Building a Decentralized Machine Economy with Peaq
Recently, I stumbled upon a Web3 company that is doing something quite different and awesome. I have seen numerous networks build on Polkadot, but this one excites me. The company’s name is Peaq. You might not have heard of them, but Peaq was founded by Till Wendler, Leonard Dorloechter, and Max Thake in 2017, with her headquarters in Berlin.
Peaq allows businesses to create decentralized applications that enable machines to solve problems, save resources, and assist humans. Let me give you a simple illustration.
Assume I own a charging station that I use to charge my car, but I'd like to turn it into a side business and profit from it. At the same time, I don't want to be dedicated entirely to its day-to-day operations and fee collection.
I don't want to go through the hassle of signing up for a paid service because I don't know how often I'll be able to use the charging station for this purpose, and I don't want to spend a lot of money. I can rent my charging station using a decentralized charging app built on the Peaq platform whenever I want to make it available.
I no longer have to wait for charging sessions to be scheduled or fees to be collected. Because any electric vehicle is compatible with my decentralized charging solution, I don't need to pay any central authority or service or sign up for multiple providers. I can now fully utilize its availability at the lowest possible cost and risk.*
Blockchains are well-known for having congestion and scalability issues. This has far-reaching consequences, including slower transaction processing times and higher transaction fees, resulting in a poor user experience. This is particularly noticeable in the case of Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain network after Bitcoin. As a result, some developers have become frustrated and turned to other networks, such as Solana or Cardano, which provide faster speeds.
For DeFi to continue to gain popularity and traction and become accessible to the masses, cooperation, rather than competition, is the solution. This brings us to a possible solution, which is a multi-chain ecosystem.
Web3 is not just about DeFi, NFT, and DAOs it can also enable the distribution of ownership of machines and the operating systems and infrastructure on which they run. Web3 is the toolbox that will allow developers to create a machine economy beneficial to both people and machines.
Peaq believes that the future and success of Web3 is multi-chain. As the name implies, a multi-chain ecosystem has several interconnected blockchains to improve user experience, increase efficiency, and allow for broader adoption. However, they require effective cross-chain solutions.
To prepare for the mass adoption of Web3, which will see an influx of over a billion users, we must be ready to adopt a multi-chain approach, which will eliminate complex transactions and provide end-users with a frictionless experience.
This makes Peaq adopt the Polkadot Approach. Polkadot attempts to address the limitations of blockchain expandability and scalability by emphasizing interoperability and resource sharing between different chains.
Peaq seeks a parachain slot on the Polkadot network to provide the best possible production environment for the peaq-based decentralized application for the Economy of Things. Polkadot provides the critical layer of security and interoperability beneath Peaq. Interoperability is crucial to Web3 success. Peaq is built in this manner using the Substrate framework.
Blockchain interoperability refers to the ability of different blockchain networks to exchange and leverage data with one another and move different types of digital assets between the blockchains of the networks. Once disparate blockchain networks and assets are connected and combined in an interoperable system, they can easily plug into and combine.
This network interoperability may enable the development of powerful new products and services that take advantage of the benefits of multiple blockchain networks simultaneously. Polkadot enables seamless interoperability with various other Web3 projects.
Peaq is a Layer 1 network that supports the Web3 Economy of Things. Peaq enables the development of decentralized machine applications and incentivizes the conditions for an economy that works for all people and machines. Peaq enables the creation of decentralized applications of all kinds, with an economic model tailored to the machine economy.
Machine NFTs
Peaq leverages decentralization and ownership in the form of machine NFTs. A machine NFT is a non-fungible (unique) machine ownership contract that anyone can independently verify. Individual machines or pools (groups) of machines can have NFTs assigned to them.
Web3 is all about verifiable ownership of digital assets and physical assets via the web. With this point in mind, Peaq allows anyone—from investors to machine manufacturers, owners, users, and even machines- to own the machines that drive the machine economy, allowing people to govern and profit from the machines that serve them directly. To learn more about Machine NFTs, I suggest you read up on it here; Mac Thake, the CMO of Peaq, did an excellent job explaining it.
Self-Sovereign Machine Identity
Without relying on a centralized third-party, peaq ID allows vehicles, machines, robots, and devices to identify, verify, and authenticate. It is the foundation for any machine-to-machine or machine-to-person interaction in the Web3 Economy of Things. Machines can use peaq ID to:
- Identify themselves with anyone or anything.
- Access management and payment
- storing and proving information about themselves.
Role-Based Access Control
When interacting and transacting with other machines, people, organizations, and environments, a machine's identity allows it to authenticate itself securely.
This is the foundation for granting or denying physical and digital access authorization and the exchange of goods and services. Machine owners can use the access function to:
- Manage access to goods and services
- In the real world, you can manage access rights.
- In the digital world, keep track of who has access to what.
Machine-to-Machine Payments
Transactions require payment for machines' purchase or sale of any good or service. Peaq Pay enables machines to pay and get paid securely and autonomously.
The payment feature allows machines to do the following:
- Purchase and pay for goods and services.
- Receiving compensation for providing goods and services
EVM and WASM Smart Contracts
Peaq will support Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and WebAssembly (WASM) smart contracts to maximize interoperability and provide the best possible smart contract platform for developers building DApps for the Web3 Economy of Things.
Their general vision is to create a machine economy that benefits both humans and machines, therefore powering a global decentralized. You can read up more on this here.
You can now begin building and testing on the Peaq testnet. The peaq testnet supports Substrate and Ethereum wallets on their respective chains and wallet transfers. Solidity and ink smart contracts! In addition to the core functions of the peaq network, which are Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs), Role-based Access Control (RBAC), and soon, payment, are also supported to build custom DApps. To explore the testnet, visit the Peaq's Public Testnet