IOPn: One Chain, One Identity for Real-World Assets

Jimi Ibrahim, co-founder and COO of IOPn, spoke with Julian Stafford about his path to building a UAE-based Layer 1. Jimi grew up in Lebanon, studied architecture, worked in real estate in London and got into crypto through gaming hardware, mining and then trading. He said Lebanon's economic crisis, which saw the currency lose over 90% of its value, and the port explosion near his home pushed him toward decentralization. He moved to the UAE and launched his first startup there.

That startup, Oasis X, started as an education platform. When major marketplaces blocked wallets from Lebanese IPs, the founders built their own regional NFT marketplace and launched it in September 2022. Meetups grew from 10 or 15 people to 60 to 80. A no-code launchpad let artists mint without paying developers high fees, and Jimi said Oasis X was the first marketplace to combine EVM and Solana NFTs and became the largest in the region. When NFTs cooled, the team pivoted. His advice on networking was practical: believe in what you build, never give up, and attend as many events as possible. In his first two years he went to seven to nine events a week.

IOPn has four pillars. The first is OPN Chain, a Cosmos SDK based, EVM compatible chain with sub-second finality and over 10,000 transactions per second, with work underway on quantum-resistant security. The second is an Nvidia-based data center. On top sit real-world asset tokenization, with zero knowledge KYC for physical assets, and an AI research arm. Jimi's example is a predictive engine that helps clients decide when to buy commodities. The name stands for internet of people powered by networks.

The theme tying it together is the sovereign stack. For users it is an identity layer: early badges, a reputation points system and an onchain history that follows people across the ecosystem. Staked OPN can later give access to goods and services from partner networks. For governments and institutions it is sovereign data computing, with GPUs physically separated from other tenants. Jimi said the early badge campaign drew over 132,000 users in 10 days, a sign of demand for belonging and identity. The video description adds IOPn results with Surgence Labs: 3,000 plus builders, 100 plus projects incubated and more than 1M testnet actions.

Next, testnet v2 was due by the end of the month after an audit. Builders are invited to try the chain, and the team is in a private round for investors. Jimi sees a homegrown UAE chain as an uncommon position and welcomes competition. In five years he wants IOPn in the top 10 L1s, a leader in real-world assets in the region and beyond, with replicated data centers and an academy.