The Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) is an effort to monetize data through the blockchain and nonfungible tokens (NFTs).
The Ocean Protocol tokenizes data by wrapping it in interoperable ERC-721 data NFTs & ERC20 datatokens. An NFT is a token that serves as a unique identifier for a digital construct such as an artwork.
The ERC-721 is an Ethereum NFT standard that allows smart contracts to identify NFTs. One use of the ERC-721 is to make easier to transfer NFTs from one account to another. The ERC-271 protocol allows people to buy and sell NFTs through cryptocurrency wallets, centralized exchanges, and decentralized exchanges (DEXes).
Ocean ERC20 datatokens are Ethereum tokens that allow users to access a data service.
An On and off-ramp for Data Assets in DeFi
They call the Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) an on-ramp and off-ramp for data assets into decentralized finance (DeFi). Ocean users can deploy ERC-271 data NFTs and ERC20 datatokens and consume data services or spend datatokens.
For example, the Ocean Protocol could allow a company to tokenize its data. The company could sell the data through a blockchain platform by turning packages of data into ERC20 datatokens. Interestingly, the data could be on-chain or off-chain, but the key to unlock off chain data will be in the blockchain.
For instance, a publisher could create digital versions of books, newsletters, or articles. The publisher could then sell the publications through a blockchain platform as ERC20 datatokens or ERC-271 NFTs. They claim the Ocean Protocol makes this easy with decentralized access controls.
A Decentralized Exchange for Data
The Ocean Protocol developers claim their datatokens can connect the data industry to DeFi assets. In other words, the Ocean Protocol wants to bring Big Data to the blockchain.
To that end, they will be build the Ocean Market. The Ocean Market could create Data Marketplaces on the blockchain. Users will buy and sell data as ERC20 datatokens and ERC-271 NFTs. They call the Ocean Market a decentralized exchange tuned for data.
The hope is Ocean Protocol can use Compute-to-Data to buy and sell private data while preserving privacy. One hope is that the Ocean Protocol could make it easy for artificial intelligence (AI) to use data from a dex.
They hope the Ocean Protocol can allow data scientists and AIs to access more data and use it for AI training. The Ocean Protocol builders claim their platform can offer fine-grained permissions for use cases.
What Value could the Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) Have?
I think the Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) could make enormous amounts of money because it is entering a growing industry. That industry is Big Data.
The global Big Data Market is worth $70 billion in 2022, Statista estimates. The Big Data market grew from $64 billion in 2021. Statista forecasts that the Big Data market can grow to $77 billion in 2023, $84 billion in 2024, $90 billion in 2025, $96 billion 2026, and $103 billion in 2027.
Big Data revenues are enormous and growing. Statista estimates worldwide Big Data revenues grew from $215.7 billion in 2021 to $274.3 billion in 2022. Thus, the Ocean Protocol could enter a growing business that generates $274.3 billion in revenue a year.
“Data is the oil, some say the gold, of the 21st century — the raw material that our economies, societies and democracies are increasingly being built on,” Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser said in 2018. The Ocean Protocol aims to help Big Data harvest that raw material by tokenizing it.
Is Ocean Protocol a Good Cryptocurrency?
There is a powerful interest in the Ocean Protocol (OCEAN). For instance, CoinMarketCap lists OCEAN as the 16th most-trending cryptocurrency on 9 May 2022.
Yet CoinMarketCap estimated the Ocean Protocol as the 170th largest cryptocurrency on 10 May 2022. CoinMarketCap gave the Ocean Protocol a 30.42₵ Coin Price, a $186.497 million Market Capitalization, a Fully Diluted Market Cap of $428.886 million, and a 24-Hour Market Volume of $30.541 on 10 May 2022. They based those numbers on a Circulating Supply of 613.099 million OCEAN, a Maximum Supply of $1.41 billion OCEAN, and a Total Supply of 613.099 million OCEAN.
Conversely, CoinBase gave Ocean Protocol a 30₵ Coin Price, a $186.7 million Market Cap, and a $30.6 million 24-Hour Market Volume on 10 May 2022. They based those numbers on a Circulating Supply of 613.1 million OCEAN. CoinBase gave OCEAN an all-time high Coin Price of $1.90.
I think the Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) could become a moneymaking platform because it operates in a growing business, Big Data. If you are seeking cryptocurrency, that could profit from Big Data, the Ocean Protocol is worth investigating.
Originally published at https://marketmadhouse.com on May 10, 2022.