If you’re a lover of classics, then you must have come across the Greek tale, Trojan Horse, as told by Homer in the Odyssey. The tale details the trick used by the Greek army to defeat the Trojan troops. Prior to that time, the Greeks had laid a 10-year siege on Troy with no victory to show for it.
Just as everything was looking impossible, Odysseus comes up with a simple brilliant plan that gets their soldiers inside the fortified city. Details of the plan was that the Greeks were to build a large wooden horse to be presented to the people of Troy as a tribute to the goddess Athena while also pretending to abandon the siege. This was a cause for celebration for the people of Troy. What they didn’t know was that the Greeks had filled this wooden horse with their soldiers. The plan was for the hidden soldiers to break out of the wooden horse at night when everyone must have been sleeping of the drinks of the celebration. The soldiers would then open up the gates for their comrades outside. Behold the fall of Troy.
Over the centuries, the Trojan Horse has become a symbol for gaining entrance into the mainstream through subtle means. Just the same way the blockchain technology phenomenon has been striving for a mainstream adoption in the Internet of Things (IoT) platform. Already, there are 19 use cases (and still counting) of the blockchain technology, yet only a few know that such a word even exists. A different approach therefore needs to be adopted. You guessed right, the Trojan Horse approach.
Grid+ Disrupting Electricity
Decentralization is what fuels the blockchain technology community, that’s why Grid+, which happens to be a brainchild of ConsenSys intends to leverage this feature in building a platform where consumers can have better deals from the electricity markets. Grid+ is confident it can help reduce costs, increase efficiency and eliminate pollution during surge electrical use times.
Consumers do not buy electricity direct from producers, they have to go through the retailers (utility providers) who charge high rates in order to cover their marketing admin and even debt costs. To get around this and enable consumers buy direct from producers or at cheaper wholesale price, Grid+ developed an hardware device known as a “smart energy agent” used for this specific purpose.
Retailers are not put out of business, though, as consumers can make purchases from anywhere since the device works with third party sources and other external sources like solar panels. This saves a significant amount in costs for everyone involved, giving a glimpse of, through electrical autonomy, the wonders, that blockchain could have in store.
Electrical Trojan Horses
How is Grid+ a blockchain Trojan Horse? First, the hardware is simple and easy to use, even by a newcomer to the community. Second, it doubles as an hardware wallet which can store blockchain assets like cryptocurrency for hold and use. The best part of this is that, you wouldn’t even be aware everywhere is run on a blockchain. Third, on the security front, Grid+ employs a novel system known as 2-of-3 Blind-Key Multi-signature, this way a user does not need to know or even keep track of their private keys.
The above features will be the trojan horse that endears consumers into adopting blockchain technology and gadgets in their homes.
Here’s what ConsenSys Enterprise Managing Partner, Mark D’Agostino has to say: “The Grid+ Agent is a cryptocurrency enabled general-purpose IoT device. We are using it in the electricity markets first, but as we move forward it has many potential applications in IoT as well as in distributed ledger systems. Electricity is really just the first application that will enable use to bring Blockchain to the masses.”
Not only is the Grid+ client hardware a blockchain enabled IoT device, it gives users access to a large number of applications and even a passive income stream opportunity. By the time such a device is being used in a large scale, consumers would begin to think differently about how value is exchanged.
Whose Side are You on?
The ending to our story on the Trojan Horse tale is that the Greeks won in the end. It’s the same outcome we can expect for the blockchain technology. Blockchain will eventually prevail.
Still doubting? Consider that the Grid+ token sale has brought in over $31 million, and still counting.
Join the Greeks today.
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