In the last article in this series, we covered the broken state of data management in the modern era. Today’s fragmented data ecosystem has numerous negative effects on technological innovation and scientific research, including challenges related to standardization, efficiency, security, and transparency.

Simply put, lack of unified data is hurting businesses, consumers, and our planet. The Unification Foundation has dedicated our resources to solving this problem.

The challenge of data fragmentation

As a society, we are sitting on numerous underutilized data sets, which could be correlated to produce technological breakthroughs and life-saving scientific discoveries.

In an ideal world, all data would speak the same language. Machines would be able to process the data seamlessly, finding patterns within the data that are invisible to the naked human eye.

This type of data unification would allow the apps we use every day to become infinitely better at predicting our needs, as well as reveal new correlations related to scientific research.

At the present moment, however, we find quite a different scenario. Currently, the vast majority of databases are not interoperable, meaning they cannot easily be automatically compared. Markers for even basic functions like “male” or “female” can vary widely between data sets, making it difficult for today’s computer algorithms to find the relationships between diverse criteria.

Part of the reason that our current data management system functions so poorly is because we have heretofore lacked the technological capacity to execute seamless data standardization across a broad range of databases.

Fortunately, recent innovations have unlocked brand-new technological capacities to finally make unified data into reality.

The inevitability of unified data

The emergence of blockchain technology over the last decade has opened up new possibilities in the realms of data management and self-executing processes. These shifts have paved the way for worldwide data standardization, which we refer to as “unified data.”

With these new technologies, worldwide unification of data has become not a question of ‘if,’ but rather ‘when.’

Unified data is inevitable. There is currently both a pressing need and, now, for the first time, the appropriate technological capacity to solve a problem of global scale.

It is only a matter of time until someone steps in and creates the code standards to enable a shift toward true data standardization.

Unification has taken on this task, and embarked on building a data management model to carry us forward into the future.

We are achieving unified data through our smart contract protocol, which uses smart contracts written in C++ to standardize data sets into a singular format.

Unification’s standardization process enables unified data sets to be cross-referenced, exchanged on an open marketplace, and cryptographically protected so that users control the flow of their own data.

Why blockchain is critical to the future of unified data

In order to understand how Unification is achieving unified data, it is important to understand the technological context that has given rise to the possibility of seamless data standardization.

For this, we must understand the history of blockchain technology itself, and how it has led us to a place where we have a unique opportunity to rethink current data management paradigms.

Blockchain technology has laid the groundwork for self-executed lossless data standardization, allowing the immutable and efficient exchange of data between interested parties, while preserving the privacy interests of users themselves.

Bitcoin & Blockchain 1.0

In 2008, Bitcoin made real the concept of distributed ledgers, officially launching the era of Blockchain 1.0. Bitcoin created the world’s first immutable blockchain, creating a ledger that, for the first time ever, made possible both true verification and true encryption at the same time.

Prior to Bitcoin, it was impossible to verify that data existed without reading said data. Bitcoin’s blockchain enabled verification queries to be answered conclusively (which in Bitcoin’s case, was simply whether or not the person held coins in the Bitcoin ledger).

At the same time, Bitcoin’s decentralized nature and cryptographic encryption also protected the privacy, identity, and personal information (such as the actual balance of Bitcoins in an account) of the person whose data was being queried.

This functionality laid the groundwork for protocols like Unification, allowing transmission data between data generators and data purchasers securely via exchange of encryption keys on a blockchain.

With this new technology, it is now possible to exchange such data for use by apps and research institutions, without revealing the person information of the people generating it.

Ethereum & Blockchain 2.0

Several years after Bitcoin came Ethereum, also known as Blockchain 2.0, which built upon Bitcoin’s blockchain model and created the ability for blockchains to transact in value beyond Bitcoins themselves.

This was made possible through the innovation of Smart Contracts, which can be programmed to automatically execute exchanges and transactions when certain predetermined conditions are met.

With Smart Contracts came the ability for wide range of data exchanges to be conducted securely and immutably, executed according to code rather than potentially flimsy Terms and Conditions.

To understand the future viability of unified data, it’s hard to overstate the importance of Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts gave us a newfound ability to immutably and automatically execute preprogrammed operations in a highly secure, blockchain-based environment, according to terms laid out to protect both businesses and users.

This innovation laid the foundation for Unification’s protocol, in which Smart Contracts are used to seamlessly render diverse data sets into a singular format and then transmit them between parties, while maintaining the data security and privacy that only a blockchain-based protocol can offer.

Unification & Blockchain 3.0

Bitcoin-based blockchains and Ethereum-based smart contracts have paved the way for a third generation of protocols like Unification. Together, they give us a brand-new ability to cryptographically secure sensitive data, while harnessing the power of Smart Contracts to automatically and immutably execute exchanges of said data.

There has long been a need for unified data, in which diverse data sets could be read against each other without human intervention. However, before the emergence of blockchain technology, this type of global standardization has historically been very difficult to realize in practice.

Data fragmentation is an old problem that needs a novel solution. Blockchain technology has opened doors that were never before possible, and paved the way for companies like Unification to revolutionize antiquated systems and create a future of truly unified data.

Unification uses the new tools of blockchain and Smart Contracts to bring the ways data is bought, sold, stored, and managed into the modern era, and create a global standard for data.

For the first time, blockchain technology has given us the capacity to automatically render the world’s data sets into a standardized, usable format, and to seamlessly exchange this data between buyers and sellers in a highly efficient and transparent way.

How Unification uses blockchain

At Unification, we recognize the groundbreaking possibilities that blockchain has unlocked in the realm of data management, and we are actively making use of these new capacities.

Throughout the design of our product, our goal has been not to use blockchain technology for the sake of blockchain itself. We are far less concerned with riding on the current hype around blockchain, and much more interested in designed an efficient, effective product that uses blockchain only where absolutely necessary to solve the problem at hand.

As such, we have consciously designed Unification to be a seamless protocol layer that interacts losslessly with the existing data management practices of established organizations.

Unification’s Efficient Use of Blockchain

At Unification, we optimize for efficiency when interacting with blockchain, aiming to apply distributed-ledger technology in the nimblest way possible.

To this end, Unification uses the blockchain ledger to transmit the access permissions that grant the exchange of data, rather than the transfer of data itself.

Within Unification, user data is standardized, encrypted, and transferred through existing channels between users, apps, and data purchasers. Decryption keys necessary to read the data are immutably granted and revoked through Smart Contracts on the blockchain.

Smart Contracts play a key role in Unification’s processes. Access to data is enforced not merely by a Terms of Service, but by hard-coded permissions in Smart Contracts, making them immutable, decentralized, and unbreakable.

This use of Smart Contracts plays a dual role, helping both businesses and users. Businesses have immutable guarantees that they will receive the data they are purchasing, without the need for a third party to moderate the trust relationship between buyer and seller.

At the same time, users remain in control of their data at all times, with a full view of all permissions and the inalienable ability to grant or revoke any entity’s access to their data.

From the business side, this means that businesses using Unification for their data management are automatically compliant with evolving legislation regarding the ethical management of personal data, such as GDPR.

For more technical details about how Unification uses blockchain technology, check out our whitepaper (available on our website).

Unification’s Use of Utility Tokens

Another way that Unification makes use of blockchain technology is its use of utility tokens, which properly enable and incentivize transfer of value with the system in a way that was not previously possible before the emergence of cryptocurrency.

Unification’s United Network Distribution (UND) token operates as the method to transfer value within Unification’s system, allowing data to be exchanged, bought, and sold, as well as a payment for acquiring data.

Additionally, the token itself has the utility of enacting the smart contract controlling immutable data access permissions.

The use of a token is necessary to provide incentive to users to share data on BABEL, Unification’s open data marketplace.

In addition to standardizing data, Unification allows end users to view the data they are generating, and toggle its sharing off and on with a single click. Users who opt into sharing data are compensated for the value they are providing via UND tokens.

How will unified data affect enterprises?

With unified data, we expect to witness an acceleration of efficiency within organizations, due to the increased ease of correlating data to improve app functionality and discover new scientific breakthroughs.

Some of these positive effects will be instant, and others will play out over a longer time horizon.

To learn more about the types of changes that unified data will generate for enterprises, read the third article in this series: “Why Unified Data is Inevitable — The Relevance of Enterprise [Part 3].”

And to keep updated with Unification’s latest developments and participate in the discussion with the Unification community, join our Telegram channel here.