It’s the end of a busy year, and we couldn’t start 2020 without talking to our community and sharing our updates. 

This past year has been intense and we want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who supported us. As you know, Databroker has undergone a series of transformations, from extending the scope and rebranding, to building the platform and onboarding new partners that share our vision and enthusiasm. 

These are the highlights:

• Extending the scope from IoT sensor data to being THE marketplace for data, and getting a new look. As British businessman Sir Martin Sorrell famously said, “In an era of transparency, you can have innovation without branding, but you cannot have branding without innovation”.
  
  At Databroker, we’ve done both! Databroker is the marketplace for data, connecting data buyers and sellers, and our new branding emphasises this coming together.  

• Building a user-friendly platform that makes it easy to buy, sell and share data and where you can manage all aspects of the data transactions.

• Hitting the road to spread the Databroker message. We attended some of the key global industry events to showcase Databroker (like the Mobile World Congress and the IoT Solutions World Congress, in Barcelona in March and October respectively), and as a result, had many inspiring conversions.
  
  Those discussions with representatives of companies from a wide range of industries confirmed that there’s a big demand for our data marketplace, and it was ultimately this feedback that convinced us to broaden Databroker’s scope.

• Seeing our community grow! You were always the engine that drove us forward, so we’re delighted to see the community grow and flourish!

  The onboarding of sellers that we are able to communicate at this point: COMPUTD, Eurosense, Ice Gateway, National Geographic Institute, Ericsson 5G (smart buildings).

  We're also excited to share that we have 4,7K members on Telegram, 2,8K followers on Twitter and 367 followers on LinkedIn and 3,5 followers on Facebook.

Bring on 2020!

“With the plans for early 2020 on the platform side, we view the year ahead as foundational from a commercial perspective. The growth will accelerate when the foundation is in place.” Matthew van Niekerk, Databroker CEO.

Our last AMA of 2019

Here’s what we talked about in our live AMA with Matthew van Niekerk (CEO), Vincent Bultot (DataMatch Advisor) and Valentina Ponomariova (MarCom Manager).

Q1: Matthew has been traveling a lot this year to promote SettleMint, and has established contacts with businesses in many parts of the world. But some Databroker supporters fear that these trips are not creating the same buzz about Databroker. Not much information has been released yet, and we don’t see any promotion. Can you tell us what the plans are to make Databroker more known?

Vincent: Large organisations that SettleMint is targeting for blockchain projects are also potential data buyers, data sellers or even Databroker platform buyers. And SettleMint marketing activities actively promote Databroker. For example, we often include Databroker in our SettleMint corporate presentations.

Valentina: We did both. The focus was different, though. While SettleMint is a finished product, Databroker had to undergo a total transformation, starting from branding right up to building the new platform. If we take a look at 2019, we made sure to be present at some key global events.

For example, in March we showcased at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. In October, we joined over 400 of the world’s leading suppliers of IoT, artificial intelligence and blockchain solutions at the IoT Solutions World Congress (IoTSWC) in Barcelona. There, Vincent took part in a panel discussion on how consumers can monetise their IoT data without giving up their privacy. And in November, Vincent travelled to the Netherlands to take part in a discussion on data sharing organised by the City of Amsterdam and the European Commission.

Matthew: Gaining a footprint in new markets is beneficial for both SettleMint and Databroker and we are actively promoting Databroker in these new markets.

Q2: The new data market platform is finally launching. Are you going to open up the front end (UI/UX) of the Databroker platform to the public before the open market in January?

Vincent: We will open the platform to early data providers on Wednesday 15 January, and to the public mid-February. This will give us one month to have sufficient content on the platform for the public launch and to fix any bugs we find.

Valentina: We are also considering giving early access to our Databroker community. We’re still discussing this, and if we go ahead, it would be done in an ‘open call’ format.

Matthew: Please let us know if you’re interested in joining for early access to the revamped platform. It’d be great to get you involved!

Q3: When data trading starts in January and February, data sellers will sell a variety of high-quality data. But at the moment, data sellers may have a hard time selling the DTX tokens they earn from data sales, due to the very low exchange rates and poor liquidity. As a result, they risk being trapped in new silos. These issues can have a significant impact on market ecosystem accessibility and development. Is there a solution for this?

Vincent: DTX tokens from data sales stay in data sellers’ wallets until they decide to exchange them.

Matthew: Based on feedback from the exchanges, we are going to re-engage in tandem with the re-launch of the platform. We expect that volumes will gradually increase as more buyers find the data they’re looking for.

Also, based on feedback from the exchanges we’ve been in touch with during this period, the reputable ones have similar feedback. They want to see transactions on the platform first before re-engaging. This is exactly what we are/will be doing.

We’re now about a month away from where we feel we need to be to proceed with meaningful discussions with these exchanges.

Q4: The new platform has expanded into a market for trading high-quality data in addition to IoT sensor data. As a result, depending on industry demand, the value of DTX tokens can have higher scarcity and value. Of course, if they choose the Databroker platform. What is your forecast for the expanded data market size and the market share of the Databroker platform in the future?

Vincent: We will expand as follows:

1) Promote Databroker brand and services at global level to increase the number of buyers, sellers and exchanges.

2) Sell Databroker as a white-label platform to major players (e.g. telecom operators), who will promote their platform to increase the number of buyers, sellers and exchanges.

3) Sell Databroker as a white-label platform for non-public data sharing.

Q5: Does the price of data being sold fluctuate in real time according to the value of DTX, or is it the seller who decides?

Vincent: The price of the data for sale is fixed by the seller and displayed as fiat currency [in the case of the new platform, this is EUR]. The number of DTX issued to the seller’s wallet is calculated according to the DTX exchange rate. The sale price doesn’t change with DTX value.

Q6: At present, the market capitalisation of DTX tokens represents the value. What do you think about the DTX value? And how much do you expect to see in annual volume, sales and volume of data on the platform in 2020?

Vincent: Databroker doesn’t generate revenue at the moment. We believe, as we did back in 2017 when we started Databroker, that the future and opportunities for providing peer-to-peer access to data would be a major development globally.

We were (to my knowledge) one of the first to bring this concept to a public forum in London at the IOT and Blockchain Expo in early 2017.

Since then, the underlying business case for the platform has gotten even stronger.

Our decision to expand the scope of what the platform offers was based on the feedback we’ve received from market participants who are interested in buying and selling data.

Q7: Two years have passed since Databroker’s DTX ICO. To date, strong supporters are convinced of the potential and success of its teams and projects. What will the next yearly milestone be?

Vincent: We thank our community for their support so far. We’re launching the first commercial version of Databroker in less than a month and will invest in the necessary marketing to promote it in 2020. We expect a fast growth of the number of data buyers, data sellers and deals as from the summer 2020.

Q8: How many global players do you expect to join the Databroker platform next year?

Matthew: The onboarding of sellers that we are able to communicate at this point: Computd, Eurosense, Ice Gateway, National Geographic Institute, Ericsson 5G (smart buildings).

We are also in partnership with global ICT players like NTT Data, Sopra Steria, Simac, Fujitsu.

We also kindly invite our community to promote Databroker to telecom operators and other ICT players as soon as the platform is launched. We will continue to extend the number of global ICT players.

Q9: The Databroker logo has recently been redesigned. The new one is very cool. Do you plan to apply the new logo to the DTX token logo too?

Vincent: Yes, we also want to apply the new logo to the token. We will contact the exchanges to have it updated.

 Again, we had a great time in this AMA as over 100 Databroker members joined the conversation. Thank you all for your participation and for your continued support. And we wish you a safe and happy holiday season.

If you know any potential data buyers or sellers, please contact us. Finally, if you’re interested in getting early access to the platform (soft launch), please get in touch!