Andreas Brekken proves he has no clue about the Internet of Things

I honestly hate this.

Today, Andreas Brekken published what he considers being an IOTA review. The “article” mostly comprises an endless stream of screenshots showing how an obviously not-so-tech-savvy guy tries to compile and run an IOTA fullnode.

At the end of his journey, he concludes, that IOTA won’t help the Internet of Things and adds a few more discrediting comments.

Fortunately, all the article proves is, that Andreas has absolutely no clue about the Internet of Things.

I’m not linking back to the very crappy article for obvious reasons: One can unmask Andreas’ agenda so easily, it’s beyond hilarious.

First things first: Andreas has been doing business in the Bitcoin realm for pretty long. He has a very clear business interest to discredit Blockchain alternatives, as becomes pretty obvious, if you just Google Andreas yourself.

Here is, what Global Investor Alerts has to say about HELIX Capital Investment, a name and company Andreas claims, he is not affiliated with at all. While this might be true, there still is a lot of coincidence. For whatever reason, Andreas decided to name his current company Helix Capital and HELIX Capital Investments’ focus has been on, well, trading Bitcoins.

Financial Authorities have issued a public warning or consumer alert against Helix Capital Investments Ltd and/or Global Investor Alerts received information that Helix Capital Investments Ltd is cold-calling potential investors offering unauthorized or illegal financial services. We strongly advise you not to use the financial services of Helix Capital Investments Ltd, nor the financial or supporting services of its affiliates (transfer agents, escrow agents, etc.), or to pay any money to the companies it designates for settlement.

Then there is Justcoin. According to Coindesk:

Norway-based exchange and Ripple/Stellar gateway Justcoin abruptly announced it was closing down on 28th October with a one-line message posted to its blog and an email issued to customers.

The email suggested Justcoin’s banking partner had unilaterally terminated its relationship with the company and the exchange had been unable to find another banking partner in Norway.

Andreas will likely not deny his involvement in this one, as he himself shut it down with a one-liner to his customers.

While I’m not here to judge on business ethics, it speaks volumes, if somebody with this at least questionable background, goes to such great length, to talk negatively about the competition.

In short: The author has a history of failed Bitcoin endeavours and no qualification at all in the Internet of Things space.

I have been in the Internet of Things business since almost a decade, building some of the largest installations for connected devices and sensors in Germany and Europe.

Here is my take on what Andreas story really tells:

• More than 90% of his article deal with him having difficulties building, compiling and installing things: He does not appear to be somebody, who deeply understands technology or is used to setting up infrastructure level software. This would be just fine, not everybody needs to be in tech. However, if you’re so obviously overchallenged, you might not want to present yourself to the world, as being cryptocurrency land’s authoritative reviewer. Step back. Take a deep breath and start learning from the best. IOTA has lots of brilliant minds and a community driven by respect and mutual learning.
• In the final 10% Andreas concludes, that IOTA cannot be used on the Internet of Things, because — please don’t laugh, I’m quoting his article — “[…] a smart lightbulb or drone [cannot] stay in sync with the tangle[…]”. If anybody actually reads to that last paragraph, it is fair to assume that by then it has become clear, that the author is almost the opposite of a technology expert. However, the fact that Andreas doesn’t even understand one of the most fundamental concepts of IOTA, is embarrassing to say the least.
• Well, let’s be patient and explain one more time: On the Internet of Things, edge nodes are mostly low-powered, occasionally connected devices, sometimes with just a few kilobytes of on-device memory. Nobody expects those devices to be in sync with anything. That is, why IOTA has a concept of nodes. Fullnodes and permanodes. These nodes stay in sync with the Tangle. Or, if you consider use cases which require offline-capabilities, even just with subparts of the Tangle, which can be attached back to the main Tangle at a later point. Simply brilliant, or? Andreas, you can stop trying to sync your 4 US$ sensor tag with the Tangle. It’s never meant to be.

A few final thoughts:

• The usability of the official wallets has been criticised before by many, and right so. Even I felt reminded to the early Bitcoin days, when wallets where not meant to be mainstream / end user tools. One can argue, that IOTA’s initial use cases are largely in the B2B and Machine-to-Machine space and hence a consumer-level wallet is not a top priority. While this is true, the IOTA community has acknowledged that improvements are important and an awesome new wallet is under active development. (I am an alpha tester and can assure you, it really is going to be awesome!)
• Andreas clickbait headline is pure nonsense. To this date, IOTA has never been hacked. True, funds have been stolen from users but this was achieved by phishing sites which allowed users to generate their “wallet passwords” online. I myself reported first on the incident. There is no known vulnerability in IOTA, I have to assume Andreas knows this and he purposely tries to mislead his readers. Well, some people just might have misdirection in their DNA.

If you want to get an idea of how professionals in the IoT and sensor space think about IOTA, this article just came out, stating:

Of all the cryptocurrencies on the market, Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH, the company’s venture capital arm, purchased IOTA tokens. The IOTA network is distinguished from other blockchain networks because it allows machines to transmit data or make micropayments to other machines seamlessly. Meanwhile, Bosch also joined the IOTA Foundation’s advisory board.

Enough said. Let’s move on. I might never understand the motivation driving some people to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Disclaimer: I’m not a member of the IOTA Foundation or affiliated with the IOTA Foundation in any way. While I personally hold IOTA, I don’t consider myself being an investor and have not purchased IOTA in any scale, that anybody would consider creating any conflict of interest. I am a member of the IOTA Evangelist Network, a group of people who educate about the business opportunities and technology.