Ravencoin as a platform for Digital Twins

Ravencoin has many uses, but one of its best uses is to prove authenticity and provenance with the issuance and transfer of a digital twin token on the Ravencoin network. The digital twin token is paired with a physical item, like a rare collectible.

There are a bunch of blockchains that claim this capability, but most are missing key ingredients that make it both easy and accessible to non-crypto folks.

Why is Ravencoin better at this?

Ravencoin uses guaranteed unique names for tokens. This is useful for branding and is far easier to understand for mere mortals than a contract id in a smart contract system like Ethereum, EOS, or Tezos.

Ravencoin has built-in support for NFTs. These are tokens where there can only be one. With Ravencoin these “Unique Tokens” have a # character in them and are guaranteed at the protocol level to be unique. Example: ART#MonaLisa

Ravencoin is tightly integrated with IPFS (Inter-Planetary File System) This allows you to store a movie, photo, or other meta-data with every token. For a digital twin, this would usually be a high-res photo of the collectible item, but it could also be a video of it being signed by its creator.

Ravencoin supports sub-assets. This allows a company to brand the top-level asset to build trust, and control issuance of all sub-assets. Example: TRUSTED_CO/COLLECTIBLE_A. In this scenario, TRUSTED_CO is the only issuer than can create COLLECTIBLE_A. Other COLLECTIBLE_X tokens can be created under the TRUSTED_CO brand. Provided that TRUSTED_CO properly protects its admin key, all sub-assets can be cryptographically guaranteed to come from TRUSTED_CO. This is perfect for proof-of-authenticity. Sub-assets are also cheaper to create.

The main tokens for Ravencoin limit the characters used in the name to uppercase, so it is tricky to spoof with letters that look similar, like I (eye) and l (ell). This prevents fake digital twin tokens from being used with fake items.

Ravencoin Asset explorers already exist that will show the photos, videos, and documents attached to a digital twin token.

Multiple wallets exist for every platform that can handle these digital twin tokens. Some of these mobile wallets are open source and can be freely copied and used. Others can be white-labeled for your exclusive use.

Which kind of digital twin?

First, you need to decide which kind of digital twin token you want. There are three kinds:

A collection of fungible (all the same) tokens that act as digital twins to limited edition collectible items. Have 100 items? Create 100 tokens. Every collectible owner will get one. The expectation is that the physical item will come with its digital twin as proof-of-authenticity. Example: W_S/SPOCK_LIMITED where only 100 tokens are created.

A token per item. These are NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) where every token is guaranteed to be unique. These might look like this W_S#Spock_3of100. These tokens can each be associated with a photo of the unique item and its unique serial number.

Tokens that can only move with permission. These are Restricted Assets and always start with the $ character. The issuers of these Restricted Assets determine the rules. Let’s say Rolex had their Milsub Rolex watch which was only intended for those in the British Ministry of Defense. Rolex could create a digital twin token that’s expected to go with each special edition Rolex. They could restrict the token from moving unless the owner had a #BMOD tag. Example: $MILSUB_ROLEX with a ruleset of “#BMOD” Only the British Ministry of Defense would tag Ravencoin addresses after proof of being a member.

Example of Digital Twin Tokens

Go to: https://ravencoin.asset-explorer.com/

Search for: COLLECTION/COIN#1909VDB-VF35

Image from IPFS for unique token COLLECTION/COIN#1909VDB-VF35

This collectible is a Unique Token because it has a # embedded in the token name. Therefore there can only ever be one with that name.

Or another example representing art.

Search for: RAVENASSET/ART/CLAUDE.MONET#PO

How do I create them?

You can create tokens on any platform — Windows, Linux, Mac, iPhone, or Android phone.

For high-volume or enterprise-level operations, this can all be automated because there is a full RPC API for the Ravencoin daemon. If that sentence means nothing to you, then you might not be a programmer. No worries, I’ll describe the method for creating the tokens on your phone. Anyone can do this.

Open up the RVN Wallet. You can get it from the Apple Store or the Google Play Store. Let it sync. Jump on over to Vertbase and get 501 RVN. You can also get RVN from the tZero crypto app on your phone. How much RVN? 500 for a root asset (any qty), 100 RVN for sub-assets (any qty), 5 RVN for each Unique Asset (only 1). Get 1 extra RVN for fees which will get you a lot of transactions on the network. Take a photo of the item and send to IPFS or use this easy web uploader or this pinning service from Ravenland and you’ll get back an IPFS content identifier. It will look similar to this: QmTqu3Lk3gmTsQVtjU7rYYM37EAW4xNmbuEAp2Mjr4AV7E Send RVN to your RVN Wallet, and click on “Create Asset”. Enter a name that nobody else has used, and enter how many you want. Enter 0 for units for collectibles because that way the tokens aren’t divisible. If you’ve created all you want, then uncheck “reissuable” to signal that no more can be created. Paste in the IPFS so the photo is linked to the token. Hit the [Create] button, and the digital twins will be in your wallet. Send them along with the physical item to create a counterfeit-proof digital record of the authenticity of the physical collectible.

Advantages of a Digital Twin

A digital twin can prove the provenance of an item. Provenance is the origin and history of ownership. The digital twin token tracks ownership from issuance through each owner to the current owner, and provides an audit trail of ownership back to the issuer of the token without revealing any personal information of the owner. This prevents the counterfeiting of physical items because fake items would not be able to counterfeit a digital representative token on the Ravencoin network.

The underlying structure of Ravencoin is based on UTXOs and that means that every transaction, including every token, and even RVN, can be traced back to issuance. It is an unchanging, tamper-proof, replicated ledger that tracks every transaction, so it is a perfect audit trail for digital tokens.

On the Ravencoin network, every transfer of a digital twin token can be accompanied by a file (document, photo, movie, etc.) that can add extra provenance information or additional assurance of authenticity.

Summary

Ravencoin, as a platform, is perfectly suited to create, transfer, secure, and most importantly self-document digital tokens that represent rare physical items in the real world.