this all depends on how you view "near-future". if you expect fully integrated DApps with large scale industry assimilation within weeks, or a month, you will be disappointed. ive stated before that i think it will take a minimum of six months before we see any early and consistent usage and population of Distributed Applications being run on the blockchain. SOIL is still UNKNOWN. the blockchain and overlying contract-capable platform are very simply the foundation of the project, something that only NOW being understood on projects like ETH, the "parent system" behind SOIL. people are only NOW starting to understand what the potentialities of the ETH-based platform is CAPABLE of, which is pretty damned well near ANYTHING. what we have, with SOIL, and its underlying programmatic value; is a future information technology service and application infrastructure.

yeah, that sounds like just a bunch of words. but how do you describe from the cornerstone of a cathedral what its finished architecture will look like? i look at this whole project much like building a house, how its done here in canada. first you dig the hole (out of the very SOIL itself, pun intended) [our initial vision where this project could lead, what is possible], then you level it, build the forms for the basement walls [the testnet], then you pour the foundation [the live SOIL blockchain]. on top of that you build your framing, [the programmatic language], and then floors and walls and ceilings [the virtual machine space architecture], and then paint and furniture [the DAPP-scape]. then you put siding on it [marketing and assimilation]. each layer is supporting and supported with the others in which it interacts. so far, weve poured the foundation, we're now slowly building the framework..

if you want specifics, on the market we are aiming to serve, to bring towards this technology, ive looked into dozens of companies that already use cloud-server based applications running data acquisition and analytics for modern farms, which maintain high subscription fees. for a single example, specifically, drone usage for farm mapping is a HUGE industry. both qudri-copter and fixed wing agricultural drones are employed towards "automated agricultural intelligence". these arent hobbyist copters you get at best buy or the electronics hobby shop. these cost around $12k. theyre completely programmable and autonomous. post-flight, data is uploaded to a cloud server for processing, which generally takes a few hours. the MONTHLY subscription cost for basic analytical return from these services ranges between $90-100. more advanced data analytics can cost monthly subscriptions of $150-200. PER DRONE.

SOIL was not designed as a speculative currency. it was designed as the fuel to run these analytic operations. SOIL will make this SPECIFIC example more streamlined, cheaper, and uptime reliant. we can reduce the server costs to the end user, which is what makes it attractive. this is about a focused scalability of the technology. the end product for autonomous agricultural integration is VERY MUCH a "just on the horizon" destination, its already THERE. but COSTLY.

where autonomous agriculture is GOING, thru the natural evolution of the technology surrounding it, is HIGHLY server oriented, and a decentralized network like blockchain technology is necessarily a logical extension of those systems. at its best, we aim to create a context-aware and intelligent service system. with DAPPs toolkits becoming more sophisticated, there opens the very real adoption of the blockchain into customer-driven services management and resource allocation. the virtual architecture of the programmatic contract driven infrasturcture on top of the blockchain and the autonomous end user precision agricultural user are connected. the blockchain also presents the opportunities for creation of DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) which can provide various services and resource cooperation between three layers of the system.

SOIL is the bridge between the Real Intelligent Space (the user who wants to access an intelligent service or contract) and the Physical Space (the user-owned real physical devices including sensors, controls and networks) SOIL becomes the Virtual Intelligent Space, which generates situation information or contexts, and is an organized community with service resources (DAPPs) to complete systematic and technological functions. a SOIL based blockchain architecture can provide a cloud-like surperstructure with more anonymity, reliancy and security; for data analysis, GPU-instances, and parallelized number crunching.

even this Virtual Intelligent Space is populated by layers. beyond the mining and speculative currency market driven block verification apparatus, the engine, to reach the end user who wants to manage his farm system with an android app and not have to worry about using local and vulnerable servers performing data analysis for him, there become intelligent service and contract coordination applications, as well as intelligent service and contract management layer applications, creating what overall becomes an intelligent service plan engine which provides data analysis and context-aware autonomous device solutions on demand, in a dedicated and reliant manner.

SOIL will ultimately reduce the capital intensive investments current thru commercial cloud-based services, using SOIL as its fuel and currency. the scaled cost of providing those computational processes needed by the DAPP enduser can reduce as the value of SOIL increases, providing a stable level of overall cost to them, and the minted number of SOIL decreases within a few years. a much more stable and slow release, with available supply creates a strong market, which is realized not in days or months but years. this is the long term goal, beyond simple coin specifics.

precision agricultural software utilization on the SOIL platform can itself develop and deliver intelligent services to even small-farm owners with reduced IT-investment and little expertise on the endusers side necessary. the precision agriculture industry is growing by 13% a year.  the key value driver in the development of precision agriculture is DATA — collecting it, analyzing it, and using it. although data COLLECTION will remain a local responsibility on the endusers side, a virtual machine environment such as SOIL can accelerate the data analysis services and reduce the barriers to farmers needing actionable intelligence in realtime.

because the realization of this market evolution is beginning to gain widespread acceptance by the industry, and approaching SOIL as a business plan instead of a grand experiment, we will create a REAL value for the coin. what specifically is in store in teh short term, i cant say. within the next month or so we'll have ported applications to other mediums, we'll improve the delivery and accessibility of the asset management systems (wallets) and mining ability. we'll improve the underlying accounting and transparent management of the system. working towards retail acceptance as a whole, small scale into larger recognition and acceptance, and that sort of real world use makes for a strong increasive market trend.

i cant, and WONT, promise you the moon. i CAN promise you that we have specific directions to take this project, and that we are prepared for the time-intensive nature of bringing this product to that maturation.