“What are the benefits of doing it on the blockchain?”

One of the most difficult question to answer in crypto. Past the excitement of the ICO high, the frantic gas wars, past the social media buzz, when the first sobering thoughts begin to creep in, when doubts enter the mind, asking, probing, questioning, and eventually demanding, shouting, pounding for answers, speaking in that recognizable reproachful voice:

“What did you do!? What the hell were you thinking?? Why would you ever need a blockchain for that?!?”

There’s nothing like an ICO hangover to cast a web of doubts on a previously sound analysis. Nothing like an ICO hangover to sober up, go back to the drawing board and read those white papers (because we know you don’t read the white papers), to gain a truer perspective on the value of a given project. In this article (because we know you don’t the read white papers), we will take a sober look at the actual benefits that Banyan Networks provides by putting big data on the blockchain.

Credibility

One of the major issues of data is credibility, namely how do we know that the data is accurate and trustworthy? How do we know that the data is reliable and error-free? Data collections are often laden with errors, missing values and abnormal values, hence data cleansing, data desensitization, consistency checks and quality assessment are a must. Banyan Network will not only provide all of those services, but will also set up governance models to continuously improve data quality.

Traceability

A related issue is knowing where the data is coming from and whether its access has been authorized. Knowing the data source, but also just as importantly, knowing when it was supplied and authorized requires that information be made publicly available for verification. The Banyan Network blockchain enables the recording of that information as well as the cross-checking of the information validity.

Availability

According to the Three Laws of Data Value, data availability is a critical factor to the valuation of data. “data in silence accelerates devaluation” while “data in circulation produces values.” The current industry mindset has lead to the formation of data silos where data is stored to be isolated and closed off, rarely if ever made accessible outside of those silos. Banyan Network creates incentives to disrupt this business model by promoting the circulation and availability of data, hence increasing data value.

Tamper Resistance

One of the most touted feature of blockchain is immutability. As a blockchain is made of blocks each connected to the previous one by a hash value, modifying the hash of one block would change the hash of all the blocks on the chain, hence making data on the blockchain tamper proof or at the very least extremely costly and computationally expensive to alter. Short of rewriting the entire ledger, data stored on the blockchain is secure from attempts to destroy or alter it.

Decentralization

A pillar of the crypto space, almost always championed, yet rarely explained, decentralization is the stuff crypto wet dreams are made of, the mana or technical magic threatening to disrupt the disrupters. Decentralization is the disintermediation of top-down authority where the monopoly of a few gives way to a new era of networks and marketplaces where collaboration trumps over competition. Banyan Network enables the decentralization of data by giving users ownership to what was always theirs to begin with: data. Users owning their data is the new business model.

Compliance

On May 25th of this year, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was implemented to impose strict new rules on controlling and processing personally identifiable information (PII). While this regulation aims to protects users of the 28 EU nations, it will also serve as a precursor for more regulations around the globe aiming to protect users and to standardize how customer data is collected, stored and used. Banyan Network will “meet the security compliance requirements of GDPR” and “ensure that each data call is authorized by the user.”*

Standardization

The three key concepts of big data are volume, velocity and variety. Because data sets come in many types and formats, standardization is the process aiming to deal with data variety, or what is also known as “garbage in, garbage out.” With all the different big data solutions each with their own standards and specifications, the lack of common rules amongst those tools has resulted in the slow deployment of big data. Banyan Network incentivizes big data tools and solutions to participate in a consortium so that together they can finally agree on common standards.

Data Fusion

It would be impossible to talk about Banyan Network without talking about data fusion. Banyan’s blockchain technology called Data Fusion Value Chain Network (DVN) is the world’s first distributed ecosystem of data economies raised and built by a team of data analytics experts. Because “data is often incomplete and fragmented, and each data source can only provide part of the available information,”** DVN enables the integration of multiple data sources, and it is this fusion of data creates more complete, hence richer, hence more valuable data sets.

Monetization

Data has been anointed as the most valuable asset, more valuable than oil, hence why it is often referred to as the new oil. As a rule of thumb, the closer to the money the data is, the more valuable it is. There is massive value in the terabytes, petabytes and exabytes of unstructured data stored in data silos. Data to answer questions businesses and organizations need to better serve their customers, to gain a competitive edge, or to reduce costs. Incentivizing data silos to share could unlock a trillion-dollar market. The promise of big data has yet to be fulfilled, and Banyan Network could very well be the catalyst to unlock that value.

Governance

Last but not least, there is the little issue of data governance. What issue say you? Well how about the Cambridge Analytica leak, the Equifax breach, the Snowden revelations, the Google+ data exposure, etc. Data breaches point to bad data management, to lack of regulation, and the abuse of customer trust. It seems to consumers that corporations don’t take the protection of their data very seriously. This breakdown of trust creates the need for data governance to be taken out of the hands of corporations. And while regulations like GDPR help, more comprehensive data governance practices need to emerge. It just so happens that all previous features discussed above demonstrate how Banyan Network is addressing this need for better data governance.

What Banyan Network provides to the big data industry is better data management. By putting big data on the blockchain, data doesn’t just become more valuable, data becomes credible, traceable, available, temper resistant, decentralized, compliant, standardized, integrated, monetized and hence, better managed.

Links

Website: http://www.banyanbbt.org/

Telegram: https://t.me/BBNGlobalFans

Where to buy BBN?: https://www.bibox.com/exchange?coinPair=BBN_ETH

Twitter: https://twitter.com/banyan_network

References

*Ecosystem white paper (page 28): http://www.banyanbbt.org/assets/downloads/BanyanNetwork_ecosystem_whitepaper_english_v10.pdf

**Banyan Network white paper (page 8): http://banyannetwork.org/assets/downloads/BanyanNetwork_whitepaper_english_v10.pdf