Q&A — Joel Bosh, founder of I/O Coin.
By: Mr. Backwards
Tags: Smart Contracts, Bitcoin, Proof Of Stake, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

Joel Bosh, founder of I/O Coin.

I/O Coin is one of those under the radar projects found on Bittrex that peaks my interest. Besides the fact they’ve been around for quite a long time (2014), their development is also still highly active.

Besides the Q&A I’ll be having with Joel Bosh, I also recommend you to watch his latest appearance on the North American Bitcoin Conference.

Also; make sure to check their websites & whitepaper:

Without further ado, let’s start!

“Good day Joel, as you founded IOC in 2014, some people could call you a blockchain veteran. Could you tell something about your journey thus far?”

Started out as a Computer Builder in 1998 I became the 10-year owner of PC & Mac Wizard Service (IT Support Services, Data Analyst Contractor & Computer repair in Miami, Fl) Certified OSX Profesional, Developer.

I’m also the owner of BoschMusic Publishing for 25 years and we have a partnership with Universal Music Publishing.

“How did you end up in the blockchain world?”

A customer of ours introduced me to Bitcoin mining in 2010, I mined and started cryptographic and blockchain research in that very year.

“What triggered you to create IOC?”

After 2 years of research in PoW/PoS being involved with BlackCoin and Vericoin Communities learning the ins and out’s of the PoS algorithm, myself along with 5 more developers we created IOC. Geared to be an energy efficient, user-friendly cryptocurrency which enabled the use of pseudo names (aliases) HTML5 based UI doing away with QT.

“If I had to explain I/O to my mother in law how should I describe it?”

IOC is a cryptocurrency that has a Whatsapp like messaging platform but decentralized.

“Lol, yes she might understand that — and for the tech guys, how do you explain IOC?”

Since we are in the early stages, so far we have enabled capabilities of storing identities which can be registered to replace long hex addresses similar to bitcoin and those can be used to send messages to other users or attach documents to be stored in the chain.

All using AES 256 encryption to maintain privacy. We also enabled private payments (stealth). All these services don’t require a smart contract and are implemented directly in the blockchain C++ code.

I/O was launched via PoW to accomplish a more fair distribution since we never did an ICO. 2 weeks into the mining period miners had the IOC in Bittrex Exchange were they were traded. Everyone from the team to all users had to buy IOC from the miners. Since that day the project was self-funded by the community including myself.

PoW to me was a way for mining companies to sell miners which would quickly become obsolete in hash power as solving bitcoin blocks difficulty increased. These mining companies would sell miners after being tested and losing some of the power. This created a scenario where the mining companies were getting insta-rich. Miners would mine bitcoins but this process was slower each day to solve a block. Although these spendiatures would create a basis of a price for mined Bitcoin, it didn’t mean that a blockchain could not be secured by other means especially by less powered computers.

PoS gave this opening, as in the long run, it would be more feasible for the mass to stake (secure the chain), especially in underdeveloped countries with raspberry pi’s utilizing their own cryptocurrencies.

These coins (keys) would be used as the power to solve blocks instead of expensive, high energy consuming miners. As of today, we have blockchain projects as big as Ethereum deciding to switch over to PoS, giving validation to my research (which started before 2014) but for years the pow communities would call me and a few other devs crazy and would contend without solid proof that PoS was not as secure as PoW. To date more PoW blockchains have suffered 51% attacks in comparison to PoS which have not.

“As you mentioned I/O is an open source blockchain protocol, what kind of functionalities & services does it enable for both users and Dapps built on your protocol?”

Our platform serves as the main point of encrypted public registration of identities, document file storage up to 1MB per block and core encrypted messaging fueled by our IOC cryptocurrency. We have also enabled hade/private payments which are optional for our users.

Our API also enables third-party developers to connect to IOC via daemon to integrate our core decentralized services to their applications or games. For example, we have enabled a Unity 3D API with all the necessary connections for gamers to enable the use within their games, for example gamertags, rewards, game data among other things.

Every feature is also thought out with the generality needed to support API based software layers that can utilize it — be it a human interface or a machine interface e.g. base station monitoring or IoT.

The very white paper for the next big project (Chameleon ledger) associated with IOC was itself stored in the blockchain — an active, functional demonstration of IOC capabilities in action while propagating valuable information content.

“What is the Chameleon Molecular Ledger you are preparing for?”

Chameleon is a scientific project to address interoperability & smart contracts and will facilitate a very high transactional throughput for global usage.

The world of blockchains is growing fast. The need for interoperating with other private or open blockchains is vital in creating a worldwide blockchain ecosystem. Each blockchain focussing on their own strengths. The Chameleon molecular ledger will be the ultimate interface that has the ability to interconnect to other blockchains around the world.

Those blockchains will be able to interchange the features they have. Chameleon will be standardizing connectivity, interoperability and will propose new standards in validating transactions and facilitate a lightning fast network throughput for global usage. A new technology will be introduced which we call Molecular Ledger. See the Chameleon website for more info.

Incentivizing IOC Holders

In the near future when we prepare for the Chameleon Molecular Ledger ICO we will also create a snapshot of the I/O Coin blockchain. Every I/O Coin holder will receive 2 CHAM for every IOC they hold in the future. For free. This is to incentivize the IOC holders. When and how the snapshot will be taken will be announced through our social channels.

“Besides the Chameleon upgrade, what other developments are you working on?”

For IOC Coldsig for (offline transaction sign) encrypted group messaging, protein solving, ring sig

“From a developer side, what makes I/O unique and why should they consider your platform?”

I/O is the only crypto project to date that offers end to end full encrypted instant messaging (which is being extended from peer to peer to encrypted groups) — encrypted file storage and stealth.

“What are your plans on getting I/O adopted?”

We are now working on integrating IOC to Trezor and Trust mobile wallet which is owned by Binance. This will allow for local business to be able to accept IOC in a more user-friendly way.

We are using this as a training ground for our own mobile wallet which will come with Chameleon. As a founding member of our foundation, we envision a system we called ADM ecosystem to be the bridge to regular joe to use the services in IOC via mobile banking dapp and terminal. As of today we also have switching brains developing a game based on IOC economy called uZagi panzer

“How can people stay up to date?”

I am not a financial advisor who tells people to buy certain assets.

That being said, besides being invested in I/O Coin, I am being compensated for my time writing this article.

Thanks for reading,

Mr. Backwards