Recently we announced that MEDIA Protocol will be setting up partnerships with some of the biggest crypto projects out there, sharing content and announcements via our CryptoCatnip dApp. There are some really exciting projects going on, so as part of CryptoCatnip’s evolution, and in MEDIA Protocol CEO, James Tabor’s own words: “We’re extremely excited to expand our offering and introduce supplementary news that aligns with our users’ interests.” Quadrant is amongst the first crypto projects to partner with CryptoCatnip as a way of sharing their content.

On Thursday 19th July 2018, MEDIA Protocol’s CEO, James Tabor, and Mike Davie, Founder of Quadrant, joined together on MEDIA Protocol’s Telegram channel for a very informative AMA session. Members from both communities were given the opportunity to ask questions and find out more about the partnership and about the projects.

Below is a summary of the some of the most interesting conversations that happened.

About Quadrant Protocol

What does Quadrant Protocol do? What problems does it solve?

Mike: Quadrant is a blockchain-based protocol that enables the access, creation, and distribution of data products and services with authenticity and provenance at its core. We see the data economy is similar to space; unmapped and chaotic. Quadrant serves as the blueprint that provides an organised system for the use of decentralised data.

For example, when we look at the advertising space, there are so many different sources of data, both deterministic and probabilistic, that need to be gathered and collected to make sense of the environment.

James: By validating the data via Quadrant, we can create a “token stack.” When Quadrant vouches for the surrounding data the user can feel safer serving a promoted link. But if the link was simply “organic” it could easily be a fraud targeting the user.

What kinds of data does Quadrant work with? It sounds like you include media (e.g., photos) as data. Does it also apply to analytical data?

Mike: We are data-type agnostic. We have found over the years that commercial data holds many different forms and structures. We are building the protocol to handle cross-industry use cases. The exciting part will be where businesses take the protocol and just run with it.

Can you follow companies in CryptoCatnip to see their announcements?

James: We will make an announcement very shortly about how projects, such as Quadrant, are putting their blog posts into CryptoCatnip. Our goal is for there to be one single place, where active community members can stay up to date with the latest happenings about the projects they care about.

Partnerships

Can you tell us a little bit more about your partnership with the government of Singapore?

Mike: We built a partnership with the government of Singapore to commercialise AI and microservices on top of the protocol. More information can be found here.

Effect.ai is one of the first partners of the project we’re announcing.

How does Quadrant Protocol authenticate data while protecting privacy?

Mike: When we stamp data into the chain, we take the hash along with the media data (what we call the data’s DNA) and put it into the chain. No personal data can be divulged, as the actual data is stored off chain and cannot be reverse engineered.

How did you go about building such a great group of partners across the globe?

Mike: Building a global network was essential to us. We spent months working with these partners to ensure the long-term success of the project.

Data Storage

Where is all this data being stored? Is it cloud-based? A physical data farm?

Mike: The data providers can select the method that suits their data and organisation strategy the best. They could store on premise, but we see many of our partners using AWS storage. We partnered with Bluzelle to enable distributed database storage as an integrated solution.

Do you have access to that data by way of hash or some other identifier that is immediately accessible on that storage device?

Mike: Yes, the provider selects the storage type and, in the data smart contracts, we enable the access mechanism to the data feed.

Quadrant’s Ecosystem

What I find most interesting from Quadrant’s ecosystem are Elons. Can you tell us a little bit more about the process of becoming one of them? Do we need to buy data from Quadrant?

Mike: Elons are the innovators in the data economy; budding data scientists, corporate innovation labs, AI and machine learning startups. There will be a stacking mechanism built into the protocol where these organisations will access different tiers of data. They will be able to build and innovate new products and services.

How do you bring governance into your ecosystem?

Mike: The data economy is very murky. Suppliers don’t know where their data goes, while buyers don’t know where the data came from. By making the supply chain more transparent, both parties are incentivised to work within the Quadrant ecosystem. Suppliers can see where their data goes and get compensated. Data consumers can trace the data back to the source and ensure the provenance of its origin.

General Questions

How important is interoperability for your project?

Mike: Very important. We’ve learned that no one system rules all companies. Every organisation uses different technologies to suit their business needs. We are building the protocol to ensure flexibility for all our users.

James: Projects are going to shape the world, and the infrastructure can be as simple to move between as possible.

Mike: Two weeks ago we presented how our protocol could be used to spot Deep Fake (AI altered media). This is the cover of Time Magazine:

By stamping images on creation, we could help identify when media has been altered before being published or consumed.

James: Very often content gets manipulated, this is scary.

Mike: This is going to be a huge problem. We can create CGI for the real world now. Everything can be faked beyond recognition.

The image shown above has been created by an AI that is fake, is that correct?

Mike: Yes, if you just create a fake and say it is real, then there’s nothing we can do to help here (yet). However, what we CAN do, is ensure that if a company claims its data, and says it is authentic, then we can prove it back to the source. Even after it is shared between dozens of in-between parties.

The data you supply- is it refined data that is easily suited for AI companies to use for their machine learning process? Or does it still need to be categorized and refined for the process?

Mike: It depends on the data supplier. Both refined and unrefined data are typically made available in the market. Both have their respective use cases where they are suited for.

I am a little bit confused with an announcement which claims that Quadrant was funded more than five years ago. Can you please elaborate on this?

Mike: Part of our governance was to vest the contribution over 5 years, if we received more than $7M of contributions (which we did). This is to prevent the ‘go buy a Lambo’ attitude of some projects. Our motto is ‘let’s rock this, get the work done and ensure we have the runway to achieve what we set out to do’

Exclusive Rewards For Quadrant Protocol Supporters And CryptoCatnip Users

In line with MEDIA Protocol’s mission to reward readers of content, Quadrant is offering a 20% bonus for all Quadrant Protocol Public Sale supporters who contribute over 1ETH and have downloaded the CryptoCatnip app, which is available for download on iOS and Android Devices. For more information on the sale, please visit the Quadrant website or chat to the team directly on their Telegram channel.

In addition to the Quadrant Bonus, users of MEDIA Protocol’s CryptoCatnip app can earn real MEDIA Tokens for interacting with the content they love. The CryptoCatnip reward bounty is still ongoing. Click on the link and follow the steps for the opportunity to earn real MPT up until the end of MEDIA Protocol’s TGE!

And remember, you can now follow crypto project announcements on CryptoCatnip too.

For more information regarding MEDIA Protocol find us on our social channels below:

Website: www.mediaprotocol.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MEDIAProtocol

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MEDIA_Protocol

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/media-protocol/

Telegram: https://t.me/Media_Protocol_Community and https://t.me/MP_Announcements

Medium: https://medium.com/@mediaprotocolsm

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MEDIAProtocol