The rapid digitization of everyday life has brought data ownership and control to the forefront of discussions around privacy and security. Blockchain technology has emerged as a promising solution for decentralized data marketplaces or data unions that enable individuals to take ownership and control while monetizing their own data. One can ask the question, does decentralization also equal fair and transparent methodologies, and the answer would be, that’s a loaded question and depends on a lot. Not all blockchain-based data sharing projects are created equal and participants need to be proactive in deciding how to safely engage in this utilizing these powerful tools. This short analysis compares and contrasts two such projects — CryptoGPT and Ocean Protocol.
CryptoGPT is an Ethereum-based blockchain platform that aims to revolutionize the big data market for AI model training sets. As a ZK Layer-2 solution, CryptoGPT offers users the opportunity to monetize their data by making it available to the AI data set training industry. It builds a Data-to-AI engine that collects, processes, encrypts and packages data for commercial application. Despite claiming to be decentralized, and it may be, the fact is users do not have much control over their data. There is a lack of transparency regarding the minutiae of exactly what data is being shared with whom when authorizing access to an app like Health, or for how much it is being sold for in the open market. CryptoGPT does claim that ‘collected data is packaged and sold in the global data marketplace’.
CryptoGPT has been downloaded over 100,000 times on Google Play. Login requires using a Google account and according to the privacy policy personal information including name, phone number, email address, username, passwords, mobile device data including IP’s and device unique ID, cookies, and more may be or is collected ‘for security and fraud protection’. The Seychelles based company also states that they have implemented appropriate and reasonable security measures to protect this information, that data protection laws and privacy rights such as GDPR within Europe are being followed. That’s good, but still, what you are sharing is inextricably tied to, you. And are you certain you want most of the data from that app shared, might there just be something you want to keep private? Should it be all or nothing?
Their Discord server boasts that 1.5+ million users are committed to building on the CryptoGPT blockchain, everything from monetizing your workout, to dating choices, to your VPN browsing history, in return for earning some $GPT tokens. From the outset, based on their privacy policy, there seem to be the standard guardrails protecting parties in a system that resembles the elastic processes of data sharing giants like Google. The carrot is simply, permission access to your data via applications to earn tokens and a NFT in the process.
On the other hand, Ocean Protocol is a verifiably decentralized blockchain data marketplace and open source tech stack that provides solutions to the problem of data ownership and control. Data can be stored on a decentralized network of nodes such as IPFS or Arweave, choice of cloud server or even a private server, ensuring that if required no single entity has control over the data, point being it is owned and controlled or governed by those who provide it. Furthermore, Ocean Protocol provides fine-grained access control to data assets, allowing data providers to choose exactly what they want to share in their dataset on the marketplace or go further by using an algorithmically gated compute to data access option. One of the most valuable features (literally) is the fact that the data owner can set their own pricing so essentially setting the value to their data. The upside to using Ocean Protocol is that data becomes available to anyone who can make use of this data, be it scientists, institutions or really anyone looking for insights from data sets. Users interacting with the marketplace or applications such as data unions built on Ocean log in from their self custodied wallet adding another layer of privacy to the transaction(s).
The platform also uses mechanisms such as data farming and reputation systems to incentivize good behaviour and penalize bad actors, ensuring that data providers retain ownership, control and value of their data while also providing data consumers the ability to verify quality, authenticity and provenance of the data they are purchasing. The $OCEAN token is used with the ecosystem to create and consume datasets as well as increase token holdings via staking rewards such as locking and data curation.
Ocean Protocol’s innovative grant program supports projects that have or wish to build advanced decentralized applications ranging from monetizing trading algorithms to AI platforms or bots and everything else imaginable. Interested builders can get a leg up using ocean.py, a Python library to privately and securely publish, exchange and consume data. Ocean has also launched DesightsAI, a web3 platform that utilizes Ocean’s technology to crowdsource business solutions to complex data and AI challenges. DesightsAI allows creators and contributors to have complete control over their creations, earning revenue through a unique ownership ERC721 token and royalty structure.
As economies move towards an increasingly digitized and data-driven economy, the issue of data ownership and control of it becomes more critical than ever. While blockchain-based data market services offer the potential for individuals to monetize their data while sharing and take control of their digital lives, it is crucial to choose a platform that provides legitimate decentralization, transparency, and control. Participation in blockchain based data sharing platforms has just begun. Do your own research before jumping in.
(If any information has been incorrectly evaluated, correction is more than welcome by all parties. Multiple attempts at clarification directed to the CryptoGPT team have gone unanswered.)
