Hello Hivers and LeoFinancers!
In this post we present the Data Lake project, because we find it very interesting both from financial and scientific point of view. It is not about DeFi but DeSci! Decentralized science is a growing area where blockchain technologies are used to help solving some of the biggest unmet needs in science.
https://news.bitcoin.com/desci-the-future-of-crypto-after-the-ftx-fiasco/
What is the goal of Data Lake?
Data Lake aims to increase accessibility of medical data which are crucial for the quality and speed of clinical/medical research. Insufficient amount of data for computational simulations and machine learning models is a dominant bottleneck in medical research, and Data Lake changes that by establishing a medical data donation system which is based on user consent, transparency, and equitable rewards for providing data.
From where will the data come from? How does it work?
The data will come from us, normal people, who will consent to share our data for research. Only if a "data hero" (that´s how they are called) provides consent, the data can be sent from the treating hospital or laboratory to a recipient buying access to data, and the donor will receive $LAKE (an ERC-20 token on the ETH blockchain) for sharing the data, also called C2E ("consent to earn").
The flow of data, consents and $LAKE is depicted here (from the Whitepaper):
https://data-lake.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Data-Lake-Whitepaper-1.8-1.pdf
The data donor, after KYC, provides (or revokes) consent in the Consent App. In the App the donors can also track their consent history, check the benefits available, withdraw or redeem the earned $LAKE tokens and join a community of other donors.
Data Lake validates the consents, approaches applicable health care or research entities, collects the data, anonymizes it, adds some metadata (sort of tagging, for e.g. filter and search purposes) and makes it available for the data recipients. The full anonymization of the data makes (in contrast to pseudonymization) the re-identification of individuals impossible.
But what about privacy? Will Data Lake sell my data to insurance companies or advertisers?
The privacy of the data from the data donors is taken seriousy and is a core pillar of the concept! Data are fully anonymized. Practically, there is no reason for bio-med companies to pay extra for personal data. One does not find the cure for cancer by knowing the name or street address of a patient. One does find it by analyzing millions of records of data, it is only the amount what matters. In Data Science, there is a proverb: "better data beats clever algorithms, but more data beats better data". And Data Lake will not sell your data for any usage different than medical research.
Moreover, Data Lake will launch a foundation caring about proper usage and anonymization of data in every country from which data will be taken - foundations that are controlled by the governments. The first of them, Podaruj Dane (https://podarujdane.pl/), already exists in Poland. If you decide to stop sharing your data (i.e. revoking your consent), you can do it any moment with a few clicks. Last but not least: recipients will be buying access to data, not the ownership of the data.
For what purpose does the project need blockchain technology?
The transparency of blockchain technology gives you a tool to supervise your data and to know who bought access to them and for what purpose. Also, it is forbidden by law in almost every country to pay data donors in fiat money. E.g. blood donors can't be paid money, but they can be "paid" with e.g. chocolates and energy drinks. Treat $LAKE tokens like the equivalent of chocolates and energy drinks for data donors.
Why create a new token? Can't data donors be paid in existing stablecoin like USDC or USDT?
There are two problems with using already existing cryptocurrencies. Firstly, it would decrease reliability and independence of the project, which are crucial for such fragile business related strictly with medicine and law. Secondly, in order to acquire reasonable amount of other crypto to pay for data, Data Lake would have needed to possess hundreds of millions of dollars, which is unachievable for a new startup. With its own token, Data Lake could start business with only a fraction of this amount.
What if people will not be interested in sharing their medical data?
Results from an anonymous market survey showed that 77% of people in Poland are likely to share their data for medical purposes even for free, but often they just don't have possibility to do it. And the token is to persuade the other 23%. Data Lake assumes that in other countries it will be similar.
What it people think about cryptocurrencies like a thing for terrorists and drug dealers, so they won´t share their data for some fancy tokens?
The option of obtaining tokens for data sharing will be optional. Practically, tokens will be silently sent and are ready to be claimed on the data donor´s account. Initially, according to the founders, transactions will be allowed in fiat as well and a TBD percentage of income from these transactions will be used to buyback $LAKE tokens.
Is Data Lake a scam?
The whole team of the project is public, they show you names, faces and social media. Founders are successful young people with quite some reputation already. For example, Wojciech Sierocki and Ligia Kornowska have been listed on both 25 under 25 and 30 under 30 lists of Forbes in Poland.
They have experience, but it is their first crypto project, therefore it is highly unlikely that they are scammers who only want to make money quickly by selling of the token, let the project die and jump to the next one. They are not doing primitive crypto marketing campaigns like "to the moon", instead they focus on the product development and building community.
What´s the long term vision?
From the Whitepaper:
And what has Data Lake achieved so far?
They started the data donation system in Poland on 7th December 2022. They are currently working on establishing it in other EU countries, advanced talks are underway in Germany, Italy, Czech Republic and Slovakia. They are attending conferences or webinars almost every week. They are winning prizes in contests for startups. 5 weeks after IDO, the token had doubled in price (but is still a bargain). Recently $LAKE also has been listed on CoinMarketCap.
What are the biggest risks for the project?
- Changes in the law which would impact the data donating system
- Unwillingness of the hospitals or medical companies to participate in anything related with cryptocurrencies
The first risk is unlikely to kill the project completely as every country has its own laws and it is unlikely that all of them will change the laws for the worse. The second risk is becoming smaller every year because nothing can stop mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. Interestingly, already 4 years, an article about this very topic was written on Hive here (sorry, German only). 4 years later, the theoretical considerations back then are now becoming reality.
Where can I buy $LAKE tokens?
You can buy them currently only on Uniswap (token contract). Exchange listings are in discussion (and will offer, once achieved, upside potential due to increased visibility and availability). The token is currently at app. 0,004$.
https://data-lake.co/news/
What do you think about Data Lake? Let us know in the comments!
Links:
Data Lake website: https://data-lake.co/
$LAKE Tokenomics: https://data-lake.co/token/
Whitepaper: https://data-lake.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Data-Lake-Whitepaper-1.8-1.pdf
Team: https://data-lake.co/team/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dataLakeToken
Telegram: https://t.me/DataLakeCommunity
Medium: https://medium.com/@datalaketoken
DexTools: https://www.dextools.io/app/en/ether/pair-explorer/0xefd69f1ff464ed673dab856c5b9bca4d2847a74f
CoinMarketCap: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/data-lake/
jointly written by @maciejficek and @stayoutoftherz