Dive into Earning on Ocean Protocol

Data is becoming an increasingly valuable asset in every world sector, even more so as we advance into the digital age. Governments need population data to make better policies, and businesses need consumer data to improve their products, to name a few. However, the persisting problem is the difficulty in getting access to that data – which is where Ocean Protocol comes in.

Ocean Protocol is committed to building a decentralized, data-focused ecosystem with blockchain, where data providers (called Publishers) and individuals/bodies who need data (Consumers) can interact.

“The aim of Ocean Protocol is to equalize the opportunity to access data so that a much broader range of AI practitioners can create value from it and, in turn, spread the power of data. This network can be used as a foundational substrate to power a new ecosystem of data marketplaces, and more broadly, data sharing for the public good.” Trent McConaghy, Co-Founder, BigChainDB & Ocean Protocol 

How does Ocean Protocol work?

Publishers can list data they own/have rights to on the Ocean Market, where Consumers can buy access to the data with OCEAN tokens ($OCEAN). $OCEAN serves as the currency and governance token of the ecosystem. $OCEAN is available on several exchanges where they can be exchanged for fiat and other cryptocurrencies.

The data is published as interoperable ERC721 data NFTs on the marketplace. It can be personal, scientific, business or any type of data the Publisher has rights to.

Consumers spend $OCEAN to buy a dataset’s ERC20 datatokens. After obtaining the datatokens, they need to send it to the data provider in exchange for the data NFTs, which grant access to the data of interest. 

Now that you have a basic idea of Ocean Protocol let’s go a bit deeper beyond the surface to explore the more important parts – how to earn from it. 

How to earn with OCEAN Protocol

There are more than a few ways to earn OCEAN tokens.

Selling data

This is the standard way to earn $OCEAN. List any useful data on the OCEAN Market and get paid for it.

You are not limited to selling the data you own. You can also add value to public data and sell it on the protocol. For example, you could scrape the contact info of plumbers in your city online, organize it and publish the cleaned version for sale. It could also be as simple as labeling bird photos with their names and selling them. 

Engineers can also sell their trained AI models for $OCEAN on the Market. 

Donating data 

Individuals can contribute their personal data to crowdfunded data pools in exchange for $OCEAN. You can find several of these large datasets on the Ocean Market, curated by various projects.

Ocean data challenges

Occasionally, Ocean Protocol hosts data challenges, inviting users to build algorithms to solve complex business and social issues and make data-driven insights about them. You can participate in these competitions for a chance to earn hefty $OCEAN rewards.

Staking

Users can provide liquidity to published data by contributing $OCEAN to an OCEAN-datatoken AMM pool. As a reward, stakers earn a percentage of the transaction fees related to the datatoken. The transaction fees could be from datatoken sales and swaps or when stakers join or leave the liquidity pool. The more you stake, the more $OCEAN rewards you get.

Staking has its risks, so you should do your research before joining a liquidity pool. You can read more about staking $OCEAN here. 

Hodling and speculating datatokens

This is similar to flipping NFTs on marketplaces. On Ocean Protocol, you can buy datatokens you think are undervalued and hodl them till their prices rise to sell them for a profit. 

Hodling datatokens is another risky venture, as prices may drop instead, and you may incur losses. To earn this way, you need a good understanding of market movements and possibly a bit of luck.

Earn tokens as a market operator

Ocean Protocol has tools for those skilled enough to build their own Ocean-powered market. You can do this by taking Ocean Market’s open-source code or making another one from scratch using Ocean’s tools.

After building your custom marketplace, you can add extra publishing fees, which go directly to you when users pay.

Admittedly, making a quick buck on the Ocean Protocol with its data-centric economy may seem challenging. But remember, any useful data is valuable. You don’t need to publish complicated graphs; you can curate a list of links to niche-specific informative sites and sell them. 

If selling data is not your thing, you can explore other available earning options. Ocean Protocol is full of opportunities; catch the wave and get returns for your value with this exciting project!