achieved its roadmap. Currently, there are quite some steps on the roadmap like Mana, multichain possibilities, the launch of economic incentives for those holding IOTA tokens on Layer 1 to generate Mana, the introduction of a leaderless consensus, a shared security as well as Zero-Knowledge VMs.

Besides the Shimmer launch, Kutkraft and Dom also talked about the decentralized random number generator (dRNG) and the advantages of NFTs and tokens being on-chain. While random functions are a core part of dApps, for now, they have to source this randomness from external smart contracts. One USP of IOTA therefore is, that this dRNG is needed for the smart contract solutions to come to consensus and everybody has access to this randomness function. This allows a fair and cheap decentralization of applications building on IOTA.

Another important feature is the on-chain storage of data. Currently, NFT data is stored on IPFS Layer 2 which creates a dependency on the protocol. It also bears the risk of the data being deleted if it is not stored on-chain. IOTA provides a solution for this: When creating a NFT you have immutable data, just a few KB, that you can store directly on-chain. This innovative approach will become especially important for GameFi.

And for all the Degens out there: While the ecosystem is building a lot of applications and drives the adoption of IOTA, Dom mentioned that IOTA is also perfectly positioned with corporate adoption and that some big companies already reached out to the IF in the past twelve months.

[ - by Ness]

Moonaco Podcast 32: In this episode, Thomas was joined by Vitaly from the GAT Network.

GAT Network is a multichain toolbox for NFTs that was launched on the Binance Smart Chain in May 2021. GAT is not a single on-chain project, but rather a set of connected on-chain projects focused on NFTs, Trading and Gaming.

It all started back in 2020 with the idea of a NFT game. The first game they launched was a Play-to-Earn game named “Alchemy Toys”. Players can collect NFTs that function as playing cards and combine them to create new cards of a higher value. They also have the opportunity to burn their whole collection and receive a share of the treasury.

But there was one problem: no marketplace on the BSC provided the features that were needed for the game. So, the team of GAT Network decided to develop their own marketplace: MintedVodka. MintedVodka is a multi-chain marketplace that has several unique features like flexible trading and layer minting. The platform also gives indie game developers the possibility to participate in the NFT market, just as digital artists do right now by offering Game Minting and Software Minting. Never heard of Software Minting? Instead of a digital picture, the NFT you mint contains a software package that you can download and use as long as you own the NFT.

So, what has this to do with IOTA? Roman Semko and Vitaly, two of the founding members of GAT Network, originally come from the IOTA ecosystem. In 2017 Roman helped to develop some of the node software for IOTA. As soon as IOTA announced that Smart Contracts would soon be available on the assembly, there was only one logic consequence for the team: come back home and build on IOTA. Currently GAT Network is working on the second version of MintedVodka which will then be released on Shimmer and Assembly. The goal is to become the place to be for NFT projects and creators on the Assembly network.

[ - by Mart]

Moonaco Podcast 29: In this episode, Thomas was joined by Benjamin from the ETO Group.

ETO Group is active in many different sectors, for example in the field of commercial vehicles and automotive industry products. They have locations around the world and currently about 2500 people work for the ETO Group.

They found out about IOTA by a “lucky incident” in 2020, when Benjamin met Markus Hoppa from Filancore and attended a panel discussion about IOTA. The reason they build with IOTA technology today, is simple. They need a feeless, scalable and secure platform for their business cases. They reviewed other DLT protocols but saw the biggest potential in IOTA.

ETO Group hopes to release their first product, agricultural, solar-powered sensors for farmers towards the end of 2022. This product will feature different sensors for soil or weather conditions. The data will be verified with IOTA technology and farmers can freely decide what they want to do with their data. They can use the sensors to get trustworthy data, they can sell their data on a market place or they can just buy data from other participants.

ETO Group is also involved in other IOTA related projects, namely the ALFRIED project which aims to enhance and optimize traffic infrastructure.

Regarding the IOTA token: ETO Group received an early version of the Firefly mobile wallet about 7-8 months ago. When their agricultural sensors launch, participants will not only be able to buy / sell data with FIAT, but also with IOTA. Nobody will be forced to complete KYC processes or buy tokens on an exchange though. Benjamin said it will be a little surprise, but they think they found an interesting solution that makes everything as easy as possible, even for people who aren’t as familiar with technology.

Podcast 31: In this episode, Thomas was joined by Chip, core team member of Apeswap and co-founder of ApeLabs

At the start of June, Chip held a DeFi-course in cooperation with Tanglesea and ApeDAO. If you are interested in learning more about DeFi you can have a look at the courses at ApeLabs.

In the podcast, Chip talked about DeFi in general, what the advantages and disadvantages are and how the implementation of DeFi can affect the IOTA Token. The traditional financial system is outdated and DeFi can revolutionize finances. An educated market and educated builders are key for a working DeFi space, therefore ApeLabs was founded.

What is DeFi? DeFi is a better term for financial transactions running on blockchains and describes all financial activities without any intermediaries or custody. Instead DeFi uses Smart Contracts.

What are the advantages of DeFi? DeFi is 24/7 accessible, available and permissionless. Furthermore it provides a way to escape the surveillance systems in the first world. So it brings back the power of finance to the people.

Are there any disadvantages? Chip says that the biggest problem with DeFi is that you need to have knowledge of what you are doing since transactions on blockchains are final. He also talked about the security issues with DeFi. Here are some tips on how to stay safe in the DeFi space according to Chip: don’t fall for phishing links, keep your private keys safe and always do your own research!

For the Degens out there: Chip sees a ton of demand for the IOTA Token as soon as DeFi activities like Dapps and DEXs are implemented in the IOTA ecosystem. Although it might take some more time until IOTA is broadly adopted, Chip ensures that the time waiting is worth it.

[ - by Mart]

General overview of the episode:

In this episode, Thomas was joined by Markus Soppa from Filancore GmbH.

Filancore was founded in 2019, and is focused on DID (Decentralized identity) and SSI (self-sovereign identity). The plan is to bring the technology into the industry and to interested companies. One of their main goals is to make it as easy as possible for customers to use their solution, so that the customers can fully focus on their business.

The first version of Filancore’s product is complete, but the product itself is not yet finalized. The decision to use IOTA was obvious, though: The underlying DLT protocol needs to be scalable for thousands or millions of devices, energy efficient, and feeless.

Besides the ETO group (with whom they have partnered for several projects), they have more in the pipeline. Some are still under NDA, and some will be announced by their partners at a later point.

The former IOTA Identity Lead Jelle Millenaar, who is now founding his own company to work with IOTA Identity, had advised them in the past. He is now set to become a “competitor”, but Markus is optimistic that they will have a fruitful cooperation in the future.

For the degens out there: It is unlikely that you will have a chance to invest in Filancore in the near future. Regulations in Germany are very strict. Filancore was thinking about a security token offering, but this is still to be decided in the future.

If you are interested in their work, you can contact them on Twitter: @FilancoreGmbH or on LinkedIn: Markus Soppa.

[ - by Mart]

General overview of the episode:

In this episode, Thomas was joined by Dr Michele Nati, Head of Telco and Infrastructure Development of the IOTA Foundation. Dr Nati gives insights into projects such as TMForum, EBSI, and more that collaborate with IOTA developments and solutions.

TMForum:

• An alliance with more than 800 stakeholders from the field of telecommunication
• The IOTA Foundation is part of several “Catalyst Programs”, where new solutions to existing problems are being explored – for example, infrastructure as a service
• Different providers could share infrastructure on demand on a “Telco asset manager marketplace“
• IOTA is working on getting Telco APIs “ledger-ready”

European Grants:

IOTA is part of 4 – 5 sector-specific projects, for example:

• ORCHESTRA: Coordination and synchronization of traffic management
• SECANT: Security of health data and medical devices
• ENSURESEC: E-commerce security
• Working on APIs for IOTA Streams and IOTA Identity as a service

Importance of the projects:

• Generate value and connect with the right partners
• For the community: Giving them building blocks, so they can focus on other areas of their projects

EBSI (European Blockchain Services Infrastructure):

• Creating a pan-European distributed ledger infrastructure; member states can then offer different services to their citizens

The current phase (2A) includes two projects:

• Digital product passport: Tracking the life of a good from creation to recycling
• Intellectual property rights management: Help creatives to track the use of their work, transfer intellectual property, and get compensation
• A digital product passport will help to create circular economies – these are only possible with IOTA’s accessibility and scalability

Academia & IOTA:

• Leverage the large network of universities’ industrial partners
• Validate the core research through the peer-review process

Digital Wallet:

• IOTA Foundation not involved right now, but following the process and progress
• Once the framework for the wallet is finalized, IOTA will work to be fully compliant
• Use case example: Buying age-restricted items on the internet using verifiable credentials – secure, fast, and your data stays with you