Blockchain startup Chronicled launches open source Ethereum IoT registry to promote IoT standards

In an effort to create a standard for the emerging internet of things, Chronicled is open-sourcing a tool for registering connected devices on the ethereum blockchain.

Described as a consumer 'cross between Wikipedia and Carfax', the Chronicled platform will register the identities of near field communication (NFC) and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) chips that make up the internet of things, allowing smartphones to 'talk' to other devices.

While the Internet of Things has been hailed as an inevitability, technology experts believe that a fragmentation of IoT standards has hampered its use. Today, companies across industries are developing their own ways for devices to communicate, but the founders of Chronicled want to use the Ethereum blockchain to make private IoT database registries interoperable.

Chronicled CEO Ryan Orr said:

“What’s missing right now is interoperability of all of these chips, so when consumers are out and about, they can interact with their world in a ubiquitous, seamless way. Right now it’s completely fragmented.”

So far, Chronicled has deployed 10,000 NFC and BLE chips, most of which are embedded in limited-edition sneakers or other apparel. Each device is matched to an identity record placed on the Ethereum blockchain to reduce luxury goods counterfeiting.

Chronicled CEO Ryan Orr

Sneakers are the company’s first use case, but according to Orr, the team’s goal from day ‘0’ was to transition to other consumer products, as well as expand to a public blockchain database.

To achieve this goal, Chronicled is also working with existing IoT companies, including semiconductor company Silicon Labs and New York BLE company Blue Bite.

Safety equipment,

Like other startups in the industry, Orr said he sees blockchain as a way to facilitate a machine-to-machine economy in which devices can interact more easily and securely.

Orr believes:

“Machines need to have identities so that machines can decide whether to trust other machines or to understand where it came from and what kind of services it can provide.”

He gave an example of an Amazon drone delivering a package through a window. Using an IoT device, the window could instantly verify that the drone was safe, possibly through public information on Amazon's website, that the drone was delivering real goods, he said.

Orr said:

“Verifying the identity of a device in a secure and public way is the first step to doing hundreds of different things on a blockchain.”

According to the company team, a key property of blockchain that enables these use cases is that anyone can use it to register a device.

Orr asserts that this is something third-party developers are more likely to want to build.

Why Ethereum

Along with the announcement, the company is also releasing tools for developers, including a starter kit, a software development kit (SDK) and an “open registration explorer” so that any developer can use the platform to tokenize the device itself. But the key component will be Ethereum, a public blockchain platform.

Despite Ethereum’s recent setbacks, Orr said the decision to use Ethereum over other blockchains was a “weighed-down” one. In particular, he pointed to Ethereum’s flexibility and transparency, which he said would help the company’s goal of establishing an interoperable standard.

“The Ethereum project is very important to the world. It can become a global standard for product certification.”

It is worth noting that Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin agrees with Chronicled's idea.

Buterin said in a statement:

“Consumer IoT has always been one of the areas where I am most optimistic about blockchain applications.”

Other companies are also trying to combine the two emerging technologies. For example, Filament raised $5 million in Series A funding last year to enable connected devices to communicate.

Orr said Chronicled eventually hopes to partner with other companies, such as 21Inc, to continue working toward this goal.

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