What Is ioNEM?

In the world of blockchain technology, the number of projects is increasing at an accelerated rate. New Economy Movement is one of those early blockchain startups which has gained wide recognition as of late. The team has announced a new “proposal” which goes by the name ioNEM. Its main purpose is to provide transferable and on-chain Internet of Things ownership using NEM technology. It’s an interesting idea, but how does it work exactly?

The ioNEM Concept Mainly Focuses on IoT

It is evident to everyone that there is a bright future ahead when the Internet of Things meets blockchain technology. This is especially the case when it comes to ensuring that the IoT industry receives a higher degree of decentralization. Contrary to what most people may think today, most IoT infrastructure relies on centralized servers in order to remain operational. From a security point of view, that is absolutely unacceptable.

Using the blockchain to alleviate some of these concerns is an option well worth exploring. That is exactly what New Economy Movement is doing through its ioNEM project. This new “tool” will allow for facilitating the ownership of IoT devices on-chain. Additionally, it will help to control, manage, and secure the daily use of these IoT devices off-chain. The latter functionality will be performed securely and without fees. Last but not least, ioNEM may introduce communication between different devices through the blockchain. It’s an interesting concept, assuming it works as advertised.

The use cases for this technology go well beyond communication and ownership, though. It is not unlikely that a lot of early-generation IoT devices will break down and need replacing sooner or later. Most users wouldn’t ordinarily be aware their devices weren’t functioning properly, but if they were to receive some sort of warning, a lot of issues could be resolved. ioNEM would, in theory, be capable of notifying device owners about such problems, placing orders for replacement parts, and outlining the associated costs. If the user approves, one’s devices can be fixed without too much friction.

As one would expect, ioNEM will only work when many puzzle pieces fall into place. In the team’s recent blog post, they outlined how the various cornerstones of this ecosystem will have to come together if this project stands a chance to succeed. It is a pretty big deal to bring more mainstream use cases to existing blockchain technology solutions; that much is certain.

At the same time, one has to acknowledge that implementing this bold idea may not go off without a hitch either. In fact, the project will require IoT devices to natively support it in one way or another. It is doubtful most manufacturers would even consider this possibility unless it were tried and tested. Moreover, the fragmented IoT manufacturer space will not make this any easier. It appears the ioNEM team wants to give people the tools to implement this new protocol into their devices themselves.

While that is a commendable course of action, it doesn’t guarantee mainstream adoption whatsoever. In fact, this may always remain a niche project, which a few people will experiment with. There will always be a community dedicated to ventures such as ioNEM, but its large-scale adoption remains a big question for the time being. Despite the challenges, it is good to see more projects focused on uniting the power of Internet of Things with blockchain technology. Whether or not ioNEM will be a big hit remains to be seen, though.