SWIPE is excited to formally announce our partnership with Bluzelle, a decentralized database that offers security, performance, and scalability for dApps. SWIPE will be working with Bluzelle to build a database for SWIPE’s decentralized ledger system to securely store and utilize collected user data.

Why does SWIPE need database storage?

As many of you who have been closely following the SWIPE project may know, we are building the SWIPE network which purpose is to enable transparent data monetization and privacy control on the blockchain. For those who are unaware about SWIPE or even about how SWIPE network works, do not fret for we will be breaking it down into bite-sized concepts for you to understand SWIPE and how Bluzelle would fit into our network. For a more detailed write-up, please visit our 2-part article introducing SWIPE — Part1 | Part2

The purpose of the SWIPE network is to enable transparent data monetization and privacy control by harnessing blockchain technology to connect app developers, users and data buyers. SWIPE will be developing a suite of SDKs that can be easily integrated by any app developer, enabling both the user and developer to opt-in to SWIPE network. Data collected through app usage will be aggregated, encrypted, indexed and stored where it can be later retrieved. When a data buyer initiates a data package buy from gmSWIPE’s data marketplace (transacted with SWIPE tokens), a smart contract is created and the Data Request, together with the campaign information is forwarded to the relevant users, requesting a permission grant for access to their data. The encrypted data package will be downloaded, then decrypted and aggregated as per the data campaign requirements, and released to the data buyer.

The challenge is to find a suitable location to store the data collected from the SDK embedded in the apps of the users. Centralized data storage, such as a cloud server is out of the question as it is vulnerable to security breaches or potential privacy compromises by the host itself. SWIPE, therefore, opts for a decentralized storage solution to store all user data. Decentralized storage has no single point of failure, and is thus difficult to hack. Right now, SWIPE is planning to utilize both IPFS and Bluzelle as our decentralized storage solution. We need both of them as IPFS would only efficiently handle file storage, while Bluzelle is needed to efficiently satisfy our database needs.

What is the difference between file storage and database storage?

In simple terms, files refer to data that is stored in a computer system in an unstructured and arbitrary manner. Their size can be fairly large, and their contents cannot be searched or queried in an efficient manner. A database is used for storing related, structured/aggregated data in a manner that can be easily searched, retrieved and utilized. In SWIPE’s context, IPFS would store the individual user profile of the SWIPE’s network, while Bluzelle would be the database that stores aggregated information that can be queried by a data buyer, to obtain an idea of the data set he will be buying (e.g. sample size, demographics etc).

Without Bluzelle’s database storage, when a data buyer queries for datasets ALL individual user profiles will need to be downloaded from the IPFS, individually searched, analyzed and collated to provide the data buyer with useful information. As the network size of the SWIPE user-base expands, there would be a significant deterioration in performance when data buyers query for information from millions of users. On the other hand, when retrieving data from a database, the database would only respond with the required, queried dataset. The speed of data retrieval from a database is faster by two orders of magnitude compared to file storage.

For further reading, please read an official article describing database vs file storage posted by the Bluzelle team.

SWIPE-Bluzelle Partnership

Bluzelle is a decentralized database protocol, particularly suitable for enterprise-level blockchain products requiring decentralized database management. Bluzelle implements swarming technology — where data is ‘sharded’(fragmented) and stored on swarms, which are groups of nodes that work together to store and manage data, and Bluzelle is essentially an entire network of multiple swarms. As the nodes in the swarm are geographically dispersed, the network is decentralized and immune to localized outages, achieving reliability. While decentralization usually comes at the expense of performance, Bluzelle’s swarming technology, in fact, improves performance by retrieving data from the nearest node and retrieving them in parallel from the fastest nodes on the leaf swarm (similar to seeders in torrenting), therefore greatly reducing latency and improving speed respectively. Due to their metaswarm architecture, Bluzelle can also offer superior horizontal and vertical scaling capabilities. SWIPE would be readily adopting and utilizing the Bluzelle network as soon as SWIPE’s data collection features go live.

From left: De Xun, Content Strategist (SWIPE), Malcolm, Marketing Director (SWIPE), Pavel Bains CEO (Bluzelle) and Eugene, Communications Director (SWIPE)

“I’ve known the Swipe team for 8 months. Their product is the exact type that we want to support as it solves a major problem area. It also gives us the opportunity to build great tech to make their system even stronger” Pavel Bains, CEO of Bluzelle

SWIPE strongly believes that Bluzelle is a product that can cater effectively to our needs of a fast, private and decentralized database storage, superior to other alternatives present. SWIPE is thankful towards the Bluzelle team for expressing their support towards SWIPE and we also wish them the best in their product development.

About SWIPE

SWIPE aims to create a network of apps that are able to work together to create valuable data as a collective, instead of relying on centralized intermediaries. As part of the network, all data collected will be aggregated, anonymized and encrypted. It will then be channeled into an analytics engine which packages it to be monetized directly to data buyers in a decentralized data marketplace. This process provides transparency to data buyers as they can trace the origins of the data, creates a fairer way for app developers to monetize data and empowers users by giving them full control and ownership of their data. SWIPE is invested by Kenetic, a blockchain firm that invested in huge blockchain projects like Zilliqa, ICON, and Bluzelle.

About Bluzelle

Bluzelle is a decentralized, on-demand, scalable database service. Bluzelle solves the current data storage problems by using blockchain technologies to offer a more secure and reliable solution. Bluzelle turns underused computer resources from around the world into storage providers for it’s network and compensates them with its own cryptocurrency. Bluzelle’s team is comprised of media and technology professionals who have worked with the biggest companies in the world, including Google, IBM, HSBC, Disney, Microsoft and more. Our engineering team is experienced in Machine Learning, AI, Cognitive Science, Blockchain, Fintech and Cybersecurity.

Homepage: swipecrypto.com / bluzelle.com/

Twitter: SWIPE / Bluzelle

Youtube: SWIPE / Bluzelle

Blog: SWIPE / Bluzelle

Telegram: SWIPE / Bluzelle

Github: SWIPE / Bluzelle

Blockpost: https://blockpost.app/