Caution: This article will intentionally try to exploit your imagination : )

We’re at the moment in history when exciting new technologies are becoming reality, such as robotics, blockchain, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, drones, augmented reality, cloud services and more. These would be impossible, fantasy-like things just couple decades ago. We still don’t know the exact impact they will make, yet one fact is sure: they will change the world in a big way, and a number of paradigm shifts about how we live and how we think will follow.

The pace of innovation is incredible, and I’m thankful for an opportunity to observe and participate in it.

Although there are a lot of players pushing these technologies forward, efforts are a bit scattered and lack a common denominator that will allow those technologies to talk to each other using the same language. Otherwise, properties of a uniform, coherent system cannot be achieved, and we’ll end up with only the sum of its parts.

So how can we achieve that? First off, the solution should have the following properties:

It’s a common good, and nobody has to ask permission to use it: there’s nothing to pay for. In other words, it’s open source.

It’s a standardized transparent protocol, everybody understands and knows how to use it, so each end product can to “talk” to a product from different category.

It provides a common platform for the new economy. For example, an autonomous drone could pay a micro-fee to a cloud service for a faster route to its destination, in real-time; or micro-pay to charge its batteries on a third-party station pad.

It is impossible or hard to cheat inside the system. Strong cryptography is desirable.

Each end-product has a unique identifier and it’s impossible or hard to fake or mimic it.

Reading the above, you might think that well-tested cryptography, along with the power of blockchain, is the key to the solution. As matter of fact, this combination has all the properties listed above and looks like a perfect fit.

Recently we’ve been firing on all cylinders to bring forward this missing piece of the ecosystem. We call it Internet of Everything Protocol (Open Registry previously).

So what can it do for you?

Give an unforgeable identity to any physical object

A tiny chip with built-in cryptographic functionality, which ensure a unique, uncopyable identity, can be integrated in almost any physical object to make it smart. The public portion of the identity is stored in a transparent ledger on the blockchain.

Anyone can verify an identity without relying on third parties. For example, you can check whether a ticket to an event is authentic and wasn’t duplicated.

It solves the counterfeit problem for anything from wine, perfumes and artwork, to drones, drugs and airplane parts.

It brings secure second-factor authentication to life. As an example, to implement this second factor authentication, you can make it so that your shoes and hat must be in proximity of an ATM when you’re withdrawing funds.

Some examples of authentication:

A car opens automatically with your smart shoes.

Authorize your car to open your garage door.

Vehicle will not start if tires are not authentic.

All these interactions are much more secure than a physical key you’re using to open a door.

Discover products around you

If you see some interesting product like a bike, furniture, or shoes, just use your mobile phone to discover it, read reviews, watch videos, bookmark or even purchase it right away.

Was it your friend’s product? It will also receive referral fee. Everything happens automatically.

Augmented reality devices will benefit from an open system, so they can show overlay information about objects around with interaction capabilities.

Financial transactions

Now when we have identity, financial transactions are possible between those identities:

Your clothes can receive funds for wearing them in a specific area.

A drone could pay another drone to yield the way, or purchase the fastest route from a cloud service.

A car could pay to the owner of a private road for usage.

Rent out your bike and let the renter pay the bike directly.

Proximity interactions

Since cryptography is used, proximity to any physical object is provable:

Provide unique, publicly inaccessible content for your consumers.

Give access to special offers.

Communicate with the end-consumers without them having to disclose their identity; let a CEO send a direct message, so the customers feels like they’re a part of the community.

Chat with customer support.

Reward patrons for wearing branded clothes to an event.

Possession of multiple things: collect all books in a series to ask the author a question.

Extremely targeted ads: get paid for seeing an ad.

Build guided city tours with prizes for completing all checkpoints.

Drone Delivery, Example Use-Case

We see lots of news announcements nowadays of more and more platforms are about to deliver goods with drones. Imagine a drone delivering a package to you in a city. Apart from facilitating safe flight, how does it receives access to an apartment? Not an easy problem, right?

The IoE Protocol solves the problem in a decentralized way. You can easily add a wireless chip to a drone with a cryptographic identity. Then, the manufacturer or drone owner will just need to add the drone’s identity to the IoE Protocol.

Now, when the drone is approaching the window of your apartment, an automatic window-opener will ask the drone (chip) to cryptographically sign a message, while checking the drone’s identity in the Open Registry. If the returned signature is correct, the window will be opened so that the drone can drop off the package inside and fly away.

Also, thanks to wireless connectivity, the window opener can tell when the drone flew away to close window back.

So now you have a mechanism that is much stronger than your actual door key. Also, security is fully configurable: just decide which drone owners/companies you trust.

As a bonus, soon you may be able to buy something on the street and let your own (or rented) drone deliver it to your apartment so that there’s no need to carry it around.

What’s the Internet of Everything Protocol Anyway?

It consists of:

Decentralized database on blockchain — a public good, and nobody’s in charge of it.

Ethereum smart contracts — transparent rules for the database.

Entities — physical things, such as devices, computers, vehicles, clothes, drones, printed books, packages, and virtual things, such as DNS, SSL certificates, software, etc.

Registrants — companies, brands, rights owner, etc., who add the above entities into the IoE Protocol’s database.

The Chip

To make any physical product “activated” one could use secure wireless chips with built-in cryptography.

At Chronicled, we’ve built a chip with the following properties:

Generates elliptic curve private key on first run, public key is used as identity.

Private key is stored in a secure element.

Wireless connectivity through BLE (bluetooth) with any bluetooth-enabled device (iOS library will be available as open source).

The tiny chip is able to sign a provided message cryptographically.

Replaceable battery with 3-year lifespan.

Small size and different form-factors allows integration into most product categories: