What is IOStoken?
Billing itself as a “highly scalable ecosystem for online services,” IOStoken (IOST) is a pre-release token that represents future ownership in a blockchain-based project titled Internet of Services (IOS). IOS hopes to bring a blockchain solution to internet service providers, allowing for a decentralized, trustless, and scalable model for provision of the internet on a global level. It offers a high rate of transactions per second, a novel blockchain architecture that renders it more scalable and secure than bitcoin, as well as privacy protection for online service providers to provide to their customer base.
History of IOStoken
The IOS concept was first developed by Jimmy Zhong and Terrence Wang, two computer scientists with an expertise in cryptocurrency development. The IOS team now encompasses more than 30 individuals based in Asia and North America, with backgrounds ranging from finance, to marketing, to blockchain technology development. They also have a heavy social media presence and well-coordinated public relations.
With a white paper published on Dec 31st, 2017 and being listed on cryptocurrency exchanges less than a month later, the Ethereum-based IOStoken reached a near-billion-dollar market cap by January 25th, 2018, making it one of the biggest and fastest growing tokens to ever be offered for sale. While currently only existing in token form (as of May 2018), the IOS team has plans to launch a testnet version of their project before the end of the year.
How IOStoken Works
In order to provide the unique architecture offered in their platform, IOS plans to use an Intelligent Service System (known as “Servi”) to ward off the problem of centralization that traditional internet service providers have grown accustomed to offering to the public. The problem with centralization of internet services is that a few parties control access to vast amounts of information to a vast number of individuals. They naturally then become tempted to charge websites, or otherwise take money from them, in return for increased individual access to those websites. This creates an inherent unfairness in the capitalist model of internet service provision, which the IOS team hopes to resolve by offering a decentralized, blockchain-based solution in the provision of these services.
Why IOStoken?
According to the project website, the three main pillars of the Internet of Services are that it is:
- Neutral: any participant in the IOS network has equally as much power and guidance over the network as any other,
- Open: anyone can act as a network participant, as there is no registration or identification process, and are free to act within any layer of the network, and
- Immutable: IOS plans to act as a “truth machine” by preserving information stored in the network as is, rendering it secure and unchanged. By doing so they hope to create a “universally accepted version of history” that cannot be altered to suit the needs of any one or group of individuals.
