Ocean Protocol

What is Ocean Protocol (OCEAN)?

Ocean Protocol unlocks data at a large scale by providing next-generation tooling for the Web3 Data Economy.

Society’s reliance on data has been turbocharged by the advent of AI. However, much of this data is monopolized by a small handful of organizations. This centralization of control has given rise to Ocean, which is dedicated to providing more equitable outcomes for data users.

Deployed on Ethereum, Ocean takes advantage of the blockchain’s fungible (ERC-20) and non-fungible (ERC-721) token standards to use datatokens and data NFTs. Crypto wallets can thus become data wallets; crypto exchanges are transformed into data marketplaces; and DAOs take the form of data co-ops.

When was Ocean Protocol Launched?

Ocean Protocol came to life in November 2017 with the release of its technical primer and marketplace framework. The founding Ocean team included BigChainDB duo Bruce and Cristina Pon, AI experts Trent McConaghy and Razvan Olteanu.

Ocean also carried out a seed distribution of the OCEAN token in late 2017 before releasing the project’s technical and business whitepapers in February of the following year. In March, Ocean began ramping up by growing its developer team and launching the Advisor Program.

March 2018 also saw the team carry out another distribution of OCEAN tokens, this time with a pre-launch sale to 3500 contributors in 100 countries.

The Spree test network then came to life after several months of development, and the project was able to go to v1 Alpha in December. Beta, known as Nile, followed in April 2019 before the POA mainnet was launched in Q3 2019. Alongside mainnet, the team also established a token bridge between Ethereum and the Ocean POA network.

Since then, Ocean has seen milestones come thick and fast. Having developed an Enterprise data marketplace in 2020, the team launched Ocean v2, which included compute-to-data functionality. V3 also came the same year, adding datatokens and the Ocean Market to the ecosystem.

In October 2020, Ocean Protocol deployed to the Ethereum mainnet and added a Polygon deployment, including a bridge the following year. 2021 was the year when Ocean truly spread its wings because before the end of the year. It had also been deployed to Binance Smart Chain, Energy Web Chain, and Moonriver, the EVM Polkadot parachain.

The current version of the Ocean Protocol, v4, went live in Q2 2022. This update brought data NFTs to the protocol, enabling the transfer of base IP, supporting >1 revenue streams, and much more.

How Does Ocean Protocol Work?

The Ocean Protocol has an architecture that consists of three layers. The uppermost of these consists of various applications. Some, like Ocean Market, allow users to discover assets and trade datatokens for fixed or automatically determined prices.

Other applications could allow users to spend datatokens and use data services or onboard services like data, algorithms, or compute-to-data into crypto via publishing and minting data NFTs and datatokens. Users can also hold datatokens as assets via data wallets.

The second level of the Ocean Protocol is made up of the libraries used by all of the first layer’s applications. The main libraries are Ocean.js, a JavaScript library, and Ocean.py, a Python library. This level also includes middleware to assist discovery, such as Aquarius, Provider, and The Graph.

Ocean’s final layer contains its smart contracts. These are deployed on the Ethereum mainnet and other compatible networks Ocean operates atop, such as Polygon, BSC, and Moonriver. Libraries encapsulate the calls to these smart contracts and provide features like publishing new assets, facilitating consumption, and price management.

What Makes Ocean Protocol Unique?

Ocean’s implementation of datatokens and data NFTs is particularly unique. Datatokens represent an asset a publisher wants to monetize, such as an algorithm or a dataset.

The publisher can store the asset anywhere, from a cloud storage solution to simply on their phone. They can also use IPFS or even run a compute-to-data service rather than use a file.

The publisher then invokes the Ocean Datatoken Factory, a smart contract that deploys a new datatoken to the blockchain. It uses the ERC-1167 proxy approach on the ERC-20 datatoken template to save gas fees. This process mints datatokens.

The publisher then runs Ocean Provider. In the download step, Provider software must retrieve the data service URL given a datatoken address. Then, it encrypts the URL, which then gets published on-chain.

To initiate the download step, the data buyer sends 1.0 datatokens to the Provider wallet and makes a service request. The Provider loads the encrypted URL, decrypts it, and provisions the requested service.

While these ERC-20 datatokens represent a license to access an asset, ERC-721 data NFTs represent holding copyrights or base IPs of a data asset. Data NFT contracts are deployed by publishers using the Marketplace or client libraries. Just like datatokens, these also use the ERC-1167 proxy approach.

How is the Ocean Protocol Network Secured?

Ocean Protocol’s contracts are deployed on other blockchains, such as Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, and Moonriver. Therefore, it is these blockchains that help secure the Ocean Protocol.

Most of the blockchain networks Ocean is deployed to use proof-of-stake or a modified form for consensus. Validators of the respective blockchains bond the native token (ETH on Ethereum, for example) and are rewarded for producing and validating blocks.

What is the Use of OCEAN?

The OCEAN token is used as a medium of exchange on Ocean Market, or customized versions of it that can be created via the Ocean Protocol. It can also be staked on data to add liquidity, allowing stakers to earn a return.

OCEAN tokens are also used for governance via the OceanDAO. This decentralized autonomous organization has a major role to play concerning the future of Ocean Protocol, allowing OCEAN holders to decide how and where project funding is allocated.

Who Controls Ocean Protocol?

In addition to the governance role played by OceanDAO, Ocean Protocol is also supported by the Ocean Protocol Foundation, a non-profit based in Singapore.

How Much OCEAN Is In Circulation?

The OCEAN token has a maximum supply of 1.41 billion tokens, with a circulating supply of just over 610 million OCEAN.

Around 160 million OCEAN tokens were used for fundraising by the Ocean Protocol Foundation, raising a total of $26.8 million.

How Do You Buy OCEAN?

Primarily an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, OCEAN tokens are very easy to acquire. Decentralized exchanges like Uniswap can always be used to buy ERC-20s, and OCEAN is featured on various DeFi platforms such as Balancer.

You can also buy OCEAN from centralized exchanges if you prefer. Various exchanges around the world list it, and you can buy the token with fiat currencies, stablecoins, and some major cryptocurrencies.

How Do You Store OCEAN?

You can store OCEAN tokens in an Ethereum-compatible wallet like MetaMask. While an exchange account can also hold OCEAN, non-custodial storage has several advantages, one being that you can stake OCEAN on the Ocean Market via your own wallet.

Is OCEAN a Good Investment?

Data is one of the biggest drivers of life and society, and it is increasingly being converted into a commodity. This trend is quickly becoming the norm, and businesses of every size stand to benefit from better, more reliable data.

Ocean Market is already one of the most popular data marketplaces on the blockchain thanks to its ability to provide high-quality, immutable data.

It could certainly be suggested that Ocean is one of the pioneers in the tokenization of data. If this is the path forward, then OCEAN may be hard to stop.