Chronicled and The Qtum Foundation have announced a collaboration to combine the Internet of Things (IoT) with Blockchain technology, developing real-world use cases integrating smart devices with a secure distributed ledger back end. This will take place in collaboration with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.
Through this partnership, Qtum and Chronicled will work together to define and support a roadmap of fundamental research at UC Berkeley, developing post-quantum applied cryptography, zkSNARK-based privacy-preserving smart contracts, and zero knowledge proofs for large computations.
Qtum is developing a leading blockchain data network in Asia, using a hybrid model that combines the UTXO transaction model with a virtual machine layer for smart contracts. Meanwhile, Chronicled will pursue development of smart contracts to integrate IoT device registrations on the Qtum blockchain.
Both Chronicled and Qtum are members of the Trusted IoT Alliance, a consortium of companies ranging from startups to Fortune 100 enterprises. The Alliance is focused on leveraging the power of the blockchain to secure high-value physical assets.
Members of the Alliance, which is based in San Francisco, include Bosch, BNY Mellon, Cisco, and UBS.
Based in Silicon Valley, Chronicled is a technology company leveraging blockchain and IoT to power smart, secure supply chain solutions. Chronicled offers a Blockchain-based smart supply chain platform and secures IoT device identities, data and event logs and automates IoT-dependent business logic using smart contracts. Chronicled is also a founding member of the Trusted IoT Alliance, with the mission of creating open source tools and standards to connect IoT and blockchain ecosystems to deliver business value.
Qtum is a blockchain application platform. At its core, Qtum combines the advantages of the Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) model, an Account Abstraction Layer allowing for multiple virtual machines, and a proof-of-stake consensus protocol aimed at tackling industry use cases. The Qtum Foundation, headquartered in Singapore, is a decision making body charged with accelerating the development of this open network and protocol.
“The partnership with Chronicled and UC Berkeley represents the frontier of innovation in IoT, smart contracts, and privacy for enterprise applications. We are delighted to be partnering with some of the strongest researchers and innovators in the world who are leading enterprise implementations,” said Qtum Foundation founder Patrick Dai.
“We have been collaborating with the team at Qtum for almost a year through the Trusted IoT Alliance, and we are excited to bring the latest IoT integration capabilities to Qtum,” said Chronicled CTO Maurizio Greco. “We see a future where trusted device provisioning, authentication, data logs, and payments are just around the corner.”
A team of researchers at UC Berkeley is currently focused on using applied cryptography to develop solutions for identity, ownership, and provenance validation as well as other use cases at the intersection of blockchain and IoT.
Through collaboration with Chronicled and Qtum, they hope to devise real-world use cases and gain insight from two teams that have been developing and applying the technology for enterprise customers.
“It is great to work with strong commercialization partners who both value the need for fundamental research and who see a path to commercialization of the applied cryptographic methods that we have under development in the lab,” said Alessandro Chiesa, assistant professor at UC Berkeley.
For his part, Trusted IoT Alliance Executive Director Zaki Manian said, “We are excited to be in a position to administer development grants to integrate Trusted IoT devices with the Qtum Blockchain technology. We see a win-win for our members in the Alliance and the Qtum ecosystem.”
