Reputation Matters: Why RepuX uses blockchain technology to record reputation scores for data sets.

As small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) increasingly explore paths of entry into the B2B data economy, they face significant challenges in vetting the quality of third-party vendor data.

Traditionally insulated from technological disruption, the rapidly evolving enterprise landscape, reshaped by Internet of Things (IoT) proliferation, artificial intelligence (AI) and hyper-automation, has been a call to action for small businesses.

The exponential growth of IoT-connected devices is largely driving this data deluge. Market Research Gartner forecasts that the 8.4-billion IoT devices estimated to have been in circulation in 2017, will exceed 20 billion by 2020. In that span, consulting firm Accenture projects annual data production rates to grow by over 4,300 percent.

But SMEs’ inexperience in navigating data-centric operating models has put them at a disadvantage and rendered them vulnerable to unscrupulous and deceptive data vendors.

Often times, these vendors will mislead buyers by hyping the size and variety of records, without explaining the processes and technologies used to clean, organize and verify data sets.

Specifically, many SMEs are behind the curve when it comes to asking data vendors the right questions like:

• What processes do they have in place to verify the timeliness/accuracy of records?
• How often is their database updated?
• Is the vendor a data originator or reseller?
• How often do they purge outdated records and duplicate sets?
• What types of data are included in the set?
• What is the completion ratio of each field in the data set?
• How is the data organized?

Thus, without established procedures for evaluating data quality, SME decision makers can easily find themselves lost in a forest, inundated by information that is exponentially increasing in volume, variety and velocity. In this labyrinthine B2B data market, it has become ever-more difficult to distinguish reputable data sellers from dishonest ones.

But RepuX, the world’s first decentralized marketplace for business data, securely connecting SMEs with AI and machine learning developers, is leveraging blockchain technology to bring transparency, confidence and accountability to the ecosystem.

Secured by the blockchain, a cryptographically fortified ledger, distributed across a vast decentralized network of users, RepuX applies complex math and consensus transaction authentication systems to manage recordkeeping between all buyers and sellers on its platform.

Because it’s a consensus-based system, hackers would have to launch a 51- percent attack to take over the network and alter transaction records — a scenario that has been deemed impossible, as the blockchain network’s processing power is “13,000 times more powerful than the capabilities of the world’s 500 supercomputers.”

Additionally, the blockchain enables RepuX to allocate a reputation to each transactional counter-party. RepuX combines entity attribution with fail-safe verification by an oracle system that ensures the immutable integrity of a seller’s reputation score.

While ecommerce marketplaces reputation forums like Amazon and eBay are susceptible to fake-positive and fake-negative reviews, the blockchain’s cryptographically secure and consensus-based design renders RepuX reputation invulnerable to manipulation.

Using distributed-ledger technology to establish, maintain and enforce reputation within the protocol, RepuX empowers data buyers with greater confidence in the integrity and quality of the analytics they are purchasing.

By checking the reputation of the seller, potential buyers can rest easy knowing that they data is legitimate. And because payments are transmitted in Repux’s proprietary RPX tokens, designed for the Ethereum blockchain, data sellers can rest assured that they will be reimbursed as promised.

The end result is a B2B data marketplace that promotes fair and transparent commerce, while retrofitting the protocol with distributed ledger networks that inherently mitigate the risk of fraud.

With RepuX, AI and machine learning entrepreneurs and developers can now virtually dismiss counterparty risk from their threat calculus and rely on the platform’s built-in reputation-scoring system to inform their purchasing decisions.

Engineered for the Ethereum blockchain, RepuX leverages distributed ledger technology that enables SMEs to anonymously share and monetize their proprietary business intelligence with trusted parties.

Using RepuX, SMEs can make their secure data available to AI and machine learning developers, who can then optimize their operating models with data-driven solutions tailored to the unique needs of the enterprise.

As the big data economy disrupts industries and transforms enterprises, the information buy-side can benefit from RepuX’s decentralized approach to managing and enforcing seller reputation.