It's in the name: cryptocurrency is mainly about privacy of data, and decentralized money systems raise a lot of issues about keeping transactions safe and private. High profile incidents such as Mt. Gox’s collapse and authorities tracking/seizing crypto savings of private individuals have highlighted this. While these negatives about digital currency are often the things that hit the headlines, the positives of the industry are sometimes underreported.

Privacy and security

Cryptocurrencies fulfil two purposes: new business models and secure transactions.

Concerns about security have been a major obstacle to widespread adoption of cryptocurrency, and things like the NSA and Chinese authorities spying on private Internet activity has made crypto users very concerned about guarding their transactions.

Imagine how difficult it is to protect your data on the Internet while browsing? Thousands of companies are paying millions of dollars to get as much info on their customers as possible. This might seem worrying, but usually they just want to tailor their products to best match your needs.

So, on one hand, we have a concerning trend of low privacy and security, but at same time there is a big demand for user data. Cryptocurrencies are at the crossroads of the drive for more secure transactions and the growing industry of selling user data.

A new innovation from a Blockchain project sees a potential win-win for users. It might no longer be necessary to prevent companies from getting user data or forcing them to use shady practices to get hold of it. A new service, DataWallet, enables users to actually benefit from selectively sharing their data via a Blockchain platform. This is all facilitated with cryptocurrency technology. Users can make money as they surf the web and this is transferred directly into their crypto wallet.

A limited marketplace

Despite the fact that market research and data collection is a massive global industry, most users have real difficulty selling their data to those who want it. Some of the biggest tech companies in the world make a large portion of their income from this activity - but the user sees none of that profit.

There are three main issues preventing users and companies from trading data easily. There is the issue of the quality of the data, wherein existing brokers either don’t have access to or don’t want to sell the required data to the interested company. There is also the issue of the data being siloed with multiple brokers - making it difficult for a company to gain a complete picture of the customer they are researching. Added to this is limitations on the ability to safeguard sensitive data that you don't want to share and you end up with situation that is almost impossible to navigate for users.

DataWallet wants their Blockchain solution make this process simple for the regular Internet user.

A complete data sale platform

The DataWallet platform links users to those interested in buying their data through a Blockchain that records both payment and the data transfer itself. In their comprehensive whitepaper and blog posts, the Data Wallet team outlines the research they have done:

“Data creators cannot view their own profiles; they have little knowledge of what data has been collected from them nor the inferences that data collectors make about their behaviors, characteristics, and personalities. DataWallet will help creators better understand their own data, while providing them secure marketplace to in which to sell their data as they please.”

The Data Wallet team continue to explain their value proposition from the enterprise perspective:

“Data brokers are confined to sourcing only a fraction of the data people create. They also have to employ low fidelity probabilistic models to link data from different platforms to one profile and they operate entirely without data creators’ expressive consent. DataWallet proposes an alternative that disrupts the data-brokerage system and not the data-creators Internet experience. We propose a Blockchain-technology based DataWallet that restores trust and control for users while providing data-informed businesses the most complete data profiles possible.”

The DataWallet system has been under construction for 2.5 years, and with the DXT token underpinning an ecosystem that includes APIs for data consumers, the company has built a mature offering which includes Augmented Experience Apps, Direct Service Apps, and Channel Apps, all with a complete marketplace where users can sell their data to interested parties.

Investing in data

Of all industries, those that already involve multiple actors and lots of interaction stand to benefit most from Blockchain technology. Considering that this market barely exists to consumers means that DataWallet could unlock a lot of value.

The company’s whitelist pre-sale is opening soon.