Startup creates technology that connects IoT devices to blockchains

By Jean-Jacques DeLisle, contributing writer

Image source: Pixabay.

To revolutionize the way that businesses and enterprises can utilize blockchains, a chip and software called Blocklet has been developed to allow Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)-connected machines and devices to communicate fluently with a multitude of blockchain technologies. The startup, Filament, hopes that this new breakthrough in technology will change the languages of business as we know them.

A blockchain is a series of recorded data interactions between two or more sources, usually ledgers for shipments or money transactions. For the data to be recorded, and to enhance trust, all peers must agree on the exchange. IoT machines and devices are typically capable of communicating with each other wirelessly, so mostly all of these communications occur over a secured network. Blocklet has been created to combine the power of connected devices to aid businesses in using blockchains, thus creating secure, reliable data records.

This new Blocklet chip allows interaction between IoT machines and devices used in shipping ledgers and other recordable enterprises. To enhance the connectivity capabilities of industrial IoT, these devices will utilize Filament’s new technology to transact and exchange values against a blockchain, and this blockchain technology works with IoT-optimized Trusted Execution Environments. Using the Blocklet solutions, shipments could be tracked in real time faster and more accurately than ever before.

Filament CEO Allison Clift-Jennings released a statement speculating on the future of the technology, saying, “This is a big step in digital transformation as blockchain solves long-standing problems in the technology world. Our new products demonstrate and validate the inherent trust that blockchain ledgers create. And with devices in the field today, we are quickly proving that blockchain as a technology is bigger than its first and most famous application, Bitcoin.” By using blockchain to interact with various devices along a shipping route, the chip can track its movements and record interactions that can be understood later when the shipments are recovered. This interface can communicate with few types of blockchain so far, including Hyperledger Sawtooth blockchain. However, Filament hopes to expand its capabilities to incorporate Ethereum blockchain very soon.

Currently, blockchain technology is still relatively new and its application has been limited mostly to the realm of cryptocurrency, but with Filament’s Blocklet, it’s likely that we’ll be seeing many new and exciting applications in the years to come. As technology advances, so will shipping and all of the rest of the industries in the growing world we live in. And as we become more interconnected with our devices, who knows how far this blockchain technology will advance, especially with the IoT that could potentially exist all around us.