The car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz is turning to Web3 by developing a marketplace dedicated to the marketing of data on Polygon (MATIC). Thanks to blockchain technology, Acentrik will connect professionals capable of providing all types of data, to enable them to enhance their know-how.
Mercedes-Benz launches its data marketplace on Polygon
The famous car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz is launching a blockchain project on Polygon, through its subsidiary Daimler South East Asia based in Singapore. This project named Acentrik consists of a marketplace, specialized in data trading.
Acentrik is based on Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) technology through a fork of the latter.
The marketplace involves two types of actors: data providers and data consumers. Data providers will be able to sell their data on Acentrik for a financial profit. To do this, the data will be stored on a computer node. A centralized model such as an Amazon Web Service (AWS S3) server can be chosen, but also the decentralized variant via the open source protocol InterPlanetary File System (IPFS).
Data consumers will actually buy non-fungible tokens (NFT) with USDC. Mercedes explains that Polygon’s choice lies in the low cost of its transactions, but also on the fact that the network uses the security of Ethereum (ETH).
As for the fees related to the trading of this data, 0.2% will go to Ocean Protocol and 15% will go to Acentrik for its development.
A business model focused on professional players
Acentrik is based on a business to business (B to B) model. However, although the contours are still unclear, the whitepaper mentions a potential decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) in the future. A possible token dedicated to the protocol is not mentioned for the moment.
In concrete terms, the platform is aimed at any sector that needs a lot of data to build models. One of the most representative use cases is the autonomous car. In order to create the most reliable vehicle possible, companies wishing to work on such a project will need huge amounts of data to analyze. Acentrik acts as an intermediary, enabling those who have this information to make the most of it.
Companies could, for example, focus on collecting satellite data useful for driving and use Acentrik’s services to put it to good use.
Another type of application is the case of trading companies. This is particularly true for the needs of analyzing consumer behaviors, based on different variables such as age, gender or geographical location.
Mercedes does not rule out deploying its protocol on networks other than Polygon. BNB Chain (BNB), NEAR Protocol (NEAR) or Solana (SOL) are also potential candidates.
In any case, this is another example of an industrial giant that has understood the interest of our ecosystem’s technologies for its own development. Acentrik’s ambition is to become the leader in Web3-style data commercialization.
