There is a time in every wildly successful company’s history where a profound change takes place. A shift in the wind’s direction. Something fresh and new that shreds the company roadmap and charts a bold, new course.

Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone is the most obvious — and celebrated — example. Netflix’s decision to drop its mail-in delivery service and embrace streaming is another.

What about XYO?

We’ve tipped our hand with our Intelligent Exchange Strategy — our plan to dominate the token market by adding XYO to multiple top 10 exchanges. We’ve cracked the top 80 tokens on CoinMarketCap within just days of that announcement!

We’ve executed our first location Smart Contract with a drone, in front of an ecstatic audience at Spatial. In doing this, we showed the world that what we’re building here is real — and was totally worth waiting for.

We’ve taken the XYO Network — Winternet — live. It is up, it is ready, and it is functional. We’ve opened a brand new world to dApp developers and invited them to build the decentralized apps of their dreams.

But we still had one more tremendous thing planned, something that we knew would change everything.

We’re expanding into…SPACE … via SpaceX!

Welcome to XYO, satellite edition. Code name “Operation Big Boy”. Code name “Operation Intergalactic Singularity”. Code name “We told you we could keep a secret”.

We’re going to dominate low earth orbit. We’re bringing the sizzle by launching our own satellite — the first of many — by hitching a ride on a massive SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

And we’ve named this satellite…EtherX.

Now it’s time to explain why we’re going to space — and what it means for the XYO network. This is the reason for the face-melting news we’ve just dropped.

XYO Network is made up of multiple mesh networks, or “meshes”. And to understand the XYO Network, you’ll have to understand these meshes.

Think of a mesh network as you would a giant net. Now, let’s assume, for this post, that downtown San Diego has its own, self-contained mesh network. All the XY Findable sentinels and phones running the XYO app (also sentinels), in the hands of people all over the downtown area, are the nodes. The connections between them — where data gets transferred back and forth — are invisible.

Because these nodes are interconnected, they can all communicate with each other. This means that if you live on K street, and you have sentinels, and a person apartment next door also has sentinels or uses the XYO app, your sentinels and phones can communicate and verify location — and Geo Mine XYO at the same time!

This would be the most straightforward route. Node A to Node B. One hop.

Now, what if you wanted to broaden your horizons a bit? What if you wanted your sentinel to communicate with a sentinel across town, on, say, B street, to verify location? If someone on B street has a sentinel or is running the XYO app on their phone, thanks to the mesh network, both sentinels can indirectly communicate through other nodes in the XYO Network.

Would this be the most straightforward route? No. But thanks to nodes and connections, you could connect to the person on B street, easily. And it would seem like it took no time at all.

The rule: The more nodes and sentinels, the stronger and more reliable the network.

Now, here’s where this all ties together.

Imagine you live in a very, very small town, population 400. And you love XYO and have a Geo Mining kit. You want to verify location with your sentinels and earn XYO tokens — you can’t wait! But you’re the only person in town who has a sentinel or is running the XYO app on their phone.

The next sentinel is 30 miles away. Out of range. So you can’t verify location or Geo Mine.

So, how are we going to link these numerous, self-contained, geographically dispersed mesh networks? How can a person with a sentinel in Erwin, Tennessee communicate with a person who has a mining kit in Paris, France?

Satellites.

The satellites will enhance the XYO network, making it more robust, reliable and connected.

Our ultimate goal has always been to have our own network of LEO satellites so sentinels can communicate all over the world.

Through our partner Spaceflight Industries, we’re sending our first LEO satellite (EtherX) into space late next year! And EtherX will be part of the payload of a SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket.

That’s right. We’re hitching a ride on a SpaceX rocket, and launching our first XYO satellite into space. As a company, this is our first step in developing a massive, private network of LEO satellites, so that we can disrupt GPS and deliver location (and other types of data) to people and businesses all over the planet.

This is a big chunk of our mission for 2019, a literal moonshot that will level up our Winternet and deliver reliability, enhanced location data, and better coverage.

And we’ll be catching you up with a blog post every month leading up to our SpaceX launch, all the way up to that thrilling moment when that Falcon 9 rocket achieves lift-off, and takes XYO to the skies above!