When Blockchain State-of-the-Art meets Data State-of-the-Art
What the Mainnet Launch Means
Quadrant Protocol’s Mainnet is a technical achievement that places us among a select group of blockchain-based platforms. But it represents more than just a product milestone. We have always seen it as the truest statement of our intentions: to combine the vast potential of the big data space with the innovative new solutions made possible by blockchain.
Why Blockchain: Opportunity, Not Hype
Blockchain has gotten a lot of hype, both positive and negative, in recent years. But Quadrant’s reason for embracing the technology had nothing to do with the noise surrounding it. The simple fact is that distributed ledger technology allows us to address problems we couldn’t tackle before. With blockchain, we can fight inauthentic data, promote transparency and increase security in the data industry. We can level the playfield and narrow the data access gap for every player in the supply chain. We can share value and set the right incentives among the different actors to collaborate.
Quadrant’s Mainnet: A Simple Tool Providing Solutions to Complex Problems
With that goal in mind, our Mainnet is designed to host a new decentralized data ecosystem powered by a Protocol that will change the way we use and interact with data. Quadrant Protocol will discover, verify and map disparate data sources, distributing the results to the visionaries, or Elons, who can then combine data in meaningful and useful ways. This simple tool has the ability to create sophisticated data solutions addressing real-world problems, from location analytics to tampered information, from smart cities to traditional businesses.
Data Meets Blockchain
The virtuous combination of data and blockchain results in a tool that offers vast potential for value creation. And this is not simply an educated guess. Since the launch of Quadrant Protocol’s Testnet back in May, we have been using and improving our data stamping protocol with real clients, verifying and securing their live data feeds on the blockchain.
Simply by putting a data signature on the blockchain, Quadrant Protocol can track the movements of critical data. We can identify and understand any intentional or unintentional manipulations which could lead to catastrophic consequences. This first feature provides a foundational layer of trust in the data space is revolutionary by itself. But it is just the beginning of the world of possibilities that Quadrant Protocol’s Mainnet opens for data. Here is a look at some of the functionality that is in our roadmap:
Open Data Constellations
Imagine a world in which users of data don’t have to worry about the integrity of the information they are using and can spend their time and effort designing innovative and actionable data products. We call these Data Constellations and they are central to our ecosystem because they represent a new way of creating and using datasets.
Constellations are a two-way system. They can originate from either the supply side –someone offering unmapped data — or the demand side –someone looking for trustable data answers in the chaotic data space. Key to the system is that every player can set the terms of the transactions. This dynamic will increase diversity, liquidity and fair value in the network.
Data Enhancement
Quadrant Protocol’s Mainnet allows organisations, data scientists and even individual data entrepreneurs to design, build and distribute new data solutions through aggregation, combination or enhancement of third-party feeds. This is possible due to our token-powered smart contract design, which allows revenue sharing through standard contracts, incentive sharing, or a combination of the two. In this way Quadrant can facilitate innovation, cooperation and revenue sharing to help grow the data economy.
Flexible and Safe
We have built our protocol to be as flexible as possible, with a practical approach towards adoption and economies of scale. Our protocol can be used to achieve authenticity and transparency for data products via our data stamping and authentication clients. These clients are storage agnostic and can stamp and verify data on any storage resource. Quadrant uses a two-chain technique — specifically, a Proof of Authority consensus algorithm with external Proof of Work as an anchor — to enable faster, cheaper and safer transactions.
The Mainnet and our Philosophy
Our Mainnet is also a reflection of our philosophy around technology and business development. We don’t build castles in the sand. Instead of spending months or even years building the hype before launching a real working product, we built a working platform from the ground up, always focused on how to best serve our users and customers. And we will keep doing so as new milestones appear on the horizon. This is just the beginning.
What’s next?
We have a busy roadmap ahead. Our Mainnet launch is the foundation on top of which we can build a whole new data ecosystem for data producers, businesses and innovators to cooperate in a trustful and transparent way. And you can be part of it, even if you are not a data professional.
Our architecture includes different stakeholders, designed to be supported by our diverse user-community base.
Quadrant Guardian Nodes
Guardians will be the master nodes that protect the integrity of the chain, ensuring that the data products created in the ecosystem are not compromised. They will host and build transactions into the Quadrant network and provide stamping, authentication and verification of data. These services will be rewarded in QUAD tokens.
The Guardian Nodes will execute our smart-contract powered Data Constellations and distribute the QUAD tokens among the players involved according to the terms of their contracts. We aim to start deploying Distributed Guardian Nodes in Q1 2020 to create a fully distributed and open system that will power the data economy.
Guardian Nodes will have the following roles:
- Create blocks
- Maintain the integrity of the chain
- Distribute QUAD tokens
- Execute Data Smart Contracts
Anchor Clients
Anchors will also be crucial to the security of the Quadrant ecosystem. The Anchor client watches the Quadrant network continuously for updates and anchors Quadrant block hashes periodically to the public Ethereum blockchain to maintain the integrity of the Quadrant Network. This two-chain technique is designed to provide fast and cost-efficient transactions within the Quadrant network, while taking advantage of the security of a largely distributed Proof of Work network.
Anchors Clients will have the following roles:
- Monitoring the chain for updates
- Anchoring block hash to Ethereum’s public blockchain
More Updates to Come
Please stay tuned to this blog for additional updates regarding our Mainnet release. Next week we will provide details related to the business side of the launch and the commercial capabilities it will unlock. We invite you to email us with any questions, or to post them in our Telegram channel.
Thank you again for your continued support
