F Flowchain

Near Real‑Time IoT Ledgers

Privacy‑first, hybrid blockchain for data from devices & sensors

We live in a data‑driven world. Flowchain’s real‑time ledgers bring a distributed IoT ledger to industry. Our hybrid architecture—combining Flowchain with PoW networks—protects privacy and ensures immutability for data from IP cameras and Internet‑connected hardware.

Get Started GitHub Academic • Peer‑reviewed (2015–2017)

Key Ideas

  • Hybrid blockchain for secure, scalable IoT data.
  • Virtual Blocks for near real‑time transactions.
  • Public‑Private Key Infrastructure (PPKI) for device trust.
  • Tokenized hardware.

Flowchain: A Journey of Innovation

Founded with the vision to integrate blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT), Flowchain has progressed from peer‑reviewed research to working testnets, tokenized licensing, and patented technologies.

  1. 2015–2017

    Peer‑reviewed publications lay the scientific groundwork for the hybrid architecture.

  2. Dec 23, 2016

    Initial working prototype committed (hash: 189caf2625b82d3459dcd7ee611bfcc36afde2be).

  3. Jun 26, 2018

    First working testnet launched; open‑source project published on GitHub.

  4. Dec 31, 2018

    Testnet online.

  5. 2024

    Two U.S. patents granted covering hybrid blockchain and PPKI technologies.

Flowchain Ledger

Flowchain is a blockchain for the IoT designed from scratch. It provides a distributed‑ledger programming framework for peer‑to‑peer IoT networks and real‑time data transactions. Start a node and join a peer using Node.js: 

$ export HOST=192.168.0.100
$ export PORT=8000
$ export PEER=192.168.0.1
$ node flowchain.js
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Tokenized

Flowchain’s utility token powers transactions and on‑chain licensing for patented technologies. Tokenized hardware enables device identity, access control, and usage metering in decentralized IoT networks.

Whitepapers Source

Virtual Blocks

Virtual Blocks provide a new blockchain design that enables real‑time data transactions. A Flowchain distributed ledger is formed by merging Virtual Blocks.

Key Features

  • Scalability: handle large volumes without waiting on physical block creation.
  • Real‑time: low‑latency validation for continuous IoT data streams.
  • Efficiency: decoupled processing lowers computational load and costs.
  • Flexibility: adaptable to diverse device and application requirements.

Applications

  • Smart cities, industrial automation, healthcare IoT.
  • dApps requiring high throughput and low latency.
  • Off‑chain integrations (e.g., IPFS) for asset transfer.

Conclusion: Virtual Blocks advance blockchain for IoT by combining scalability, efficiency, and real‑time guarantees.

Software Components

Architecture on GitHub

Core components for building innovative distributed‑ledger systems.

# Component Usage
1 wotcity.io Web of Things (WoT) framework component.
2 devify-server Flowchain IoT application server boilerplates.
3 wwRPC Lightweight RPC library supporting REST‑style RPC over WebSocket.
4 node-p2p-chord Chord protocol & algorithm library in Node.js for P2P networks.
5 flowchain-ledger Distributed ledger for the Internet of Things (IoT).
6 flowchain-app Flow‑based programming (FBP) engine plugin for Flowchain.

Presentation

Technical Presentation: Understanding Flowchain Essentials and Ideas

Flowchain/IPFS: Distributed Storage using Blockchain Technology

FOSSASIA • Mar 14, 2019 • Singapore

Virtual Blocks integrate with IPFS to offer an off‑chain mechanism that ensures digital asset transfer from one trusted party to another.

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Flowchain – A Hybrid Blockchain for the IoT and Tokenized Hardware

LinuxCon • Jun 26, 2018 • Beijing

Hybrid blockchain leveraging tokenized hardware to enable the next generation of IoT and AI dApps.

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Roadmap

2026 Q2

Continue the research and implementation of a PoS hybrid blockchain architecture.

Flowchain continues to refine a ledger designed from scratch for IoT, enabling peer‑to‑peer networks and real‑time transactions.