Airbloc Mainnet: The Launch, The Direction, and The Future
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In this article, we will share details about the deployment of Airbloc on Kakao’s Klaytn Blockchain Platform. In order to provide greater clarity about what Airbloc’s deployment on Klaytn would mean for the larger ecosystem, we will briefly explain the strategic vision for Airbloc, the business imperative, where we are headed next, and how Airbloc would utilize Klaytn’s blockchain platform in the short and long term.
Looking Ahead: Airbloc’s Strategic Vision, Business Imperatives and Direction
Airbloc is a project that aims to return data ownership back to individuals, and allow enterprises to collect and exchange explicitly consented data with an auditable source of provenance for their targeted marketing or business intelligence purposes.
The products we are building focuses on the areas of website & mobile application data collection (Airbloc SDK), data consent authorization (DAuth), user data control (Airbloc Tracker), and enterprise data exchange & utilization (ABX).
As elaborated in our recent unveiling of ABX on 8th July 2019, we are moving in the direction of building a real-time Data Management Platform (DMP) and real-time customer behavioural data exchange that can be used by enterprises for digital marketing and business intelligence.
The changing business realities on the ground compelled us to move in this direction. As you may know, Airbloc is supported by AB180 — a leading technology solutions and big data analytics company in Korea, that has experience supporting the growth of hundreds of industry-leading enterprises — from retail, F&B, finance, e-commerce, sharing economy, entertainment, to start-ups (visit AB180’s website to find out more).
Leveraging AB180’s impressive clout and enterprise connections, we spoke and shared about Airbloc’s vision and products with enterprises in the fields of e-commerce, finance, marketplaces, automobile, retail, food & beverage, and we received a groundswell of interest in utilizing ABX because the data could be used to improve their business performance through targeted marketing campaigns and their own business intelligence.
To form synergies with our existing products:
1. ABX will be connected to our existing data collection and consent products: Airbloc SDK and DAuth to provide an auditable source of data provenance through blockchain technology to ensure the legality and legitimacy of data exchanged. ABX automatically checks for explicit consent registration through DAuth on the blockchain before data exchanges or purchases can be made.
2. ABX will utilize Ricardian contract and smart contract features to ensure that reward flows are automatically enforced, instantly and fairly shared with data consumers, data providers, and data owners (individuals agreeing to monetize their data).
3. ABX will utilize ABL Tokens as a means of participation, and a means of purchasing or exchanging data on ABX.
4. Data registered on ABX will be controllable on Airbloc Tracker by individuals to provide individuals with the ability to control their data flows and how their data would be used by data consumers on ABX.
Airbloc’s Synergies with Kakao-backed Klaytn Blockchain Platform
Kakao’s blockchain platform Klaytn was selected as the primary platform for Airbloc to mount its technology stack on because of its sharp focus on mass-adoption of blockchain for millions of users and businesses across the world.
From a business standpoint, Airbloc and Klaytn both share similar visions — to realize true enterprise and mass adoption through blockchain services. With Klaytn’s corporate clout supported by Kakao, South Korea’s biggest mobile platform with 95% market share and 50 million users, Airbloc’s services has the potential to reach a larger network of enterprises and reach even wider mass adoption. Furthermore, with Klaytn’s announcement of its Governance Council with support from major enterprise firms like LG, PUBG Corporation, Netmarble, and many more, we are confident that this partnership would create synergistic business opportunities for Airbloc to expand its pool of data providers and data consumers.
From a technology standpoint, Klaytn’s blockchain platform offers 2 distinct features that are highly relevant for Airbloc.
1. Transaction Fee Delegation to improve user experiences for enterprises and data providers. Klaytn’s unique value proposition lies in its Transaction Fee Delegation feature that enables service providers to subsidize their end-user activities by paying for their transaction fees instead. Transaction fee delegation can be further detailed by using transactions with the Ratio parameter, letting service providers designate the percentage of fees they would cover. This essentially allows enterprises using Airbloc’s ABX to have an ease-of-use as Airbloc would be able to subsidize transaction fees.
2. Scaling solutions to allow enterprise-grade performance and usage on the blockchain.
Klaytn’s highly scalability enables companies to deliver blockchain products that satisfy modern end-user experience expectations without sacrificing blockchain’s fundamental values of transparency, security, and decentralization.
Click here to read more about Klaytn’s core technologies.
Airbloc Mainnet Deployment on Klaytn
With the initial deployment of Airbloc’s mainnet on Klaytn, we are happy to share that the following contracts that related to Data Registration, Data Provider Registration, User Account Management, Data Consent Registration, and Data Exchange, are now live and running on Klaytn’s blockchain!
[Data Owners] “Accounts Contract”
This contract manages the registration of new user accounts and account details of data owners.
Link: https://scope.klaytn.com/account/0xcfc2CD3Bbd89f1b7e83Fbe4D2FE94Fd2D9097891
[Data Providers] `AppRegistry` Contract
This contract enables data providers such as applications to sign-up to the Airbloc network to begin registering the consented data on Airbloc.
Link: https://scope.klaytn.com/account/0xe75F4F4b4FC2e370aC97b9b5897670a442f21326
[Data Registration] “DataTypeRegistry” Contract
This contract helps to integrate data schema for each data taxonomy to allow ease of data exchange between enterprises and to reduce friction in exchanging data of different formats.
Link: https://scope.klaytn.com/account/0xe7DFe696553DaD623bB02984223992e510fCfe64
[Data Controller] “ControllerRegistry” Contract
This contract manages the registration of data controllers — who are responsible for verifying and issuing a challenge when on behalf of the user when unwarranted and unconsented data collection and exchange occurs.
Link: https://scope.klaytn.com/account/0xD7b8186B188049761CD81365E0D6c1c82c876B96
[Data Consent Registration] “Consents” Contract
This contract helps to register data collection and monetization consent onto the blockchain, and allows data owners to control their data flows and restrict data usage.
Link: https://scope.klaytn.com/account/0x246F718dDfa62664a3de1FADFBfcDF0546a14B26
[Data Exchange] “Exchange” Contract
This contract manages data exchange processes. The process consists of three parts: Prepare, Order, and Settlement. By allowing data providers to present the exchange details through the smart contract called Escrow Contract, Airbloc can support various forms of data exchange. (e.g. ERC20 token based data exchange, or any data exchange in the form of a Ricardian contract)
Link: https://scope.klaytn.com/account/0x62c392CF26f48e82b180921c1C6D13C517db826b
Note: ABL Token swap to Klaytn’s token standard will be announced separately in another article as Klaytn as our platform partner would need to ensure adequate testing and proper integration of their token standard across all major exchanges before migration and token swap can securely be performed.
Airbloc’s Future Development
Deployment of the above mentioned contracts on Klaytn’s mainnet is only just the beginning as Airbloc will now be able to rely on Klaytn’s scalable and secure blockchain infrastructure to add more new features to its existing products. The following are the development priorities that will be focused on:
1. Expanding ABX data utilization features and core offerings for enterprises. ABX in the current state offers data delivery services for marketing automation campaigns for example: push message notifications and email marketing through webhook. In the coming months, we will focus on integrating ABX with more third-party marketing automation software to allow data consuming enterprises to directly feed the exchanged data on Airbloc to these softwares for immediate data utilization. Aside from marketing automation as a use-case, we are intending to integrate ABX with third-party business intelligence analytics platforms and developing APIs to feed data into enterprises’ internal business analytics systems.
2. DAuth User Interface and User Experience Improvements. DAuth, a data collection consent-seeking interface that can be easily integrated into websites and mobile applications will be revamped and restructured to cater to various kinds of enterprises across various industries: for example, utilities, entertainment, marketplaces, e-commerce, food & beverage, etc. DAuth’s data consent authorization interfaces must be developed sufficiently to cater to various enterprises’ existing website or application’s user interfaces and experience.
3. Creating an auditable source of data usage through Airbloc Tracker. Airbloc Tracker is a service allowing individuals (data owners) in the Airbloc ecosystem to track, control and earn from their data flows. Airbloc Tracker will be connected and synergized with existing Airbloc products: Airbloc SDK (Data Collection), DAuth (Data Consent Authorization), ABX (Data Exchange and Data Utilization). This connection enables transaction flows from collection, consent registration, data exchange, and utilization to be tracked and controlled from Airbloc Tracker. Essentially, allowing individuals (data owners) to regain control of their data rights.
Nurturing the Airbloc Ecosystem
We have made enormous progress in technology and business development in the past year, and will continue to strive for innovation and adoption in the journey ahead.
In terms of technology development, from Q3–4 2018, we focused on developing our back-end system focusing on data collection and exchange functionalities, Airbloc Application and Website data collection SDK, and DAuth data consent authorization modules. In Q1 2019, to prepare for enterprise adoption, we improved the scalability of data registration on the blockchain and data exchange on Airbloc, significantly revised our data architecture and enabled easy with enterprise data systems to facilitate enterprise-to-enterprise data exchange at scale.
In terms of team development, we have expanded the senior leadership within the company with a new VP of Solutions Engineering who was the former CTO of 10x10 (TenbyTen), a prominent brand in Korea with more than 3.5 million customers on their e-commerce platform and offline stores, with an illustrious career spanning several years as a data expert which can be seen by his past work experience as an Engineering Team Leader in Netmarble, the №1 online game publisher in Korea. We also hired a new Chief Product Officer to strengthen Airbloc’s product conceptualization, product strategy, and development capabilities. New leadership appointments were also made to bring onboard a CTO and a CISO (Chief Information Security Officer). Moving forward, the development of Airbloc will be spearheaded by these new faces and supported by front-end, back-end, blockchain engineers, and SDK engineers.
In terms of business adoption, we partnered with data providing companies such as Battle Comics — a Korean webtoon and comics platform with more than 1M users, and many more. Moving forward, we will continue to develop and adjust ABX to enterprise needs to bring real business value. We will continue to partner with relevant data providing and data consuming enterprises by tapping into leveraging AB180’s enterprise connections.
The name Airbloc is a word play on the words “Air” and “Blockchain”. Just as how Air is transparent yet essential, we hope that with blockchain, we will one day see a future where individuals are able to exercise control and ownership over their personal data, and a future where data flows between data consumers and data providers are more transparent.
To end, we would like to thank our community for being on this journey with us. This is the beginning of what will be an amazing journey ahead for Airbloc. Stay tuned to further developments and partnerships!
About Airbloc
Airbloc is a consent-based real-time personal data exchange platform. A project that aims to realize true enterprise adoption, it has formed partnerships with industry-leading companies such as Battle Comics (Korea’s 2nd Largest Comics Platform with over 1M users). For its promising technology, Airbloc gained funding support by leading renowned traditional and blockchain institutions such as Messaging Giant LINE Corporation’s Blockchain Venture Fund, Huobi Capital, and OKEX Capital, Bgogo, Fenbushi Digital, and many more.
Airbloc aims return data ownership back to individuals, allow applications to collect and monetize data legitimately, and allow enterprises to exchange explicitly consented data with an auditable source of provenance for their business intelligence, research, and targeted marketing purposes.
Airbloc is a Reverse ICO completed back in June 2018 led by a leading Korean big data data company, Airbridge, that was recognized in 2016 as a promising technology company by the South Korean government. Since 2016, the company has been tracking the data of over 50M devices equivalent to 2/3 of the entire Korean mobile population through its big data analytics. The company behind Airbloc was awarded by KB Kookmin Card, Korea’s largest credit card company in July 2018 as the top 10 promising technological companies in Korea with expertise in big data infrastructure.
