Many businesses have been utilizing blockchain technology, and Mercedes-Benz is now one of them. Recently Daimler of South East Asia, part of Mercedes Benz Group under Daimler AG, announced plans to launch Acentrik. Acentrik is a decentralized data marketplace for enterprises. They aim to facilitate the purchasing and selling of data within a decentralized network to improve in-house data quality, accuracy, and accessibility. So, let’s dive in a little deeper.
Eccentrically Acentrik
The in-house team at Mercedes-Benz, who started Acentrik, has been working closely with Ocean Protocol with plans to initially launch on the Polygon Mainnet. Acentrik is essentially a fork of Ocean Market using the OceanONDA V4 smart contracts and libraries.
With Acentrik bringing Blockchain and Web3 to enterprises through data sharing, there could be much to gain.
Per their website, their vision is “to be the go-to marketplace enabling monetization and value creation of data across industries while ensuring data sovereignty.”
Data Sovereignty
Data sovereignty is the notion that data is subject to governance laws within the nation in which it has been collected, along with Data Residency, where the information is chosen to be stored. And as we use cloud computing technologies more and more, this becomes an increasingly significant issue. Though some of this is done for protection/privacy reasons, it simultaneously limits things.
For example, transmitting data out of a specific country of origin or even keeping data in isn’t always ideal and doesn’t lend to the originator’s control.
Decentralizing this data and making a marketplace to facilitate this unlocks a lot of value and helps keep private information private. In this case, much of the data to be shared between businesses in the marketplace is related to insurance information, scientific studies, and clinical trial data.
Why Ocean/Polygon?
Acentrik and Ocean Protocol have been working with each other since 2020. Together they built a Proof of Concept for data orchestration. After working on that successful project, Ocean Protocol was a natural pick. Especially with the compute-to-data aspect they provide.
This helps protect raw data with possibly sensitive IP and gives more control over the types of access provided. Acentrik chose Polygon Mainnet to launch on due to the security of the Ethereum base layer in being an open Blockchain and, of course, low gas fees.
Tokens
There are different token types that you will find on Acentrik, including both utility and non-fungible tokens. They will be used in their ecosystem to facilitate buying and selling using stablecoins such as USDC.
For example, Matic or RIN Token would be used for purchasing or minting in the form of gas fees.
In addition, ERC721 tokens will be used for Acentrik’s AAM Token and ERC20 tokens to represent data exchange.
Where’s the Value?
Here’s an example of value with a specific use case in the automotive industry. Now that vehicles are becoming more autonomous, so much data is needed in many forms to accomplish self-driving. Data is combed through by, in many cases, AI technology to assist in machine learning with R&D. So, to make accurate decisions, that information needs to be quality.
Most likely, that means one would have a history of data at hand or access to good, verifiable data.
This trove of cumulative data would have high-value potential as the underlying information and findings can be shared freely or sold. Also, having a vehicle’s maintenance history at your fingertips in a sales setting adds a lot of value to authenticating information for both buyer and seller. Transparent and efficient info in buying a new/used car, sign me up.
What the Future Brings
Acentrik has plans to expand into various industries. The intention is to increase its business value by helping other businesses succeed, meet their goals, and drive revenue. Creating decentralized apps on top of their platform will be the next step. Sights are set high with their overall vision.
Other EVM-compatible chains may well be utilized sometime down the line. Those mentioned were BSC, SKALE, and NEAR.
Acentrik even noted that working with non-EVM oracles is not out of the question for the future.
And it wouldn’t be complete without a DAO. Plans for developing a Decentralized Autonomous Organization have already been thought of.
So, when your data is as valuable as your money, you want to protect it. Implementing Blockchain technology is a great way to accomplish this at scale. What other industries want to follow suit in adopting Blockchain/Web3 technology? Only time will tell, but this is the beginning of how crypto/NFTs will be used in everyday b2b and b2c transactions. Talk about “driving” mass adoption.
