What Is XYO (XYO)?

XYO Network is a decentralized device network that anonymously collects and validates geospatial data. XYO is built on the Ethereum blockchain. Geospatial data is data that is associated with a specific location. The platform's goal is to encourage the education, research, and development of the XYO protocol in order to increase public understanding of the benefits of a geospatial location network that is driven by incentives.

Some Key Features of XYO Network:

• XYO is decentralized: There are no large, fee-based corporations or institutions involved in verification. The XYO Network is based on a completely transparent and self-contained system. The network is open source (free to use) and has no entry requirements (fair competition).

• XYO is trustless: Power and trust are distributed among XYO Network participants rather than concentrated in a single fee-paying individual or entity. By making all transactions transparent, decentralized, and secure, XYO Networks' blockchain technology eliminates the need for trust.

• XYO is identityless: Location data is stored anonymously, protecting all XYO Network users' privacy and security. This is accomplished by combining a zero-knowledge proof with a cryptographic technique known as proof of origin. Proof of origin is a method for ensuring the validity of ledgers containing location data flowing into the XYO Network.

Problem and Solution

Smart contracts are increasingly being used to execute contracts in an automated, transparent, and trustless manner. This effectively means that lawyers, middlemen, and escrow are unnecessary and can become obsolete in the future. However, smart contracts have one significant limitation: they typically rely on centralized data sources for data input. Furthermore, they often have a limited offline application.

The XYO Network allows smart contracts to interact with the real world by utilizing the XYO Network's ecosystem of devices to decide if an object is at a specific geographical location or not. With this capability, applications that execute smart contract transactions based on location confirmation can be created.

Components

The XYO network has four components (sentinels, bridges, diviners, archivists), which are linked with each other via a smart contract.

• Sentinels: Sentinels are devices that serve as location witnesses. Sentinels observe data heuristics and produce temporal ledgers to testify for the certainty and correctness of the heuristic. Heuristics are methods to solve a problem quickly and deliver a usable result. The most significant component of a sentinel is that it generates ledgers that bridges, archivists, and diviners can be assured came from the same source. To accomplish this, sentinels integrate proof of origin with a chain of cryptographic proofs.

• Bridges: Bridges are devices that interpret data for the location. Bridges protect the transmission of heuristic ledgers from sentinels to archivists. The most critical component of a bridge is that an archivist can be confident that the heuristic ledgers received from a bridge have not been tampered with in any manner. The second most significant feature of a bridge is that it provides extra proof of origin. 

• Diviners: Diviners are devices that analyze historical material recorded by archivists to find answers to specific questions. Heuristics recorded in the XYO Network must have a high level of proof of origin in order to judge the witness's legitimacy and accuracy (based on its proof of origin). Because the XYO Network is a trustless system, diviners must be rewarded for providing accurate heuristic analysis. Diviners, unlike sentinels and bridges, add answers to the blockchain via proof of work.

• Archivists: Archivists are devices that store location information from bridges in a decentralized manner in order to make data available to diviners. Archivists also index ledgers so that, if necessary, they can retrieve a part of ledger data. Additional proof of origin is attached to each transfer of data from one archivist to the next in order to track payment (as all archivists get paid). Archivists solely keep raw data and are compensated only when the data is retrieved.

Additionally, XYO is the native token available on the XYO network. The token is considered a gas fee( transaction fees on Ethereum) required by users to verify the query (transaction) on the platform.

History of XYO

XYO or XY Oracle Network was launched by XY Labs in 2017. XY Findables, the company behind the XYO Network, was founded in 2012. Arie Trouw, Markus Levin, and Scott Scheper are the three founders of the project.

Further, the platform has published three papers: The whitepaper was published in January 2018 by Arie Trouw, Markus Levin, and Scott Scheperl. The red paper was published by Arie Trouw, Andrew Rangel, and Jack Cable in February 2018. Lastly, the yellow paper was published by Erik Saberski, Carter Harrison, and Arie Trouw in August 2018. 

How Are New XYO Tokens Created?

The XYO Network employs a proof-of-work mechanism to generate new blocks and reward users. While answering the query, the diviners retrieve information for the blockchain and generate the block. As a result of the proof-of-work mechanism, they are rewarded with XYO tokens.

How Many XYO Tokens Are There?

The total supply of XYO is 13,960,974,963 tokens.

How to Buy XYO Tokens

Investors can buy XYO tokens from several exchanges like Coinbase.