E-commerce and cloud computing giant Amazon has been granted a patent to develop a streaming data marketplace, which would allow its subscribers to receive real-time data on cryptocurrency transactions. The patent was given to Amazon Technologies, a subsidiary Amazon. It describes a system in which organizations and individuals can put streaming data feeds for sale, for which clients can then subscribe.

The patent filing lists a number of potential use cases of the marketplace, including “web site click-streams, marketing and financial information, manufacturing instrumentation and social media, operational logs, metering data and so forth.“ Such a broad spectrum of data sources looks tempting for developers who often struggle to manage vast amounts of data.

Amazon claims the new data service will be especially useful for developers who will be able to build real-time dashboards, capture exceptions and generate alerts, drive recommendations, and make other real-time business or operational decisions.

Notably, one of the use cases focused directly on the digital currency market. While individual data streams, such as bitcoin or other cryptocurrency transaction data might not be that useful, combining it with additional sources can make them more valuable. The document states that transactions are visible to all members of the network.

It all sounds a bit complicated, so here‘s what Amazon had to say on the matter, “For instance, a group of electronic or internet retailers who acknowledge bitcoin transactions may have a shipping address that may interact with the bitcoin address. The electronic retailers may consolidate the shipping address with the bitcoin transaction data to generate correlated data and republish the linked data as a combined data stream.“

Such data would be of a significant interest to law enforcement agencies who will simply be able to subscribe to a desired data stream. It seems that Amazon has already thought about this and is happy to have such institutions among its clients. According to the company, “A law enforcement agency may be a customer and may desire to receive global bitcoin transactions, correlated by country, with ISP data to determine source IP addresses and shipping addresses that correlate to bitcoin addresses.“

Having been granted the patent, it is more than likely that Amazon will build the marketplace, which poses a threat to other startups, who are developing similar but more decentralized marketplaces. Henri Pikhala, a CEO of one such startup Streamer said that “Data Marketplaces aren’t a new idea but what is novel, is building a space that finally gives clients final control over the data they generate through their actions in the digital realm.“

He added that “If that’s Amazon’s ultimate vision, then bravo, but something might suggest it’s not in the company’s DNA to think like that.“

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