Greeting to all. We welcome you to our regular update on Ocean Protocol. Last two weeks guys are in the groove! There is so much news we want to share with you. The main point is Pacific, Ocean Protocol’s PoA Mainnet, is now live. So, in order to ensure performance for data scientists, Pacific will have smart contract deployments on its own PoA (Proof of Authority) network. The PoA network offers full functionality with a reference commons marketplace infrastructure, where users can discover, upload, and use datasets. In addition, the Ocean Tokens currently circulating on the Ethereum mainnet can now be bridged over to the Pacific PoA network for use. It is worth mentioning that every 4–6 months, Ocean releases an updated roadmap and evaluate how it has performed in delivering the steps outlined on the previous roadmap. So, let’s take a look at such roadmap updates as the updated Technical Whitepaper, the Nile Test Network and, of course, Pacific. On top of all that, there is news about the partnership between sgCarMart and Ocean Protocol. sgCarMart is Singapore’s #1 car listing site, attracting 2 million visitors monthly. To empower buyers in their decision-making process, they have announced the launch of Singapore’s first Know-Your-Vehicle used car data marketplace — powered Ocean Protocol. By using Ocean, the source of data and its trail can be established, recorded, and traced. sgCarMart’s used car data marketplace can ensure buyers are getting up-to-date, highly accurate, and reliable information about the used cars available in the market. Furthermore, Ocean Protocol took part in EventHorizon. While Trent McConaghy, Ocean founder, was speaking, he said: “Ocean connects problem owners with problem solvers via a unified ‘public utility’ substrate”. To sum up, Ocean Protocol shows the excellent results and we feel good about the Ocean team.
Intro
Ocean Protocol is an ecosystem for the data economy and associated services. It provides a tokenized service layer that exposes data, storage, compute and algorithms for consumption with a set of deterministic proofs on availability and integrity that serve as verifiable service agreements. There is staking on services to signal quality, reputation and ward against Sybil Attacks.
Ocean helps to unlock data, particularly for AI. It is designed for scale and uses blockchain technology that allows data to be shared and sold in a safe, secure and transparent manner.
While vast amounts of data are generated each year, data exchange and analysis have been hampered due largely to concerns over trust and security. Currently, many organizations have data but do not have the trusted and secure means to share it. Without data, AI cannot advance and be applied to solve problems and ultimately improve lives. More pressing is the fact that today, only a handful of companies have both AI and data capacities, and if data remains locked up, these companies could very well govern the development of AI and thereby our future.
Through blockchain technology and tokens, Ocean Protocol connects data providers and consumers, allowing data to be shared while guaranteeing traceability, transparency, and trust for all stakeholders involved. Ocean Protocol is designed to give data owners control over their data assets and prevent them from being locked in to any single marketplace.
By bringing together decentralized blockchain technology, a data sharing framework, and an ecosystem for data and related services, Ocean Protocol is committed to kick-starting a new Data Economy that touches every single person, company and device, giving power back to data owners, enabling people to reap value from data to better our world.
Development
GitHub metrics:
Development is ongoing. Commits on public GitHub appears regularly, several times a day.
Developer activity (from Coinlib.io):
This comes just 4 months after the release of Nile, Ocean Protocol’s beta test network.
With Pacific, Ocean tokens (OCEAN) will now be useable within the Ocean network. This unlocks the ability for developers to build on Pacific with Ocean Tokens as a means for real value exchange.
Download free commons data from 30+ categories at commons.oceanprotocol.com
- What is now possible?
In order to ensure performance for data scientists, Pacific will have smart contract deployments on the own PoA (Proof of Authority) network. The PoA network offers full functionality with a reference commons marketplace infrastructure, where users can discover, upload, and use datasets. In addition, the Ocean Tokens currently circulating on the Ethereum mainnet can now be bridged over to the Pacific PoA network for use.
This release will also expand upon some other key features of the Nile testnet, such as:
Level 2 Squid APIs including:
- Java, JS, and Python APIs
- Java and Python CLIs
Level 3 Data Commons deployment, including:
- AI for Good
- Stability of the consume flow
You can learn more about the Pacific Network on the Documentation Page.
- Marketplaces
As the network has been maturing, the development team has been working on data sharing use cases with Ocean.
Social encounters
These weeks events:
- EventHorizon — Deep Dive | Corporate Stage: Ocean Protocol
“Ocean connects problem owners with problem solvers via a unified ‘public utility’ substrate.” — Trent McConaghy
- This Thursday, on July 11, Co-founder of @oceanprotocol @trentmc0 and Co-founder of @pandoraboxchain @andrENsobol will speak about #blockchain application in #egov. For those who are in Kyiv — visit event at @blockchain_hub1
- Building a New Data Economy — Singapore — July 24, 2019
Join Ocean team as they share the progress of Ocean and demonstrate how Ocean’s blockchain technology removes friction around data sharing. Together with its partner ConnectedLife and sgCarMart, the team will show how sharing data on Ocean can enable ConnectedLife to help doctors prescribe personalized treatment for Parkinson’s Disease patients; and sgCarMart to help used car buyers make safe and accurate purchasing decisions. In addition, we will be giving a technical demo of Starfish, our open-source solution built on top of Ocean. Through Starfish, developers and data scientists can build and manage data supply lines and utilize the Ocean Protocol network easily and efficiently. This session is perfect for anyone passionate about data & AI and building a New Data Economy where stakeholders have ownership and control over their own data assets.
Finance
Roadmap
Roadmap Update
Every 4–6 months, Ocean releases an updated roadmap and evaluate how it has performed in delivering the steps outlined on the previous roadmap. Let’s take a look at where Ocean Protocol has come since the last roadmap update early this year, and check out the direction where Ocean is headed in the great beyond.
What’s new?
In February, Ocean Protocol released the updated V2 Technical Whitepaper, which elaborated upon the original mission & values behind the protocol, but also laid the groundwork for the detailed architecture, decentralized orchestration, proofs of service, and established that a POA Network would come first to offer improved analytics/machine learning performance.
At the end of Q1, Nile Test Network was ready to launch, and after extensive testing, it was released to the general public in early April. This marked a significant and important step forward in the creation of A New Data Economy, and it was a rewarding moment as the team watched the fruits of the tireless effort come to life — everything was there to build a test data marketplace.
With Nile, users could for the first time deploy keeper contracts to run nodes in the network, and developers could use the Squid libraries (in Python, JavaScript, and Java) to start building on the Ocean Protocol.
Nile also unlocked two new reference implementations: the Data Commons Marketplace, and Manta Ray, Ocean’s Jupyter notebook implementation for data scientists.
Technical Sprint Updates
Another noteworthy step forward in the ever-accelerating course towards transparency has been the publishing of regular updates on the longstanding internal Development Sprints. Each sprint lasts approximately 2 weeks, and while projects can (and often do) last for more than 1 sprint, segmenting the workflow this way allows the Ocean development team to maximise productivity. You can read our 2 most recent Sprint Summaries here and here.
So, what now?
Next up will be the main event- the release of Pacific (ed. — done), PoA Network! This release will unlock the following:
- PoA Network token
- PoA SEAs
- token bridge between Ethereum Mainnet and PoA network
This next release will also expand upon some other key features of the Nile testnet, such as:
Level 2 Squid APIs including:
- Java, JS, and Python APIs
- Java and Python CLIs
Level 3 Data Commons deployment, including:
- AI for Good
- Stability of the consume flow
This release is right around the corner…. Stay tuned!
And, then what comes after?
Even though Pacific will be released imminently, the work is far from finished and the team will continue making improvements until the New Data Economy is well-established and self-regulating.
Following PoA network release (V1), there will be multiple additions for improving V1. These enhancements include the following:
- Audit of the POA Governance Contracts and enabling the Governance contracts as part of the Network
- Improvements/Fixes to the Commons Marketplace
- Security audit of all the Keeper Contracts
Looking further through the periscope, the following are the specifications for future releases as we currently see them It is important to note that, as with all software development, these benchmarks and timeframes are subject to change. As always, the foundation will continue to provide regular updates and transparency reports on where Ocean Protocol is headed.
Partnerships and team members
The Problem
It’s expensive to own a car in Singapore. Singapore is a small but heavily urbanized country with a total land area of merely 721.5 square kilometers (278.6 square miles), hence pollution control is paramount to the health of the country’s residents. To control the number of cars on the road, the Singapore government has been driving prices upward and making cars less affordable. A new car in Singapore could cost anywhere between 230 to 310 percent of the car’s Open Market Value, so it’s common for Singaporeans to opt for a used car.
However, the experience of buying a used car is not always straightforward. Information about a particular car can be scarce, with consumers often having to jump through hoops to gather adequate (but often unreliable) information about a vehicle.
“Currently, customers wanting to buy a used car will need to rely on information provided by the current owner or used car dealer. There will be a natural tendency to understate or not reveal defects of the vehicle.” said Glenn Ong, General Manager of sgCarMart Quotz. “Buyers can rely on 3rd party inspection centers to do a check but matters like odometer tampering can still go undetected.”
The quandary here is clear.
The Solution:
sgCarMart is Singapore’s #1 car listing site, attracting 2 million visitors monthly. To empower buyers in their decision-making process, they have announced the launch of Singapore’s first Know-Your-Vehicle used car data marketplace — powered Ocean Protocol.
By using Ocean, the source of data and its trail can be established, recorded, and traced. sgCarMart’s used car data marketplace can ensure buyers are getting up-to-date, highly accurate, and reliable information about the used cars available in the market.
The Know-Your-Vehicle Data Marketplace can promote road safety for all by making sure consumers purchase cars that are roadworthy plus encouraging car owners to better maintain their cars and maximize resale value in the long-run.
How it works:
The current phase of this PoC successfully demonstrates the registration of data assets on Ocean and the establishment of data provenance. The data pipeline combines the following two types of information to form the final data asset for each used car:
- Information about the car, such as the VIN number, make and model
- Information about repairs/services done by workshops; such as parts replaced or serviced
The operation responsible for merging these two sources of information is the step that generates the provenance. One can thereby locate the data assets used to generate the final report and the operations involved.
Since all datasets are registered on the Ocean network, the asset ID (unique identifiers for each data asset) and the transactions (who purchased the asset) leave an on-chain trail that can be verified.
“We are pleased to unlock used car data so that consumers can make better and safer buying decisions. In future, we hope to leverage these data further to help industries and the government to advance products and services as well as a greener and more efficient future for the people in Singapore.” Glenn Ong added.
It will be exciting to see how this use of Ocean Protocol can improve mobility, boost transparency, and empower Singaporeans to make better buying decisions.
Social media metrics
Social media activity:
The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Ocean Facebook likes, Reddit subscribers and Twitter followers. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.
