alga.

Stake Smartly & Navigate the Data Ocean with Data Whale!

Introduction

Ever since we heard about Ocean Protocol in December 2017 and got our hands on the business whitepaper, we knew that we were on to something extraordinary! Fascinated about blockchain and decentralized economies, “data” is a use-case for decentralized technologies that will encourage a paradigm shift in today’s world.

Ocean Protocol’s vision to establish a framework that encourages businesses and individuals to share their data, whilst providing financial incentives, made it clear that this was something we want to pursue.

Since 2017, we have not only participated in the early contribution round and IEO, we also participated in building a small part of the Ocean economy through submitting research on commercial incentives to onboard data partners, as well as achieving our Ocean Ambassador title!

We also personally met the team in both Singapore and Berlin (thanks for the Ocean giveaways and goodies!) and stayed close to the project throughout. Whilst in the midst of planning to host an official meetup in Dubai, we ended up in a casual round at one of Dubai’s pubs with great discussions of bringing “data” to the Ocean!

And then… October 27th… the launch of the official marketplace. Oh, what a wave! Rug pulls, fake data and exorbitant valuations (and gas fees!). Totally unexpected, but a great learning curve and without this period, our idea to create Data Whale Curation & Management may not have been “born”.

We were always wondering how we can link our commercial skills and extensive network to the data economy, but when we trialed the beta marketplace, our vision became clear. Without a doubt, there is a need for reputable contributors that curate meaningful data and provide trustworthy liquidity pools for stakeholders, data users and network participants.

Therefore, we created Data Whale Curation & Management. Our initial business whitepaper “The Art of Data” can be referenced here. We are incredibly excited to be part of the Ocean ecosystem and are looking to add value for our stakeholders, data partners and the community.

The alga. Effect

Our long-term vision for alga. is simple: provide a user friendly “one-stop” solution that helps data economy participants to understand the ecosystem and make smart staking decisions. More on this can be read on our OceanDAO proposal, for which we have received a total pledge of 13,000 OCEAN tokens (more here). On our application, you can also read more on how alga. will provide an estimated ROI of 16.2x for the Ocean ecosystem.

We understand that navigating the data economy is overwhelming for most individuals. Liquidity pools, fixed price data and the token-economics behind each asset may not be understood easily.

Therefore, our application aims to encourage adoption of the Ocean Marketplace and allow its users to partake in the data economy in an understandable and seamless way. The application’s user experience has been designed to summarize complex information in to a basic framework that is customizable and easy to use. Many of the application’s screens also resembles existing crypto-currency applications, but will exclusively relate to data-tokens only.

Currently, the application is built on top of he Ocean Marketplace only. In the future, the alga. application may also integrate with new marketplaces and tools that build on top of the Ocean Protocol framework. We are excited to summarize the application’s components in the following paragraphs.

Application Summary Overview

alga. comprises the following main components.

• Home Screen that summarizes the most important indicators (e.g. top gainers, drops or the total data economy market capitalization).
• Dataset Index tab, which lists all data-tokens (liquidity pools and fixed price assets). It can be considered the “CoinGecko” exclusively for data-tokens.
• Data Staking Wallet, that is fully integrated with the user’s Ethereum address and records all transactions related to the data-market automatically. The user can also view his portfolio in various time-frames and analyze the profit / loss for each data-token in detail. We will also add a “Watchlist” function.
• Premium Section (Phase 2), providing a customizable analysis tool that summarizes important research and gives users a competitive edge when investing on the data-market. The user needs to buy access to the following datasets before receiving access to the tool, which encourages the consumption of our data and may encourage price to increase over time.

1. Data Whale “Directory”
2. Data Whale “Global Data Sentiment”
3. Bridging.Tech “Ocean Market”

Here’s an example of a desktop dashboard we have built for the “Global Data Sentiment”. A similar UI will be implemented to our mobile application for all existing research done by Data Whale or Bridging.Tech.

https://twitter.com/realdatawhale/status/1336327195967381508?s=20

To summarize the overview, here is alga.’s explainer video.

Detailed Application Features / Flow for Phase 1 Development

1. User opens the application.
2. The application allows the user to connect to his Ethereum address.
3. If user connects to his Ethereum address, the application populates his data-token and staking balances on a loading screen. Afterwards, the user lands on the home screen.
4. If the user decides to skip this step, he lands on the home screen.

Home Screen

Home Screen will provide the following features.

1. Total Ocean Market Capitalization (real time).
2. Top data liquidity pools (sorted by total liquidity) with data token ticker, price, total liquidity and daily % change.
3. Most recent datasets mentioning ticker, pool or fixed price asset, price, total liquidity (if applicable).
4. Top 5 gainers & Top 5 Drops of liquidity pools (according to daily % change).

Data Token Index Screen

The index lists all data tokens from the Ocean Marketplace with the following information. Think of the “Index” as a CoinGecko of data-tokens.

1. Data Token Ticker
2. Price in OCEAN
3. Fixed or Pool Asset

IF the set is a pool, then the index will provide information on

1. Market capitalization of pool (Total Liquidity)
2. Daily price change in %
3. # of transactions (i.e. volume)
4. Number of sales

For fixed price assets, these columns can remain empty. The user will be able to sort / customize the assets with the help of a filter widget.

1. Show only fixed price assets or pools
2. Sort by date added
3. Sort by %-change in price for pooled assets
4. Sort by market-capitalization for pooled assets

If the user requires more information on each data-token, he may click on the respective asset to gain information on the following.

1. Publisher Name
2. Publisher Ethereum Address
3. Data-Token Address
4. Full name of dataset
5. Publishing date
6. Link to sample data
7. Keywords
8. Pool address (if applicable)
9. Pricing chart that can be sorted in several timeframes (Hourly, 12H, Daily, Weekly etc.) & provides more information on price, trading volume, total liquidity.
10. Number of Transactions & Sales
11. User can also command “add to portfolio” or “add to watchlist”

Staking Wallet Feature

Users are able to add their owned data tokens and may also add any liquidity stake to respective data liquidity-pools. If the user didn’t connect his Ethereum address, his data-token balance and stake may be updated manually in the wallet via the application.

Users can choose to “add data token” or “add OCEAN stake”.

Users can analyze each asset’s profit or loss individually, as well his portfolio development over time.

The Future of the Application: Premium Access & Mobile Swaps

The alga. application will be free to use. In Phase 2 of our development sprint (second half of 2021), we are looking to integrate our research in a premium section. Furthermore, we are aiming to integrate mobile swaps to alga. and liquidity provisions.

Just recently, we have posted our detailed UIX design on our Twitter page here, receiving great attention and positive feedback.

Now, we are beyond excited to showcase our final UIX design covering all features and screens for Phase 1, as well as some parts of Phase 2 :-)

Our vision is clear: we don’t want to stop here! As mentioned earlier in the article, we are looking to build a one-stop solution. To achieve this, we are required to keep #buidling. Mobile data-token swaps, token-buys, staking and other functions for our application are necessary to provide a comprehensive mobile solution. For this reason, we are launching our second OceanDAO pledge, which can be found here.

Please support and cast your vote to guarantee that we can keep developing functions and complete our Phase 2 development.

For any questions, please feel free to reach out to info@datawhale.online

Yours sincerely,

Data Whale Curation & Management