Why is data valuable?

Data is the centerpiece in the world’s digital transformation that has been estimated to cross 100 trillion US$ in value by 2025. Data is the new oil and the world’s most valuable resource. Technologies that shape our future, such as artificial intelligence, require access to large amounts of data to achieve better results.

What's wrong with our current data economy?

Our current data economy is broken. Data is valuable, but only large corporations, such as Google or Meta, are profiting.

Whilst personal data is being exploited on the internet, business data remains locked to protect competitive advantage. Until recently, trading data was not possible - blockchain fixes this.

Why you shouldn't miss out on the Web3 Data Economy!

Ocean Protocol's Web3 data economy uses cryptocurrency and allows for a safe and privacy-preserving data exchange thanks to blockchain technology.

Ocean Protocol introduced a new asset class called "Datatokens", which represents datasets owned by individuals or companies. Datatokens can be traded by the general public, helping to value the data and also provides the opportunity for anyone to participate in the data economy worth trillions of dollars.

What are "Tokens"?

Blockchain tokens [or "coins"] can have many use-cases. Tokens can represent the use-case of digital money or can determine ownership of an asset, including an art-piece or even real estate. 

What are "Wallets"?

Tokens can be stored in wallets, which are user-friendly browser extensions (MetaMask) or hardware wallets. They are also used to exchange "Tokens" between parties by "signing" transactions digitally. These transactions prove that the person who wishes to engage with the Blockchain, owns the "Tokens" through "private keys" [a set of numbers, letters or random words that act like a password to the Wallet]. 

What are blockchain smart contracts?

Smart contracts can be initiated with the help of blockchain technology and are digital agreements that regulate an exchange between two parties. Similar to "traditional" agreements, smart contracts executed automatically whenever certain conditions are met between participating parties. With the help of "Wallets", users can engage with smart contracts. 

For example: George releases a smart contract where he requests 0.1 Ethereum in return for 1.0 of his G-Tokens. Whenever anyone sends 0.1 Ethereum to George's smart contract, it automatically releases 1.0 G-Tokens to the requesting party.

What is tokenization?

Tokenization plays a crucial role in the digitization of our world's assets. In the future, anything of value will be transacted digitally, including money, real estate or data. The exchange of ownership will be regulated by "Tokens". The possibility to tokenize our world's assets and exchange them digitally is the reason why cryptocurrency markets are valued in trillions. The digital exchange of ownership and value is a major trend defined as "Web3".

What are Datatokens?

Ocean Protocol introduced a new asset class to the blockchain ecosystem called "Datatokens". By using Ocean Protocol's Data Marketplace, anyone can tokenize their data in under 20 minutes - no prior experience is required! Datatokens unlock data exchange with blockchain technology. Datatokens are like cryptocurrency and can be traded by investors.

What can I do with Datatokens?

Data owners are able to create tokens for their dataset and offer the Datatoken on exchanges for sale. Datatokens have two main use-cases:

1. Data Access: Datatokens can be bought by data consumers and sent to the data owner [through smart contracts], to access the dataset.
2. Data Finance (DataFi): Datatokens can be bought and sold on the Ocean Data Market by data investors, influencing the price of the dataset. As with traditional trading on the stock exchange that offers company shares, investors can now buy shares in datasets thanks to Datatokens.
   
   

Datatokens solve the challenge of data valuation and offer a financial incentive to data owners to tokenize their data.

What kind of data can be tokenized?

To make it short: any data. Data includes images, videos, texts, sales figures, research results, sensor data and much, much more. Chances are that your data may be valuable to someone, somewhere. For example, you own a chain of supermarket stores. Data on consumer behavior and buying patterns could help your suppliers and even producers to plan ahead and save costs. Surely, they would be willing to pay to access such data. The more data in a dataset, the better. 

Which format does the data need to be in?

Datasets have various formats, including simple Excel sheets or image libraries. Ideally, datasets should be organized to make it easy for buyers to consume the data! Organizing data is also called "data curation". Data owners can also take a step further and optimize datasets for machine learning.

Where should the dataset be saved?

The dataset itself can be stored on the data owner's server, decentralized data storage providers [Filecoin or IPFS] and even Google Drive!  

How can I access data using blockchain?

Data consumers need to buy 1.0 Datatoken of whichever dataset they need on the Ocean Protocol Data Market. Then, the data consumer sends the Datatoken to the data owner with the help of their wallet. In return, the data buyer will automatically receive access to the dataset in the form of a download link. It's simple as that!

How is data privacy preserved?

In our current data economy, data is being exploited. That's why data privacy is a topic that is also important in the Web3 data economy. Smart contracts are great, because they can include privacy-preserving conditions that data owners can use to protect themselves.

Data privacy: Access permissions

Data owners can decide who is able access their data. Ocean Protocol calls this condition on their smart contracts 'fine-grained permissions'. 

Data privacy: Access conditions

Data owners can implement certain conditions to access their data. For example, data owners can decide to make their data available for 1 day, 1 month, 1 year or forever. 

Data privacy: Compute-To-Data

There is a risk of data buyers downloading the dataset and then sharing it illegally. Using Ocean Protocol's Compute-To-Data function, data owners can protect their data fully. Instead of downloading the dataset, data buyers can submit algorithms to absorb the information on the dataset. The buyer then only receives the result of their "compute job", and not the actual raw data, making it impossible for them to share it illegally.

Disclaimer: Investing in cryptocurrencies and Datatokens bears considerable risks, including total loss of funds. Please do your own research and do not consider this financial advice.

Why should I invest in data?

Ocean Protocol's blockchain data market makes investing in data possible for anyone with an internet connection. With just a few simple tools, trading "data shares" in the form of Datatokens is a revolution that unlocks a trillion dollar market.

What do I need to start investing?

To invest on the Ocean Market, data investors are required to download a wallet extension, such as MetaMask. Then, investors need to deposit $OCEAN, Ocean Protocol's cryptocurrency used on the data market. The $OCEAN token is available on over 50+ cryptocurrency exchanges. The wallet also needs to store cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum or BNB, depending on which blockchain Datatokens will be traded on.

What is the difference between fixed and variable priced Datatokens?

Datatokens can be published with a fixed price by the data owner, which avoids price fluctuations caused by investors. Datatokens with a variable price are subject to fluctuations in supply and demand by data consumers and data investors. 

What is an Initial Data Offering [IDO]?

An Initial Data Offering, or "IDO", is the process of launching a tokenized dataset to the general public. It can be compared to traditional Initial Public Offerings [IPO], but instead of shares, the IDO offers Datatokens that are available to data investors and data consumers alike. 

What is the meaning of swapping?

The process of trading $OCEAN for Datatokens is called "swapping". When swapping Datatokens, the smart contract will release the equivalent amount of Datatokens to the investor's wallet, based on their $OCEAN exchange rate.

What is the meaning of "slippage"?

Swapping may result in "slippage", resulting in receiving less Datatokens compared to exchange rate. This takes place if the amount of $OCEAN swapped is large and essentially means that there were not enough Datatokens available at the expected $OCEAN exchange rate.

What are swap fees?

Swap fees can be set by the data publisher when launching an Initial Data Offering and usually range between 0.1% to 10% for every swap transaction. The fee is paid by the data investor and is based on the amount swapped. 

What are Datatoken liquidity pools?

Since the Ocean Protocol Data Market is a decentralized exchange, there are no traditional "order books", where a seller's offer is matched with a buyer's bid. Swapping Datatokens is possible with the help of liquidity pools, where investors can lock up their $OCEAN tokens. This supports anyone wishing to "swap" is able to do so instantly, without waiting for a seller to match their request.

What are pool shares?

When data investors decide to lock $OCEAN in a Datatoken liquidity pool, they receive "pool shares" in return. In return for locking up their $OCEAN, stakers are able to earn swap fees as an interest. Pool shares may also increase or decrease in value, depending on the total liquidity available in the pool. Investors can withdraw their $OCEAN from the liquidity pool at any time.

What is the meaning of TVL?

TVL means "total value locked", or the amount of $OCEAN locked in a Datatoken liquidity pool.

What is the meaning of data consume volume?

Data consume volume means the amount of times a dataset has been sold and how much $OCEAN has been spent to access the dataset. It is a great indicator to analyze the utility of a dataset, as the higher the data consume volume, the more useful a dataset seems to be.

Data investing: using TVL as an indicator

Total value locked serves as a natural "quality control" of the data. If a dataset is valuable, data consumers and investors that swap the Datatokens increases, resulting in more fees paid to the stakers. If many investors lock their $OCEAN in a Datatoken liquidity pool, it could determine that the dataset might be valuable.

Data investing: other tools

There are several tools that aim to provide guidance to data investors to educate themselves about Datatokens on the Ocean Data Market. These include RugPull Index and Data Whale's Directory dataset.