We are here today with a distinguished innovator behind the revolutionary project: Itheum. The project has made game-changing advancements towards data privacy by integrating it with the metaverse and has brought the physical world one step closer to the metaverse. Let's get to know more about this innovation with an exclusive one-on-one with Mark Paul, the founder of Itheum! Q1. The fourth revolution has given birth to the data economy. In Web3, the data economy has been diluting the control of Web2 giants over user data. How well do the core values of Itheum fit in this landscape? The big internet companies are sitting on a data monopoly. They have the means to collect unprecedented amounts of data and have the reputation of making their process and sources of data collection hard to figure out. Many prominent Web3 projects have addressed the demand for greater transparency, control, and ownership over one’s data by integrating data economy with DeFi. Itheum is a Web3 project that takes this idea a step further with dynamic features that give better control to the data providers. Big data projects in web3 have so far focused on tokenizing public data like the weather, traffic patterns, and company financials. They have lacked the means to efficiently monetize personal data, which is quite subjective and diverse. Itheum is built around an idea to address this problem. Q2. The Metaverse went downright mainstream in 2021. Tech giants like Twitter and Facebook, which are essentially data companies in many ways, are making Metaverse plays. Do you foresee a greater integration of these industries in the future? The concept of a Metaverse, a virtual world where people interact, is not a new one. Popular platforms like World of Warcraft and Second Life have given people a new, virtual life for many years. The integration of blockchain has been rocket fuel to the Metaverse industry. Virtual worlds that live on a blockchain provide verifiable and trustless anonymity to their users. This was not possible before. The integration of data economy with the metaverse is not a question of if but of when, because there is demand for unified virtual identity. A digital counterpart of oneself can explore different virtual universes as if a human were living on the internet. This can be done only if every blockchain network shares data and communicates with one another in a compatible manner. Q3. Speaking of metaverses and web3, the demand for cross-chain interoperable digital assets in the Web3 economy is quite evident. What measures have you taken to benefit from this economic shift? Interoperability is one of the defining features of the Itheum protocol. The Itheum Data DEX features are EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible. The DEX is already deployed on many prominent networks like Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche and, Binance Smart Chain. We are also working on non-EVM compatibility as well, which would include a feature-complete product working on the Elrond blockchain; a key blockchain platform for the Itheum platform as it provides the scale, speed, user-experience, and affordability for a data platform like Itheum to gain mainstream global adoption The Data NFTs minted on our platform follow the ERC 721 token standards, making them compatible with famous NFT marketplaces like OpenSea. As discussed before, we extend this idea to the Metaverse as well. Through our platform, the user can build a true digital identity that can interact, grow and communicate with different platforms, just like a real person interacts with the world. The digital identities created with Itheum are as unique as the people who own them. Q4. Today, an average individual has very little knowledge about the amount of data being collected and monetized about them. The monopolies in the data industry have made this information notoriously difficult to access in the past. Do you think Web3 is the answer to this issue? The users in the Web2 economy pay for services they use with personal data. Web services like social media and many famous chatting and networking apps offer lucrative features for free, which entraps the public by deceiving them into believing that they got a better bargain with making their data public. This is sadly not true. When personal data from millions of individuals around the globe is structured into neat little packs, they become incredibly worthy, something not realized by the uninitiated. Data in Web3 behaves like an asset. People can lend their data to verified institutions for specific uses, after which the access is given back to them. The data is traded on decentralized exchanges, making the entire supply chain completely public. As social media platforms migrate on blockchains with time, we will begin to see a transparent and prosperous data economy where the interests of small data providers and consumers will be protected. Our primary initiatives around facilitating this are our NFMe ID technology and its integration into the Greenroom protocol. NFMe (Non-Fungible Me) are NFT Based IDs that are Personal Data-Backed “Soulbound” Metaverse Avatars. They are "Soulbound" as they cannot be sold, instead, you will be able to use the Greenroom interoperability protocol to traverse various metaverse platforms and share and trade your data for access to personalized features. You can also "shave off" parts of the data connected to your NFMe avatar and trade those as Data NFTs in NFT marketplaces. In essence, Itheum's NFMe ID avatars are the metaverse version of the real YOU - but with you being in full control of your data. Q5. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations or DAOs play an integral part in the Web3 economy. They enable the framework for separate individuals to act for the common good and in a trustless manner. You mentioned Data Coalition DAOs that trade on behalf of individuals. How does this model work? There is great demand for machine learning and AI models to run analytics on complex, human-generated data. Such complex systems require tremendous amounts of quality data to optimize their program. Personal data that can train these models are valued a great deal more when grouped in large quantities than when monetized in isolation. Data Coalition DAOs consist of people who specialize in managing such personal data packets. These DAOs can fetch better value to individual data providers by trading the bulk of their assets together on their behalf. The DAO Board members must bond Itheum’s native utility token into the Data Coalition DAO to ensure they have ‘skin in the game’. This makes sure that they act in the best interest of data providers, ushering in a fair market. Q6. Every major technological invention is believed to make the world smaller, be it the wheel ages ago or the internet in the 21st century. Do you believe that DeFi is the next stepping stone to set the next benchmark for this idea? The DeFi architecture has two crucial pillars - trustless framework and decentralization. We believe that these are the two most prominent flaws of the traditional data economy. The data creators lack the technical know-how and the financial muscle to monetize their data, so they have no choice but to trust the data aggregators. This leverage is an incentive for the data aggregators towards selfish conduct. Centralized control over an enormous quantity of quality data results in an unfair supply chain that creates entry barriers for small players with limited financial power. This is why the AI engines of bluechip tech companies are so advanced because they have access to exclusive quality data. The monopoly is being disrupted now with Web3, where even small individual data creators can effectively monetize their data, and small data consumers have access to quality data at a fair price. This is how a healthy supply chain should function.
