Ocean Protocol review, a Decentralized Data Exchange Protocol to Unlock Data for AI HSV GTS Follow Feb 9 · 10 min read

About Ocean Protocol

Ocean Protocol is a decentralized data exchange protocol to unlock data for AI. Through blockchain technology, smart contracts and tokens Ocean Protocol connects data providers and consumers, allowing data to be shared while guaranteeing traceability, transparency and trust for all stakeholders involved.

It allows data owners to give value to and have control over their data assets without being locked-in to any single marketplace. By bringing together decentralized blockchain technology, a data sharing framework and an ecosystem for data and related services, Ocean Protocol is committed to kick-starting a new Data Economy that touches every single person, company and device, giving power back to data owners, enabling people to reap value from data to better our world.

Ocean Token

Think of the Ocean Token as the ‘crypto asset’ that serves as the commodity in the data economy to incentivise the mass coordination of resources to secure and scale the network to turn in to actionable intelligence.

If Ocean is about trading data, can’t it use an existing cryptocurrency as its token, like Bitcoin or Ether?

While existing tokens might serve as a means of exchange, the Ocean protocol requires a token of its own because it uses a specific form of monetary policy and rewards. Users get rewarded with newly minted tokens for providing high quality, relevant data and keeping it available. This means the protocol requires control over the money supply and rules out using any existing general purpose protocols or tokens. Furthermore, from the perspective of Ocean users, volatility in an uncorrelated token would disrupt the orderly value exchange between various stakeholders in the marketplace they desire.

Ocean Data Providers (Supplying Data)

Actors who have data and want to monetise it, can make it available through Ocean for a price. When their data is used by Data Consumers, Data Providers receive tokens in return.

Ocean Data Curators (Quality Control)

An interesting concept to Ocean is the application of curation markets. Someone needs to decide what data on Ocean is good and which data is bad. As Ocean is a decentralised system, there can’t be a central committee to do this. Instead, anyone with domain expertise can participate as a Data Curator and earn newly minted tokens by separating the wheat from the chaff. Data Curators put an amount of tokens at stake to signal that a certain dataset is of high quality. Every time they correctly do this, they receive newly minted tokens in return.

Ocean Registry of Actors (Keeping Bad Actors Out)

Because Ocean is an open protocol, not only does it need mechanisms to curate data, it needs a mechanism to curate the participants themselves. For this reason a Registry of Actors is part of Ocean, again applying staking of tokens to make good behaviour more economically attractive than bad behaviour.

Ocean Keepers (Making Data Available)

The nodes in the Ocean network are called Keepers. They run the Ocean software and make datasets available to the network. Keepers receive newly minted tokens to perform their function. Data Providers need to use one or more Keepers to offer data to the network.

Ocean wants a thousand marketplaces to blossom, how ?

Provide a substrate to power the data marketplace and alongside that a global data commons, Ocean is that substrate.

Ocean believes that everyone should be able to thrive in the data economy by unlocking the trillions in latent value and bringing to bear the power of data and AI thus enabling us to initiate change that benefits all humankind, this is why the team are building Ocean Protocol.

If one prefers watching a youtube video to better understand information I suggest the following video link below, note the time stamp of around 3.06 to 4.11 for Token Utility.

Who are Ocean’s partners and early customers?

Singapore is the lead government partner for Ocean Protocol. Singapore is supporting an 18-month development roadmap with DEX and Ocean Protocol Foundation. Ocean are partnering up with numerous multinationals from insurance, pharma, automotive and other industries to develop the technology and provide data.

The companies trusting Ocean Protocol

Ocean Protocol work closely with their collaborators to iterate on the network’s underlying technology. The following projects either have an agreement with Ocean Protocol or are actively working on integrating their project with Ocean Protocol.

dexFreight

dexFREIGHT are transforming the way brokers, carriers and other supply chain stakeholders collaborate to move goods worldwide.

dexFreight is powered by an ecosystem of open source protocols using smart contracts and machine learning to deliver unprecedented visibility, transparency and a trust layer that is sorely lacking in today’s logistics process.

Fitchain

Fitchain allows organizations to publish their business challenges and connect to data scientists who effectively work on a solution.

Enigma

Enigma is using groundbreaking privacy technologies to build the first platform for scalable end-to-end decentralized applications.

IBM Watson AI XPRIZE®

Ocean Protocol will help bring data and information to the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE® participants.

MOBI — Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative

Using blockchain and related technologies to make mobility safer, greener and more accessible.

Couger

Couger is building the integrated autonomous technology platform Connectome, which integrates AI, IoT, Robotics and Blockchain to achieve search, prediction and seamless payment execution in the autonomous world.

Messari

Messari is building an open data library and curation tools that help researchers, investors and regulators to make sense of the cryptoasset industry.

Unilever

Unilever Foundry is Unilever’s global platform for partnering with the world’s best startups to accelerate business innovation on a global scale. Unilever identify and leverage the latest technologies from around the world and exchange knowledge to solve business challenges through collaboration with other companies.

Roche Diagnostics

Roche Diagnostics is a division of Roche which develops and integrates diagnostic solutions that address the challenges of today and anticipate the needs of tomorrow.

DCI

DCI is committed to build South East Asia’s most intelligent digital commerce data platform that enables brands & retailers to better understand and effectively drive their eCommerce Performance.

Data Natives

Data Natives brings together diverse strands of the global tech community. They aim to educate and inspire their 70,000+ community members and motivate them to shape the innovations of tomorrow.

Altoros

Altoros want to make cloud, blockchain and artificial intelligence work for your business.

Altoros is a professional services company that helped 50+ Global 2000 organizations to obtain sustainable competitive advantage through the adoption of innovative technologies and top-notch enterprise solutions. Altoros offer methodology, custom training, technology building blocks and deep industry knowledge for cloud automation, microservices, blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI).

ConnectedLife

In March 2019 ConnectedLife and Ocean Protocol announced their partnership to advance Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis and treatment with safe sharing of patient-generated data.

Johnson and Johnson

In 2018 Johnson and Johnson reported higher-than-expected sales for Q1, and subsequently boosted its sales outlook for the year to $81 billion to $81.8 billion.

At the same time, Johnson & Johnson announced that it would be restructuring its supply chain to focus resources on developing newer technologies and capabilities.

A spokesperson for the company told in-Pharma Technologist in May that Johnson & Johnson expects to take certain actions across their supply chain over the next four to five years that will generate approximately $600 million to $800 million in annual pre-tax cost savings.

Odyssey

Odyssey connects innovative ideas with governmental, corporate and non-profit partners to address complex societal challenges using blockchain, AI and other emerging technologies.

Through a series of industry events, hackathons and a decentralised incubation program we mobilize a global ecosystem of more than 6,000 members which include developers, creatives, startups, corporates, investors, governmental bodies, legal experts, regulators, scientists and other key stakeholders.

The people building Ocean Protocol

Ocean Protocol is being built by a diverse ecosystem of contributors who share a common vision of unlocking data for AI. The core team and advisors have converged from many different countries, industries and backgrounds to collaborate on kickstarting a New Data Economy.

The Ocean Protocol core team combines a deep background in big data, blockchain, artificial intelligence and data exchanges with real-world business experience as entrepreneurs, designers and technologists who have started over 20 companies.

Obviously it takes more than two people to build a successful blockchain project on the scale of what Ocean Protocol are aiming to achieve but the two men leading this team and their experience can not be underestimated.

BIO TRENT MCCONAGHY (Founder)

I started my career by doing AI research for national defense in the 1990s, while still an undergraduate [paper].

Then, in my first startup (ADA), we explored the relation between human creativity and AI-based machine creativity. Synopsys acquired ADA in 2004.

I extended that work during my PhD from 2004–2008, and found a way to reconcile machine creativity with existing engineering knowledge. Here’s the book.

In my second startup (Solido), we leveraged AI to help drive Moore’s Law, which was under threat due to high manufacturing variations. Here’s the book. Now, Solido software is used for most modern chip designs. Siemens acquired Solido in 2017.

My third and current startup is all about democratizing data for the planet. We hatched ascribe (2013) and BigchainDB (2015). Our focus is on Ocean Protocol (2017).

Other current activities:

Past projects:

PhD in EE from KU Leuven, Belgium. Awarded #1 thesis worldwide in the field.

BE EE and BsC CS from U Saskatchewan, Canada. Awarded #1 final year thesis.

Did ML research for Canadian Department of National Defense, in the second half of the 90s.

Wrote 2 Books [1,2] on AI/ML, circuits and creativity. Also 35 Papers and 20 Patents on AI/ML.

Co-organized workshops on AI/ML and circuits [e.g. 1,2,3,4]. TPC / reviewer for many conferences & journals [e.g. 1,2,3,4,5]. Lecturer at Data Science Retreat [link].

Organized meetup “Singularity Meets Self Improvement” [link].

Past projects: painting, BCI hacking, hypnosis, video game programming, surfing.

Raised in a pig farm in Canada, hacking away on cold winter nights. 3D CAD tool, wordprocessor, dozens of games.

Member of Advisory Group for the e-Residency team of the Government of Estonia.

Bruce Pon (Founder/Board member)

Founder / Board Member

Jun 2017 — Present2 years 7 months

Singapore

Founder / CEO

May 2014 — Present5 years 8 months

Berlin Area, Germany

Founder / CEO

Jun 2014 — Feb 20161 year 9 months

Founder / Partner

Jan 2009 — Jul 20145 years 7 months

Avantalion International Consulting GmbH

International Project Manager

Oct 2003 — Dec 20085 years 3 months

Daimler Financial Services AG

Consultant

May 1996 — Mar 20025 years 11 months

Advisors

Ocean Protocol have over 35 advisors spanning the globe with recognized expertise in AI, blockchain, big data, business and policy. Advisors were carefully selected based on an alignment of values towards unlocking data and AI for society. Advisors work to build meaningful collaborations, refer potential business partners, integrate with the protocol and provide guidance on governance.

In Conclusion

Ocean Protocol has everything one should be looking for if wanting to invest in crypto.

Amazing usercase that will be utlized on a global scale and change the world we live in.

A ridiculous low market cap of 25 million at the time of writing this article with the current price being USD $0.074. Note the ICO price was USD $0.20 with the IEO being USD $0.12, those that purchased in the ICO were compensated to match the IEO price so it was fair for all. As you can see this project is still way under IEO price and there is so much room for growth.

The amazing team leading this project and the extensive successful experience they have achieved in their past work history.

The partnerships that have already been made public by companies working with Ocean Protocol with many more to be announced and under NDAs.

Ocean Protocol is only listed on one tier 1 exchange being Bittrex Global. Its just a matter of time before more tier 1 exchanges come along and see the huge potential this project offers, one can only imagine how this will affect the price when it happens, ofcourse exchanges are not everything but providing better liquidity to investors that will not currently use certain exchanges or are unable due to where they reside can only be seen as a huge positive.

Follow Ocean Protocol on Twitter, Telegram, LinkedIn, Reddit, GitHub & Newsletter for project updates and announcements. And chat directly with other developers on Gitter.