ChargeFrog

A community-led EV charging network across Europe

🐸 Our Deliverables

1. Our 5 mins+ Demo Video (Youtube) 🌐Watch It!
2. Our Pitch Deck (PDF) 🌐Read It!
3. Our Demo DApp (Deployed on IOTA Testnet) 🌐Try It!
4. A Collection of On-Chain Proofs (PDF) 🌐Read It!
   

TL;DR 👉 What is ChargeFrog?

ChargeFrog is Europe’s first community-led EV charging network, built fully on IOTA, to address the severe supply gap and uneven distributions of EV chargers across the continent. It opens infrastructure ownership to small investors via fractional investments and on-chain asset tokenization, lowering the investment barrier. Each station issues share tokens for pro-rata revenue claims, while network users pay with on-chain closed-loop credits, creating a transparent charging economy. The network is scaled by investor decisions and operated through on-chain modules. Our Super App unifies all actions into a seamless experience, enabling users to interact directly with our custom-engineered stations throughout Europe.

Tackling the Problems of Europe's EV Market

1️⃣ The Imbalance Supply and Demand

Europe’s electric vehicle (EV) adoption is accelerating far faster than its charging infrastructure can keep up. In 2024, the region recorded approximately 8.8 million registered EVs, and by 2025 that number is projected to climb to 11.8 million, marking a 34% year-over-year increase. However, the expansion of charging infrastructure is lagging behind. Despite a 35% growth in charger installations, Europe will have only 1.09 million public and private chargers by 2025—nowhere near enough to support the rising volume of EVs on the road.

This mismatch is creating a widening structural gap: EV demand is scaling exponentially, while charging infrastructure grows linearly. At the current rate, the EU’s target of deploying 3.5 million chargers by 2030 appears increasingly unattainable. If this trend continues, Europe risks facing severe charging bottlenecks, slower EV adoption, and reduced consumer confidence—ultimately undermining its climate and mobility goals.

2️⃣ The Uneven Distributions

On top of the overall shortage, Europe’s charging infrastructure faces a serious distribution imbalance. The growth of chargers is not evenly spread across member states, creating regional accessibility gaps that worsen the EV charging deficit. A few countries dominate the network, while many others remain severely underserved.

For example, the Netherlands—home to just 17 million people—hosts more than 130,000 public chargers, accounting for over one-third of all public charging points in the EU. In stark contrast, Poland, with a significantly larger population, has only around 5,400 chargers, and Romania has just 2,700. These disparities illustrate that Europe’s EV charging challenge isn’t merely a shortage—it’s a distribution crisis.

This uneven deployment results in inconsistent charging access, discourages cross-border travel, and risks creating a multi-speed EV transition where progress is concentrated in a handful of countries. Without addressing both the quantity and geographic distribution of charging stations, Europe’s EV ecosystem will remain fragmented and insufficient to support the continent’s accelerating electrification.

3️⃣ High Barrier for EV Infra Investments

• High upfront costs: Deploying EV chargers—especially high-power DC fast chargers—requires significant capital. A 500 kW+ DC charging station can cost around €104,000, placing it well outside the reach of most individuals or small groups.

• Limited financing options: Traditional financing channels rarely accommodate small investors who wish to co-own or fractionalize charging infrastructure. Most funding flows toward established operators with strong balance sheets.

• Capital-intensive market dynamics: Because major charging networks require large-scale deployments, long-term power agreements, and ongoing maintenance, the market naturally gravitates toward big energy players.

• Legal, regulatory, and technical barriers: Navigating zoning rules, grid connection requirements, tariff structures, and compliance standards is complex. For citizens or small investors, these hurdles create a prohibitive entry barrier.

As a result, the EV charging landscape remains closed, centralized, and difficult for ordinary people to take part in, despite growing public interest in supporting green infrastructure. This disconnect slows innovation, limits community engagement, and prevents the creation of more distributed, community-driven charging networks. Without lowering these participation barriers, Europe risks missing a powerful opportunity for shared ownership, inclusive investment, and accelerated EV infrastructure growth.

💡 Motivation

Amid Europe’s accelerating EV adoption and persistent infrastructure gaps, there has never been a better moment to act. A powerful wave of EU policies and incentives is reshaping the landscape, creating ideal conditions for new, inclusive, and community-driven charging solutions like ChargeFrog.

Several major policy frameworks now serve as strong catalysts:

• EU Green Deal — The EU has committed to deploying 3.5 million public EV chargers by 2030, making large-scale charging expansion a central pillar of its climate agenda.

• AFIR 2024 (Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation) — For the first time, the EU has introduced legally binding charger density mandates, including requirements for high-power charging every 60 km along major highways.

• CEF–AFIF Funding — Over €1 billion in grants is being directed toward building public fast-charging corridors across Europe’s core transport network, significantly lowering financial barriers for new operators.

• Recast 2024: “Right to Plug” — New rules simplify the installation of chargers in apartments, multi-unit buildings, and shared properties, empowering citizens and property owners to participate more easily.

• LIFE Program Support — EU funding is increasingly supporting citizen energy communities, enabling local groups, cooperatives, and neighborhoods to co-own renewable and charging infrastructure.

Together, these policies represent a rare alignment of political will, financial incentives, and regulatory clarity. They create a uniquely supportive environment for democratized, investor-friendly charging networks. ChargeFrog is positioned to ride this momentum, unlocking community participation, accelerating charger deployment, and helping Europe close its infrastructure gap before 2030.

ChargeFrog: A New Operating Model on IOTA

We introduce a community-led EV charging network model designed to make infrastructure ownership inclusive, transparent, and open to all. At the heart of this model is ChargeFrog network, seamlessly integrated with the IOTA ecosystem, where every station’s data, revenue flow, and operational activity are recorded on-chain—ensuring full transparency and trust.

Each new charging station is fractionally funded through on-chain asset tokenization, enabling small investors from the IOTA community to participate by purchasing share tokens. Instead of requiring large upfront capital, individuals can collectively co-own real charging infrastructure, lowering the barrier to entry and distributing economic benefits widely.

To support the ecosystem, we introduce on-chain charging credits—digital units users can swap, hold, and spend directly at ChargeFrog stations. This forms a transparent, circular charging economy where payments, consumption, and rewards are all verifiable and interoperable.

Token holders receive multiple benefits:

1. Revenue sharing from the stations they co-own

2. Network perks, such as discounted charging

3. Governance rights, including the ability to propose new station locations

⭐ This transforms infrastructure growth into a community-driven expansion model, where the network evolves organically based on collective interest and shared incentives. Instead of relying solely on large corporate operators, ChargeFrog empowers everyday individuals to co-invest, co-govern, and co-build Europe’s next generation of EV charging infrastructure.

🐸 We Pack Everything in Our All-in-One Super App

At ChargeFrog, we have created a single Super App that unites EV charging, decentralized investment, and reward management. We built ChargeFrog on IOTA to be secure and transparent without complexity:

• Simplified Asset Management: We allow you to swap credit tokens, invest in shares, claim rewards, and manage your profile—all in one place, directly on-chain.

• Shaping the Network: We invite you to participate in the growth of our network by allowing you to Propose the next ideal location for future charging stations.

⚡️ A Unified Charging Experience

We ensure charging your EV is smooth and simple:

• Finding Stations: We help you instantly Find the nearest ChargeFrog station with details on connector types (like 22kW AC and 100kW DC) and real-time availability.

Buy & Spend

• Seamless Payments (Bolt Token): To pay, we facilitate an In-App Swap for Bolt credits. You can swap your IOTA tokens directly for Bolt credits (e.g., 1 IOTA=3 BOLT) to quickly start your charging session.

• On-Chain Tracking: We record your charging session on IOTA, providing a secure and verifiable transaction history.

Invest & Earn Anywhere

We allow anyone to own a piece of the growing EV infrastructure:

• Fractional Investment: We enable you to Invest in upcoming station proposals by purchasing fractional ownership tokens using IOTA. This lets you Own a Piece of Every Charge.

• Projected Revenue & Perks: We provide clear financial breakdowns for each proposal, showing estimated costs, projected revenue, and payback periods. As an investor, we also give you a Discount perk—for example, a 10% Discount Rate on your own charging sessions.

Claim (Revenue Distribution)

• Claiming Earnings: We make it easy to Claim your revenue distribution in one click. Your monthly payouts from your investments are transferred directly to your wallet in IOTA, fully tracked On-chain.

The Architecture Behind: A Layered Protocol Stack

Our system is structured as a three-layer stack, with the IOTA Blockchain Layer serving as the definitive, immutable state machine.

Physical Layer

This layer comprises the industrial hardware components: the EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) Hardware and the OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol) Controller. Its connection to the IOTA network is paramount, enabling secure, real-time data streaming and command execution (e.g., session start/stop/metering) that links physical events to on-chain state transitions. This facilitates transparent operation and verifiable Proof-of-Charge.

Backend Orchestration Layer

This traditional application layer is responsible for high-speed, off-chain computation and user-facing utilities:

• Map and Navigation: Geolocation services and pathfinding algorithms.
• Charging Workflow: Business logic for session initiation, error handling, and display updates.
• Perks System: Dynamic calculation and application of investor discounts and loyalty bonuses based on on-chain ownership records, but applied efficiently off-chain.

IOTA Blockchain Layer (On-Chain Modules)

This core layer is where all economic and governance logic resides, ensuring trustless execution and state integrity. It fundamentally relies on:

• Asset Tokenization: Utilizing IOTA's native support for tokenizing real-world assets.
• CLT Token Standard: Implementing the utility token standard for closed-loop economic control.

The ChargeFrog Application acts as a state conduit, submitting signed transactions (e.g., token swaps, investment requests, claim requests) to the IOTA protocol, which then triggers the state changes managed by the on-chain modules. The ChargeFrog DAO represents the collective governance authority over key protocol parameters and upgrades.

💳 Optimizing Charging Economics with Closed-Loop Token (CLT)

ChargeFrog::bolt implements a Closed-Loop Token (CLT) standard, a specific utility token design to enforce strict traceability and guaranteed revenue flow back to the network and investors.

CLT Functions (Protocol Enforcement)

• CLT for Payment: The token is the sole accepted medium for charging services.
• Track Spending: All Bolt CLT spent are traceable and linkable to a specific charging session record on the Tangle.
• Control Minting: Minting authority for Bolt CLT is tightly controlled, potentially by the DAO or a specific protocol module, to manage supply stability relative to network demand.
• Verify Spending: On-chain logic verifies that the spending transaction is valid, linked to an active session, and authorized by the Token Policy.
• Transfer Value to Station Funds: A portion or all of the spent CLT is programmatically directed into the designated Station Fund asset.
• Enforce by Token Policy & Allowlist: Spending is restricted by a protocol-level Token Policy and an Allowlist of permitted addresses (specifically, active, registered charging station addresses). This prevents misuse and ensures only operational stations can receive payment.

Workflow (Atomic State Transition)

1. Users Swap IOTA for Bolt CLT via a transparent in-app smart contract call.
2. Users initiate charging, causing Bolt CLT to be Spend to the station's address.
3. The spending transaction is checked against the Token Policy and the Allowlist to Enforce that the destination is an active station.
4. The Station receives the CLT and the corresponding on-chain module Records Revenue in IOTA, converting the utility payment into the investment asset payment within the Station Fund.
5. The accumulated revenue in the Station Fund is then made available for Claim Revenue Distribution by Investors.

🗃️ Orchestrating Station Lifecycle and On-Chain Governance

ChargeFrog::registry functions as a highly secure, immutable data structure—the on-chain Station Registry—critical for asset management and governance.

Purpose (Data Integrity)

It is the single source of truth overseeing the creation, funding progress (tracking IOTA contributions), and the final activation state of every charging station, ensuring each station's identity is a verifiably tokenized investment asset.

Key Functions (State Management)

• Define New Stations: Initial registration of a proposal, assigning a unique on-chain ID.
• Update Progress: State transitions (e.g., Proposal -> Funding -> Construction -> Operational).
• Activate Stations: The final state transition that adds the station to the Allowlist, enabling it to receive Bolt CLT payments.
• On-Chain Registry: Maintaining the canonical list of all stations.
• Keep track of lifecycle events: Timestamping and logging every major state change for auditability.

Structure (Lookup Mechanism)

The Station Registry maintains a cryptographic Stations Lookup Table. This table maps the unique Station ID to the detailed data structure of the Individual Station. This data structure includes:

• Investment Details: Total funding goal, IOTA received.
• Shares Issued: Quantity of fractional ownership tokens minted.
• Funding progress: Current percentage completion toward the funding goal.
• Activation status: The current operational status, crucial for the CLT Allowlist.

🪙 Realizing Fractional Investment with Native Asset Tokenization

ChargeFrog::shares utilizes IOTA's Native Asset Tokenization capabilities to represent ownership units as fungible tokens.

Model (Fixed Supply Fungible Token)

Each charging station is tied to a fixed-supply on-chain share registry. Investors receive tokenized ownership units that are minted as Native FT (Fungible Tokens) on the IOTA protocol. These tokens inherently carry the rights and duties defined by the protocol.

Key Features (IOTA Protocol Utility)

• Use IOTA asset_tokenization: Leveraging the protocol's built-in token issuance standard for security and interoperability.
• Support Fractional Shares: Native FTs are divisible, allowing investors to purchase small, fractional ownership units.
• Global Ownership Registry: All shares are tracked on the global IOTA ledger.
• Ownership Tracking & Shares Investment Tracking: Transparent, verifiable record of all token movements and current balances.
• Mint Shares as Native FT: Shares are not smart contract abstractions but first-class assets at the protocol layer.

Process (Supply Control)

An Invest Request from Investors is processed by the module, leading to FT Token Minting. This minting is strictly validated by Supply Enforcement logic against the Total Shares Supply defined for that station. The Station Shares module holds the Station-Scope Minting Rights and records the transaction in the Global Share Registry.

🧱 Modular Token Architecture: One Asset Class per Station

ChargeFrog::station implements an isolation principle where each station is treated as a self-contained entity with its own unique token class.

Principle (Token Isolation)

Each charging station is represented as a unique asset module, which defines its own independent Token Type, metadata, and mint-cap authority. This modular design is crucial for:

• Ensuring clear ownership isolation (e.g., revenue from Station A cannot be confused with Station B).
• Facilitating regulatory clarity, as each investment asset is distinctly identifiable.

Key Design Elements

• Local minting authority: The minting of shares for a specific station is authorized only by the specific module for that station.
• Immutable Identity: The station's on-chain identity and token type are fixed after deployment.
• Modular Design: Code and data are cleanly separated per station module.
• Safe Supply Expansion Path: Ensures that if the share supply needs to be increased (e.g., for expansion), it follows a predefined, auditable governance path.

Implementation Example (Unique Identifiers)

A station, say "Station: Amsterdam," has a unique on-chain identifier: Token Type (e.g., STATION_AMSTERDAM) and AssetRef (e.g., AmsterdamAssetRef). This strict type isolation prevents cross-station asset fungibility and guarantees that investment in one asset only tracks the performance of that single, specific station.

📊 Transparent Revenue Sharing & Pro-Rata Claims for Investors

ChargeFrog::station incorporates dedicated ledgers for transparent and automated revenue distribution.

Principle (Trustless Settlement)

Each charging station is a complete economic unit with its own dedicated on-chain fund (Station Fund Ledger) and investor registry (Investor Ledger). This design ensures revenue, shares, and payouts are isolated and fully transparent per station, eliminating the need for off-chain reconciliation.

Key Features (Ledger and Claim Logic)

• Station Fund Ledger: Tracks the Revenue Accumulation from EV drivers.
• Investor Ledger: Records current share holdings per investor.
• Pro-Rata Claim Tracking: The core logic that calculates an investor's entitled payout as a percentage of the total accumulated revenue, based on their share proportion.
• Withdraw and Settlement: Protocol functions to initiate the token transfer.
• Verifiable Revenue Claim: The entire claim process is recorded on-chain, providing cryptographic proof of the payout amount and timestamp.

Flow (Automated Distribution)

1. EV Drivers generate Revenue in IOTA (derived from Spent Bolt Token), which is deposited and accumulates in the Station Fund.
2. Investors hold Token Shares recorded in the Station Investor registry.
3. Investors submit a Claim request, which triggers the Pro-Rata Claim Tracker.
4. The tracker initiates a Payout transaction directly to the investor's wallet based on the calculated proportion.

🌍 The Business: Our Vision and Strategy Readme

The Market Is Ready — And So Are the People

We recognize that the rapidly accelerating shift to EVs is creating strong, consistent demand for public charging infrastructure. Our unique, decentralized solution empowers everyday citizens and local EV owners to not only use the charging infrastructure but to actively co-invest in it, fostering a true sense of community ownership and alignment.

We Serve Three Critical Stakeholders:

• EV Drivers: Network Users: They rely on our public charging network and benefit from the lowest charging costs possible because they are part of the community.
• Community Investors: Ownership Layer: We cater to individuals who seek profit from infrastructure but lack the high capital access. We transform EV infrastructure into an open, fractional investment class on IOTA.
• Partners: Expansion & Network Flywheel: We align commercial incentives with environmental and community goals, ensuring that growth benefits every participant in the ecosystem.

Market Opportunity:

We are targeting a Total Addressable Market (TAM) of €34 billion in Europe, with a focused Serviceable Available Market (SAM) of €5 billion in our initial deployment regions. Our initial goal is to capture an SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market) of €20 million worth of stations operated on ChargeFrog.

🛡️ We Enable Something No Other Network Does

We are not merely building a charging network; we are initiating a global movement to democratize the ownership of future energy infrastructure.

Our Core Differentiators:

• New Ownership Model: We introduce verifiable community ownership and direct governance influence over charging assets.
• Fractional Investment through Tokenization: By leveraging the IOTA protocol, we facilitate low-barrier fractional micro-investment, making infrastructure investment accessible to everyone.
• Fully On-Chain Charging Economics: Transparency is absolute. All revenue generation, fund pooling, and distribution are executed and recorded immutably on the IOTA blockchain.
• Community-Driven Scaling Flywheel: The community actively proposes and funds new locations, creating an organic, self-sustaining mechanism for network expansion.

This model allows ChargeFrog to effectively bridge the gap between low-barrier investment and asset ownership, unlike capital-intensive Corporate Ownership models.

💸 Sustainability & Revenue Model

We have established a multi-pronged revenue model to guarantee the platform’s sustainability and provide stable, recurring income for our investors:

• Charging Fees: Revenue generated from EV charging sessions is automatically pooled per station and shared among its token holders, providing a direct, usage-based income stream.
• ChargeFrog Pro: We offer a premium membership in the form of an NFT minted on IOTA, granting users tiered benefits such as discounted charging rates, priority station access, and exclusive membership perks.
• Value-Added Services: Stations are utilized as physical advertising hubs, offering localized business promotions, co-branding opportunities, and other partnered deals, monetizing the high foot traffic they generate.

Platform Sustainability:

We ensure the long-term operation, development, and expansion of the platform by retaining a modest 5% fee taken directly from the gross station revenue.

🚀 Our Early Go-To-Market Strategy

Our initial strategy focuses on demonstrating the efficacy of our community ownership model while ensuring a frictionless user experience.

• Community Ownership Proof: We aim to quickly prove that co-ownership of physical charging infrastructure is viable, empowering users to directly influence network growth.
• Web3 UX Abstraction: We prioritize a seamless onboarding experience onto IOTA, abstracting the underlying blockchain complexity so users can enjoy its benefits (speed, security, transparency) without a steep learning curve.
• Early Revenue and Trust: We generate verifiable real revenue from the initial pilot charging sessions and transparently redistribute it on IOTA, rapidly building community trust and market momentum.

Launching Pilot Stations:

We are launching our first pilot stations with a strong emphasis on community involvement. We allow users to propose new charging locations. The locations that garner the most community support will proceed to the investment rounds and be funded by our decentralized investment pool.

🤝 Our Strategic Partners Ecosystem

We recognize the necessity of collaboration to achieve massive scale. We are building a robust ecosystem of strategic partners essential for rapid, smart, and sustainable expansion across Europe.

This ecosystem includes:

• Leading charging hardware providers (e.g., EVBox) and Charge Point Operators (CPOs) to guarantee reliable infrastructure deployment.
• High-value location partners (e.g., APCOA Parking, Q-Park, Fastned, IONITY, EnBW, Allego) for premium, high-utilization charging sites.
• The IOTA Foundation which provides us with the foundational decentralized technology layer for trustless asset tokenization and transaction processing.

🎯 Our Milestones & Roadmap Readme

How we measure our success for the coming months? (Post-Hackathon KPIs)

We focus on three core metrics to validate our model and drive adoption:

1. Sustainable Revenue Cycle: We aim to complete one full revenue distribution cycle per month (at least on IOTA Testnet in early phase) to prove the functional integrity of our on-chain economics.
2. Product Validation via Usage: We must consistently gather structured feedback from beta testers to refine the UX, onboarding, and investment/charging flows.
3. Real Physical Adoption: For our pilot stations, we are targeting 30 charging sessions per week at the pilot site to demonstrate real-world physical usage.

🛣️ What's next in our developer roadmap?

We have successfully completed the MVP + Pilot on IOTA Testnet, featuring a mobile-based EV charging super app with real-life pilot station integration. Our next steps involve expanding functionality and preparing for mainnet launch:

• Live on IOTA Mainnet: All on-chain modules, tokenized station investments, CLT, revenue distribution flows, etc., will be deployed on the main, live IOTA network.
• Introduce AI Agent: This agent will assist network investors to perform analysis on proposed locations and list out high ROI potential options, adding value to the community investment process.
• Integrate IOTA Identity: We will provide DID profiles for each charging station. Stations become verifiable entities with important data, enhancing security and trust.
• Community Hardware Expansion: We plan to release open-source "ChargeFrog Pi" EVSE controller build on Raspberry Pi, empowering the community to deploy charging points easily.

🤝 The Minds Behind ChargeFrog