In the future, machines will be the primary workforce. MachineFi is a new paradigm fueled by Web3 that underpins the new machine economy, whereby machine resources and intelligence can be financialized to deliver value and ownership to the people, not centralized corporations.
MachineFi realizes the vision that devices are owned by the people and serve the people. By joining the machine economy, people can now fully monetize their devices and associated digital assets on a global scale.
Introduction
Machines are emerging in our homes, businesses, and cities at a blistering
rate. In 2020, more than 150 new machines were activated every second,
connecting the physical and digital worlds like never before. By 2030,
McKinsey predicts machines will outnumber humans by 10:1 and generate
more than $12 trillion in economic value. From smart thermostats and
fitness trackers to connected vehicles, solar panels, and satellites,
machines are being inserted into practically every facet of the global
economy and our personal lives. But as we marvel at the new machine
economy that is blossoming before our very eyes, we must pause and ask
ourselves: who will own these billions of machines and this future machine
economy?
We are at a pivotal moment in human history. Trust in our institutions is at
an all-time low, while the desire for control and ownership from users is
growing by the day. Over the past decade, centralized corporations have
been the gatekeepers and sole beneficiaries of the largest technology
revolution in human history. Tech giants control our devices, monitor our
activities, mine our data, and earn huge profits with no value returned to
users. Now is the time for change. By re-architecting our world using
blockchain and Web3 technology, we can guarantee that the trillion-dollar
machine economy provides value, control, and opportunity to everyday
people, not omnipotent corporations.
This is the essence of MachineFi. With IoTeX 2.0, we are embarking on a new
journey to equip machines with all of the tools they need to be selfsovereign and allow users to monetize the unique services and intelligence
from their machines. Since day one, we have always believed that
machines, not humans, will one day be the largest users of blockchain. With
MachineFi, we will turn this belief into action.
In this Vision Paper, we are proud to share our long-term vision for
MachineFi, as well as an overview of the IoTeX 2.0 protocols and products
that will make our MachineFi vision a reality. By realizing this vision IoTeX will
lead the masses in transitioning from centralized control to decentralized
freedom, empowering users to own and control their machines, as well as
the data and value their machines generate. Join us on our mission to
enable millions of users to capture the value from the future machine
economy and expand the possibilities of the Metaverse, Web3 world, and
beyond.
MachineFi will connect the Real World and Metaverse
The MachineFi Vision
Machines Will Be Our Future Workforce
The convergence of artificial intelligence, blockchain, 5G connectivity,
virtual reality, and other frontier technologies has sparked a technological
revolution that is fundamentally transforming the way society operates.
Although these technologies have evolved independently over time, they
are becoming increasingly intertwined and packaged into a new productive
asset: intelligent and autonomous machines.
What seemed like science fiction only a few years ago is now becoming a
reality in the budding machine economy. Autonomous taxis are now
delivering the first driverless rides. Doctors are now performing surgeries
from thousands of miles away using remote surgical systems. Warehouses
are now utilizing robots that match or even exceed the mobility, dexterity,
and agility of people. Security cameras are now providing surveillance-asa-service with alarmingly accurate facial recognition. And governments
around the world are now investing heavily in the next generation of robot
armies and drones. Across every industry, machines are not only
collaborating with human workers, but are also replacing cohorts of human
workers altogether.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) predicts that 50% of all jobs will be partially
automated by 2030, and Deloitte estimates that 30% of the world’s workers
will be replaced entirely by machines within the next 20 years. Whether we
are ready or not, machines will inevitably comprise the majority of our
world’s future workforce.
Which begs the question:
Who will own these
billions of machines and the future
machine economy?
Community-Owned
Machine Networks
The infrastructure that powers our modern world, often called
Web 2.0, relies on centralized servers and vertically integrated
tech stacks that are controlled exclusively by corporations. The
centralized nature of Web 2.0, amplified by corporations’
capitalistic focus on profits over trust, has unleashed
consequences for users such as data breaches, censorship,
and targeted advertising that are now impossible to rein back in.
If we apply this Web 2.0 philosophy to the new machine
economy, our future workforce of billions of machines will be
monopolized by the same corporations that have exploited our
trust time and time again.
It is time to change the status quo. Thanks to blockchain
technology, a paradigm shift known as Web 3.0 has come to life
which aims to replace corporate-owned, centralized networks
with community-owned, decentralized networks. Key benefits
that are not inherent in a Web 2.0 structure, such as
composability, free market incentives, and user-ownership, are
built-in to Web 3.0 by design
I. Composability
The ability for anyone in a network of distributed participants to leverage
the work of others to create new solutions in a collaborative, communitydriven fashion. Developers can bootstrap their own projects and
communities without starting from scratch by leveraging the collective
mindshare of all network participants to fuel innovation
II. Free Market Incentives
The prices for goods and services in a Web 3.0 network are defined in a
peer-to-peer (P2P) fashion by users that interact with each other without
centralized intermediaries. P2P networks are self-regulated and open to
everyone, where participation is driven not by top-down mandates but by
transparent incentives
III. Community Ownership
Unlike centralized networks that generally gravitate towards zero-sum
relationships where value is extracted from network participants,
decentralized networks reward users that contribute and utilize the
network by delivering ownership/equity of the network in a meritocratic
fashion
The above benefits are paramount to ensure the future of MachineFi is open, fair, and
most importantly community-owned. Only with the creativity and productivity of
pioneering developers and users can MachineFi reach its full potential. Specifically for
bootstrapping machine networks, which are capital-intensive with high upfront costs, the
composability and community-driven nature of Web 3.0 removes significant barriers to
entry by applying free-market incentives to raise capital, build communities, and scale
the network to new heights.
Proof of Anything
“Proof of Work” and “Proof of Stake” are common terms in crypto, but are
often mislabeled as consensus mechanisms. In fact, these are actual
proofs that an entity must provide to the blockchain in order to receive
rewards, permissions, or other benefits. For Bitcoin, if a miner proves that
they have done the work and calculated the correct hash, then they are
granted the right to mint the next block and earn a reward. For Ethereum, if
a validator proves to the blockchain they have staked sufficient ETH tokens,
then they are granted permission to be a network validator. But what if the
“proofs” we provide to a blockchain could also include things that everyday
people and businesses did in the real world?
Proof of Anything:
IoTeX machines deliver proofs of real world activity to the blockchain
real-time GPS location from an asset tracker like Pebble
Proof of Presence:
health-related metrics from a fitness tracker or wearable
Proof of Health:
driving patterns or specific routes taken from a vehicle
Proof of Safety:
building’s energy efficiency score from a smart meter.
Just as Chainlink jump-started the DeFi renaissance by establishing a
“single version of truth” of crypto-asset prices, IoTeX will establish a “single
version of the truth” for things that happened in the real world. Smart home
devices, wearables, vehicles, and all types of devices can adopt our
MachineFi concept to become “proof generators” where the proofs will be
fed as inputs to smart contracts in order to trigger on-chain actions.
For example, insurance companies can reward homeowners every time
they prove they have locked their homes, which is a win-win scenario for all
parties. Possibilities are also abound in gaming, where proof of real-world
activity can transfer to your in-game characters — by proving you are
improving your health in the real world using healthcare wearables, your ingame character can also receive more health points. Finally, by proving your
vehicle’s GPS location, you may be able to receive on-chain offers from
nearby restaurants or receive token rewards for contributing intelligence to
a map application like Waze.
Mirroring the Real World to the Metaverse
By connecting the real world to the digital world, MachineFi will open a brand
new design space for blockchain builders where, for the first time, users can
earn digital assets or digital reputation based on their real world actions that
are captured/verified by machines. The impact of MachineFi grows even
further when considering the Metaverse, which will be an immersive virtual
world that can mirror events in the real world thanks to IoTeX:
I. Physical World
The world we experience with our bodies and five senses. In particular, the
physical world contains communication, computing, and storage resources
(i.e., tangible assets) that are required for supporting operations of the
Metaverse
II. Digital Transformation
By capturing the status of physical objects, we can create digital twins of
every object in every place to build seamless connections and two-way
interactions between the physical and virtual worlds. MachineFi will serve as
a composable and user-centric computing fabric that enables real world
users/machines and virtual users/machines to exchange value in a
trustworthy manner.
III. Metaverse
An immersive, computer-simulated environment with specific spatial and
physical characteristics. The Metaverse provides a vibrant, parallel world
that enables users to participate in virtual activities, gain virtual status, and
interact with other virtual beings via virtual avatars
Machines, encoded with human intelligence,
will soon be the dominant workforce in the
real world, constantly listening, watching, and
monitoring our activities.
These facts can be used to program the metaverse, enriching virtual
applications with real world information. For example, if you prove you have lost
10 pounds in the real world by connecting your smart scale to IoTeX, then your
metaverse avatar may look slimmer as well. If you prove that you have traveled
to many countries in the real world, then your metaverse avatar may also gain
this real world perspective and unlock new “countries” in the metaverse. And
finally, if you prove that you are a good driver via your vehicle’s telemetry data,
your metaverse avatar may receive permissions in the metaverse to use new
types of virtual vehicles. An infinite number of possibilities awaits!
Enabling the Metaverse to Program the Real World
Play-to-Earn is one of the most innovative concepts in crypto today. Within this
new GameFi industry, users can perform actions in the digital world to earn
digital assets and digital reputation. By mirroring events in the real world to the
metaverse, IoTeX expands on the Play-to-Earn concept by enabling users to
perform actions in the real world to earn digital assets or digital reputation.
This is an innovative concept, but even more groundbreaking is the opportunity
to use the metaverse to program the real world. In other words, enabling users
to perform actions in the virtual world (metaverse) to earn rewards and
benefits in the real world.
The metaverse is still in its infancy, and there is much to discover about how
the metaverse will be built, adopted, and scaled. Regardless of how the
metaverse evolves from here, one thing is clear: building a two-way bridge
between the real world and the metaverse will enable all types of intelligence
to be synchronized and massive network effects to be captured. By instituting
incentives in the metaverse to complete missions, contribute mindshare, or
provide resources, metaverse builders will be able to leverage the borderless
user base and open incentives that crypto has popularized to bootstrap new
virtual ecosystems.
