Ocean V4 Overview

OceanOnda V4 OverviewData NFTs & community monetizationSummaryThis post gives an overview of key OceanOnda V4 features: (1) ERC721 data NFTs for more flexibility in data IP management, and (2) community monetization to help the community create sustainable businesses.These features build on previous functionality: ERC20 datatokens for data access control and licensing, Compute-to-Data to retain privacy & control of data, and Ocean Market dapp to publish and consume data assets.1. IntroductionOcean Protocol was conceived in 2017. We drew on our experiences in AI, banking, blockchain, IP and NFTs to envision a data exchange protocol & network powering thousands of data marketplaces side-by-side with a world-scale data commons, all while preserving data owners’ control and privacy. Our whitepaper detailed the vision, and our roadmap the plans.

Each major release of Ocean has made that vision to closer to reality:Ocean V4 adds the following major features. Sections below elaborate; and blog posts even further.Data NFTs, for more flexibility in data IP management.Community monetization, to help the community create sustainable businesses.2. Data NFTs for flexibilityOcean V3 used ERC20 “datatokens” to represent both base intellectual property (IP) and licenses against that base IP. Ocean V4 adds more flexibility by representing the base IP as ERC721 “data NFTs”.In Ocean V3, someone publishes a dataset by deploying an ERC20 “datatoken” contract and related metadata. In doing so they are claiming copyright (or exclusive right) to that base IP. 

When a person gets 1.0 ERC20 datatokens for that dataset, this is a license to consume that dataset, and they can use Ocean infrastructure to do so (spending the 1.0 datatokens).Fungible ERC20 datatokens leverage crypto infrastructure. Crypto wallets become data wallets for data custody, data sharing, and data management more generally. DAOs become data DAOs for data unions, data coops, and data trusts.But Ocean V3 had limitations in flexibility. It did not support different licenses for the same base IP (e.g. 1-day versus 1-month), or transferring the base IP. Furthermore, the ERC20 datatoken template was hardcoded.Ocean V4 addresses these issues by explicitly using ERC721 to represent base IP as an ERC721 “data NFTs”. The data NFT owner can deploy ERC20 “datatoken” contracts against their data NFT, each datatoken contract with its own licensing terms.Ocean data NFTs have the following benefits:Interoperability with the NFT ecosystem (and DeFi & DAO tools). Examples: (a) transfer base IP via an NFT wallet, (b) data NFTs for sale in OpenSea, (b) DAO-held data NFTsData NFTs have flexible metadata key-value pairs (via ERC725y standard), on-chain data availability, and GDPR compliance (via on-chain encryption, decrypted by Ocean Aquarius for rendering in frontends). Caching and retrieval is fast & convenient via Ocean Aquarius / ElasticSearch. 

With ocean.js & ocean.py drivers, like the rest of Ocean.When the NFT is transferred, it auto-updates all permissions, e.g. who receives payment, or who can mint derivative ERC20 datatokens.Allows new data NFT & datatoken templates, for flexibility and future-proofing.Besides base data IP, you can use data NFTs to implement comments & ratings, verifiable claims, identity credentials and social media posts. 🤯 They can point to parent data NFTs, enabling nesting of comments on comments, or replies to tweets. All on-chain, GDPR-compliant, easily searched, with js & py drivers.This article has more details on data NFTs for Ocean V4. And, the following articles dive into IP * NFTs: for ERC721, ERC20, and ERC721 + ERC20.3. Better monetization for communityOcean V4 provides more upside for marketplace operators, and makes space for a market of third-party Providers.Ocean V3 smart contracts enabled marketplace operators to collect a fee in just one place: consume. The value was hardcoded to 0.1% which was a good start, but it limited the upside.

Ocean V4 provides more upside for marketplace operators. First, V4 smart contracts enable marketplace operators to collect a fee not only in consume, but also in fixed-rate exchange. Second, the marketplace operator sets the fee value.Furthermore, Ocean V4 enables third-party Providers to provide compute, for a fee. This enables a marketplace of Providers to emerge. This will work for centralized trusted providers (that the data publisher and consume must trust), but also trustless providers (via decentralization or other privacy-preserving mechanisms).This article holds more details on monetization in Ocean V4.4. Update on Dynamic PricingOceanOnda V4 initially shipped with an updated version on dynamic pricing using liquidity pools, however we have since removed dynamic pricing from Ocean Market due to security concerns. This article goes into the details on why that was necessary and we have outlined our current position on staking in the article on veOcean.5. 

ConclusionOcean V4 brings these key new features: 

ERC721 data NFTs for more flexibility in data IP management, and community monetization to help the community create sustainable businesses.These features build on previous functionality: ERC20 datatokens for data access control and licensing, Compute-to-Data to retain privacy & control of data, and Ocean Market dapp to publish and consume data assets. 

Source : [Ocean V4 Overview](blog.oceanprotocol.com/ocean-v4-overview-1ccd4a7ce150) undefined - December 19, 2022