An Inside Look at the XYO Network

XY Oracle Network
https://xyo.network/
Twitter: @XYOracleNetwork

The XY Oracle Network (or XYO Network for short) allows for trustless transactions to take place between location data-reliant applications, technologies and equipment. With the Internet Of Things (IOT) revolution now fully underway, any device with some sort of internet connectivity can now be connected to each other on the blockchain. The XYO Network is also able to ensure the technology of today and tomorrow such as self-driving vehicles, drones and GPS reliant infrastructure are not at risk from malicious actors looking to cause damage and harm. Decentralized, location-reliant decentralized applications (or dapps) are able to be built by developers on the blockchain agnostic platform which supports popular chains such as Ethereum, Stellar, EOS and more.

Proof of Origin

The XYO Network utilizes a “Proof of Origin” which is a bidirectional proof that a node (or more simply a device) is where the GPS data says it is using another nearby node for verification purposes. A cryptographic method known as “zero-knowledge proof” are used in these instances. These proofs provide authentication without exchanging private data, so private data is unable to be exposed or stolen. The team behind XYO Network developed the “Proof of Origin” concept from two closely related concepts used for blockchain purposes which are “Proof of Location” and “Proof of Presence.”

Network Components

There are 4 components that help run the XYO Network: Sentinels, Bridges, Archivists, and Diviners. As per the whitepaper, each component is defined below.

1. A Sentinel is a heuristic witness that observes heuristics and vouches for the certainty and accuracy by producing temporal ledgers. Sentinels produce ledgers Diviners can be certain came from the same source when using “Proof of Origin” on the ledgers.

2. A Bridge is a heuristic transcriber. The Bridge securely relays the heuristic ledgers from Sentinels to Diviners. Bridges add an additional “Proof of Origin” metadata so Diviners are sure that the heuristic ledgers weren’t altered in anyway.

3. Archivists store heuristics as part of the decentralized data set with the goal of having all historical ledgers stored. Archivists allow the XYO Network to function if data is lost or is unavailable but with reduced accuracy.

4. Diviners answer a given query by analyzing historical data that has been stored on the XYO Network. The heuristics stored on the XYO Network must have a high “Proof of Origin” to determine the accuracy and validity of the heuristic. XYO Network is a trustless system so Diviners must be incentivized to provide an honest analysis of heuristics.

Adoption

Potential adopters of the XYO Network are ecommerce corporations such as Amazon as they attempt to move towards more autonomous methods of delivery such as drones. XYO Network will allow these companies and their consumers to track packages of importance from its origin to its destination. The services industry, including companies such as Uber and Lyft are experimenting with self driving cars, so the XYO Network can help them keep a record of the location of their cars using the network.

Final Thoughts

XYO Network has a difficult task ahead to ensure they are able to implement their location based protocol. Over the years, location data has predominantly been provided by centralized sources of truth which make them susceptible to interference and vulnerable to attacks. As a result, these factors should help influence global adoption of the XYO Network as users would like to ensure their IOT enabled technology is secure at all times. The XYO Network ICO has been ongoing since March and will be wrapping up on May 20th. For additional information, check out their website at https://xyo.network/.