How FIO Protocol Is Simplifying Crypto

Before we get into discussing FIO, just think about this…the more that the average person has become exposed to crypto we continue to see amazing rates of growth and adoption.  However, it is arguable that this is normally through more centralized crypto service providers.

The average person involved in crypto has never used a ‘Core/QT’ wallet, MyEtherWallet or even the popular Metamask wallet.  The majority of the crowd coming into crypto for the first time in 2021 are used to legacy banking systems.  Even a lot of FX traders struggle to grasp the concept of owning cryptocurrencies, in comparison with trading price movement.

Start speaking to the average individual about private/public keys and they can easily get lost in the mountain of facts that they thought would be a walk in the park process.  Although, eventually  the process becomes second nature, there are still a slew of newbies getting things mixed up.

FIO is attempting to change this, by providing people with personal addresses and domains for transaction processes that are as easy as an email address.  For instance you could have the address myself@myhome and this could be transaction using any of the 200+ currencies supported by FIO and routed to a variety of multi currency wallets.

What is FIO?

FIO, an acronym for the Federation of Interwallet Operability, is a name that should not be taken lightly.  FIO operate a protocol that as above allows crypto transactions to be sent and received using a FIO address, rather than having multiple wallets and multiple addresses for different cryptocurrencies.

This is just one part of FIO’s features and ecosystem, in fact FIO serves to become much more when you take a look “under the hood”.

We recently conducted an interview with FIO CEO Luke Stokes, to get a deeper insight to FIO.  Luke, is a prominent character within the crypto space with the view of an early adopter and developer mindset.  During our interview Luke touched on the possibilities in using FIO domains and addresses within communities, essentially providing a greater scope for applications than the typical blockchain domain.

Features

• FIO addresses are used as an easily readable wallet identifier i.e. user@domain.  Addresses are free to claim from any one of FIO’s integrated partner applications.
• FIO Data carries metadata. The FIO Data vision is to be a means to support decentralized commerce.  FIO Data transports things like receipts, dates, invoices and more.  Transactional data is represented on chain.
• FIO Request using an encryption method known as the Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Transaction requests can be made, using FIO addresses on-chain, along with transactional metadata.

The Basics – How it works

FIO domains enable anyone to set up a wallet, addresses and apply any number of web based services or functions to any address on that domain.  The domain owner, typically a wallet provider, creates their domain for their users to create free FIO addresses on.  The visual below explains how this looks.

Domain providers have the power to issue or reject requests for addresses on their domain, however they do not have the power to have any control over the users connected wallet and keys.  This means that the provider can issue ‘easy to use’ wallet addresses within their application.  These addresses are used to transact between any wallet supporting FIO’s protocol.

FIO addresses can be claimed, as above by anyone with an ERC-721 enabled wallet.  As FIO addresses are non-fungible, they fall into the category of NFT’s…please, do not be distracted by what ape you could put on one (and yes you could), but think of the possibilities.

• Ownership and transfer of domains with blockchain validation
• Branding Opportunities
• Simplified crypto payment portals for digital assets of any kind
• Website or File Validation
• Uniquely branded domains for collections of NFT collectibles
• Vanity/Premium Domains

FIO itself operates as a Decentralized Autonomous Consortia or DAC.  A DAC is a consortia of leading wallets, exchanges, crypto service providers, the community and more, with governance being distributed throughout participants operating the protocol.

Why is FIO important?

As we’ve mentioned, FIO’s vision of simplifying end user processes and exposure to multiple wallets and currencies, is almost a must for a new adopter.  Provided they continue to achieve their goals, new users could soon find themselves using FIO addresses as standard.

The addressing system provided by the protocol is akin to services like Unstoppable Domains and .ETH/.BTC addresses.  Bear in mind, the latter two are built more for website and web application use than for personal wallet transactions.  Moreover, because FIO supports a number of different currencies, a transaction being sent could in fact be converted during the transaction to any receiver currency supported by the FIO network and the receiving users wallet.

To find out more about FIO, watch our Inside Blockchain interview with FIO CEO, Luke Stokes, who gave us some of his time to explore FIO and it’s vision, here.