Atonomi (ATMI) ICO Analysis: A Security Protocol for the IoT

Executive Summary

Project Description

The Internet of Things revolution is waxing stronger and billion of devices are connected with each other on various IoT networks. At the moment, even more applications are being built — for human-controlled as well as autonomous device-to-device interactions on IoT networks. However, the security measures provided for interacting devices are not as strong as they should be for a platform that holds so much sensitive data. This makes IoT networks vulnerable to hackers and those who seek to take advantage of all the personal and corporate information being exchanged among devices.

To improve security among IoT devices, Atonomi wants to develop a blockchain-based protocol that will verify the identities of devices on the IoT platform. The project claims to do this using Ethereum technology in combination with on-chain and off-chain resources. Furthermore, Atonomi’s protocol will be designed in way that should make it extendable by developers who want to apply it to the different IoT industries, from healthcare to smart cities, home automation systems, industrial sensors and so on.

Atonomi is expected to facilitate interoperability and the secure exchange of data and payments between devices by providing the following:

A trusted and immutable identification of devices through the protocol’s device identity registration service.
A reputation protocol that incentivizes third-party auditors to develop systems that detect and remove errant devices.
A fully tokenized economy for the registration and activation of devices, and for validating transactions.
An extendable security architecture that is designed to be built on top of IoT applications.

For individuals — homeowners for example, Atonomi should allow the registration of home devices on its network in order to validate these devices and reduce the risk of malicious attacks. For industries, the platform plans to protect against attack from hackers that want to gain control of sensors, controllers, and devices.

Atonomi’s token, ATMI, is ERC20-compliant and it will supposedly have the following use cases. One, it will be used to register devices on the Atonomi network and to write reputational data on the network. Two, it will be used for secure device-to-device commerce between devices on the Atonomi Network, and three, to reward participants that perform auditing tasks on the network.

Existing Product

The project claims to have an in-house alpha version from CENTRI, Atonomi’s parent company. They also claim to have a working version of the protocol ready to be released by the time of the crowdsale.

Hard Cap and Valuation

Atonomi plans to raise a total of $25 million. More details on token distribution will be released in the future.

Price Per Token

The ETH price will be set at the time of the public sale.

Important Dates

ATMI presale was concluded sometime ago, but as of now, there is no information about when whitelisting or the crowdsale will commence.

Marketing Power

As of the time this post was published, Atonomi had over 19,000 followers on Telegram, over 8,000 followers on Twitter, 580+ Reddit readers, over 530followers on Facebook and over 200 followers on Linkedin.

Prominent Advisors

John Henry Clippinger

Advisor for Bancor, Evident Proof and various other cryptocurrency projects.
Founder, and Chief Innovation Officer of Swytch.

David Kravitz

Leading expert on cryptography, blockchain-based identity, and information security.

Team Members’ Areas of Expertise

Business experts

Vaughan Emery, Founder & CEO.

Founder & CEO of CENTRI since 2010.
Managing Partner at ITSource_, an IT services company, for 15 years.
Business Analyst at Weyerhaeuser, an environmental manufacturer, for almost 8 years.
Business Analyst at Fairchild, a semiconductor manufacturer, for 2 years.

David Fragale, Co-founder & CPO.

Founder & CEO of Raven Rock Ventures, a cryptocurrency advisory firm, for 7 months (ongoing).
Director Strategic Threat Management (Blockchain) at PwC for over 2 years
MIT Sloan Fellow in Innovation and Global Leadership for a year.
Management Consultant — Advisory at PwC for almost 10 years.
Senior Financial Analyst at United States Department of Defense for almost 3 years.

Andrii Zamovsky, Strategic Development Partner.

Founder of Orderbook Pte. Ltd. since 2017.
Founder of Ambisafe, an ICO services platform, for 3 years (ongoing).
Chief Blockchain Evangelist at Propy Inc., a property investment platform, for 2 years (ongoing).
Founder & CTO of NoveltyLab, a cryptocurrency wallet, for almost 3 years.
Software Engineer at oDesk for 2 years
Project Manager at Skykillers for a year
Software Engineer at Matvil Corp for almost 2 years.
Project Manager at DIMALEX for a year.

Target market experts

Quite a number of the team members work at CENTRI, a renowned company in the IoT security sector, therefore, there is an abundance of target market expertise.

Marketing experts

James Selter, Director of Marketing.

Director of Marketing at CENTRI for 3 years.
Director of Marketing at BSQUARE Corporation for over 2 years.
Marketing Director at Symphony Teleca for 2 years.
Senior Industry Marketing Manager at Microsoft for 4 years.
Marketing Manager at Microsoft for 4 years.

Amy Lietz, Digital Marketing Manager.

Digital Marketing Manager at CENTRI for a year.
Freelance Marketing Consultant and Media Designer in Seattle for 15 years.

Legal experts

No team member with legal expertise.

Software engineering experts

Mick Mackey, CTO & VP of Engineering.

CTO & VP of Engineering at CENTRI since 2010.
Director, Professional Services Engineering & Architecture at Nuance Communication, an IoT company, for over 2 years.
Implementation Manager at Amdocs, a software and services provider, for 3 years.
Development Manager at The Cobalt Group, an accounting company, for 7 years.

Luis Paris, Chief Scientist.

Chief Scientist at CENTRI since 2012.
Associate Professor of Computer and Information Sciences at Harrisburg University for 7 years.
Research Assistant at University of Mississippi for over 5 years.
Lead Software Architect at Institute for Advanced Education for 3 years.

Blockchain development experts

Andrii Zamovsky

Due to his experience in the cryptosphere.

Token economics experts

Co-Founder and CPO, David Fragale is a well-experienced financial analyst, he also founded Raven Rock Ventures, a cryptocurrency advisory firm. The Atonomi project is expected to benefit from his expertise.

Token sale structure experts

Same as above.

Conclusion

Strengths

Considerably high amount of community members
Project targets the IoT industry, a burgeoning market.
The parent company CENTRI has been in existence since 2010
The team has a notable background in the IoT industry as well as in blockchain tech.

Potential risks for investors

No visible working product and no clear roadmap yet.
No legal experts on the team.
Multiple competitors in the IoT space (IOTA, ITC, DAV, INT).

Disclaimers:

Nothing written in this article is a legal or an investment advice.
Information is provided on a best-effort basis and is subject to change without prior notice. Be sure to verify everything you read with a project team.

The analysis was produced by Research Center team members: Alexander Hinz, Mark Jedd, Anna Muratova.

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