A Simple Review of Hyperion, Spatial Consensus Driven Decentralized Map Economy of the World

[FriedrichKou]

A. Introduction

A decentralized map data platform based on spatial consensus protocol.

B. Industry

Hyperion combines maps with blockchain to create crowdsourced maps that everyone can participate in. Centralized crowdsourcing maps face many problems. First of all, a large part of geographical maps are difficult for commercial companies to label and update, resulting in plenty of map data errors or lags. The acquisition and maintenance of the maps in indoor space and remote areas will bring additional costs. The implementation of crowdsourcing maps can effectively reduce costs. In addition, people’s location data is private. When location data is held and sold by centralized third parties, people’s data ownership and privacy rights will be violated. The combination of blockchain and maps can solve the above problems. There are almost no crowdsourced map projects that have been landed, and competitions like Foam, Mapcoin, etc. are under development. (8/10)

C. Mode

Hyperion is a “Crowd-build, Crowd-share, Crowd-govern” decentralized crowdsourcing map ecosystem created by centralized project Mapxus to solve the issues of the existing centralized map service involving delayed update, limited coverage, data privacy etc. Hyperion can incent the global community to collect map data and maintain technology nodes that provide a suite of discovery, analysis, monitoring, and trading tools for tradable location data. Hyperion map data is generated by the data community based on the spatial consensus protocol. The map technology nodes are maintained by global technology communities in a decentralized way. Hyperion can also motivate the contributors with Hyperion digital location right（HDLR）, distribute economic benefits according to the given digital location rights, and establish a community governance structure. This model connects demanders and contributors together with economic incentives, removes centralized map operators, and confirms the tradable data generated by individuals. But the parent company is operating a centralized project. The concept of future decentralization in data transactions and community governance is not clear.

Token economy: Tokens can be used to buy and sell tradable location data, third-party services, and community governance. Users can pay for data usage rights based on transaction volume or mortgage tokens. The circulation process and usage scenarios are not detailedly explained in the whitepaper. (7/10)

D. Technology

Hyperion’s entire system consists of three layers: Protocol Layer (main chain network), Service Layer and Ecosystem Layer.

Protocol Layer is the main blockchain architecture. Hyperion’s main chain consists of two layers. The first layer employs BFT + dPOS, which guarantees the reliability through integrity nodes and a variant of the Byzantine Fault Tolerant protocol to finally reach an agreement. The second layer is the spatial chain used for work, employing pBFT + SCP (spatial consensus protocol). pBFT makes block notary signature, and SCP determines spatial data state.

Service Layer consists of three modules including map production service (dMapper), map service (dMap) and location data intelligence platform (Hyperion Marketplace). This layer provides trusted hardware and a personally generated data trading platform for the map data upper chain.

On Ecosystem Layer, Hyperion proposes to build a location-based service ecosystem with eco-friends, such as its own map app named Titan, mobile social network, advertising and so on.

Hyperion’s technical design of blockchain is more comprehensive, but many of the proposed technical ideas did not land. (1) It proposed to improve the interactivity and throughput of the blockchain by using sidechains, cross-chain communication, and sub-chain expansion, but there is no mention in the whitepaper of how these functions are implemented. (2) There is no clear map data (location data, image data, etc.) as the boundary of personal tradable data link. If the data is all stored on the chain, the performance of the underlying chain is difficult to support the application. (3) It has not opened source on Github, score 6.3/10

E. Ecosystem

1343 followers on Facebook, 21158 followers on Telegram, 13 followers on Medium. The parent company Mapxus’s crowdsourcing map data uploading has functioned. By June 2018, Hyperion has covered more than 1,300 constructions.

Ecosystem rating: 7/10

F. Team

The team members are mostly from Chinese famous universities. Most of the members have computer background. In addition to the four founding team members, there are also 4 founding members and many members from the original Mapxus team. The members have rich experience in technology development and entrepreneurship. The lineup is much exclusive, but experience in blockchain development is rather insufficient. (7.5/10)

Isaac Zhang, the Architect, co-founder and ex-CTO of Mapxus, largest decentralized indoor mapping platform. He has a PhD on localization (Computer Science), University of Nottingham.

Eric Huang: Master’s degree in Computer Science, Co-founder and ex-CTO of Mobvista, the largest Mobile marketing platform in Asia. He has experience in implementing large-scale distributed computing.

Guangxian Zou, Co-founder and CTO of AIPAI, Master in University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Co-author of the book “Game Programming Gems 7”.

Kai Law, Double Master of Media and Business, Loughborough University UK, co-Founder & COO of Liuxuebao, largest study-abroad SAAS platform in China. He has over ten years of experience of global online marketing.

G. Conclusion

Decentralized map models are similar. They all provide APP security tools, encourage users to upload correct map data through economic incentives, and then access B-end business ecosystem, allowing businesses to provide services, map data and token transaction data based on maps. In the case of the similar model, Hyperion’s parent company has already applied the technology in crowdsourcing maps, and there have been a small number of users in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, which is convincing. The white paper proposed a huge map public chain concept, but it is quite difficult for blockchain development. Overall rating: 7.1.

Hype Score:Medium

Risk Score:Medium

Expectation: Medium

Total Score: 7.1

All information in this article is provided for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. The article is origianal from EVALUAPE.