About dock.io
Data is The World’s Most Valuable Resource
User data is the core value of all consumer facing apps. Centralized platforms mine and productize data for their own agendas, leaving control in the hands of a few companies. At dock.io we believe in this value being shared between users and apps to create a more connected and decentralized internet.
User data is the core value of all consumer facing apps. Centralized platforms mine and productize data for their own agendas, leaving control in the hands of a few companies. At dock.io we believe in this value being shared between users and apps to create a more connected and decentralized internet.
The Consequences of Closed Networks
A person’s profile and information lives on hundreds of apps which are all closed networks and centralized sources. These apps control data at their will, while users and other companies are left with limited opportunities.
A person’s profile and information lives on hundreds of apps which are all closed networks and centralized sources. These apps control data at their will, while users and other companies are left with limited opportunities.
Users Have Limited Opportunities
- Inconsistent information
Most people have dozens of profiles online, many of which haven’t been updated in years, resulting in inconsistent information floating around the web. - Lost value and opportunities
The inability to transfer value in the form of experiences, reputations and reviews, means losing out on opportunities. - No control
Apps own and control user information within their platforms. They change rules constantly at their consent and even share user data via partnerships without user’s knowledge. Users have little to no control over what centralized apps do with their data.
Companies Are Stifled From Innovating
- Cold start challenges
Building a product in this space is extremely difficult due to the “cold start” factor. Every platform relies on the same data, and is required to build their own source from zero. - Centralized platforms dictate the rules
Platforms have full control over the information they store, and are increasingly making it harder for third-party apps to access.
Product
Dock.io makes it possible for users to transfer any type of information between apps or platforms and keep their information up to date everywhere. The dock.io app will serve as a connector between apps in the ecosystem, allowing users to manage their information and preferences regarding how information is shared or synced. The app is currently in alpha.
The dock.io protocol makes it possible for a third party application to receive push updates from a user about activity on another application, and send back its own updated state. It also makes it possible for third party applications to use business application data (task management, collaboration, file sharing) to assess individual work history and performance, and to create reputation scores, network centrality scores, performance reviews, or even vouch for whether an individual works at a specific company.
In dock.io, tokens will be used to incentivize applications to share their data rather than hoard it. Tokens will not be used to incentivize users to share data with applications. When a user sends data from one application to another, the requesting application will pay a fee for access to the data (first to the delivering application, then to be burned). Users will not have any monetary incentive to interact with the product or their data; their benefit will come from having control over their data. The company does currently reward users for inviting friends to the network, to help with early network growth, and plans to continue such efforts until a substantial user base is reached. App fee structures are not discussed. There are no platform fees or rent extraction; the company is funded solely via the token sale.
Notable dangers of the model, stated explicitly in the whitepaper, are with regard to applications monopolizing user data or or sharing it without approval, thus effectively undermining the users’ control over their own data, but the model is designed to disincentivize such behavior.
Use of Blockchain
The dock.io app serves as a connector between apps in the ecosystem. Token costs, as well as any exit fees, will be denominated in Fiat, and a centralized oracle will provide live exchange rates to the dock.io smart contract.
Tokens will be used to incentivize applications, not users, to share data. Users will have no monetary incentive, but will benefit from having control over their data.
Dock.io utilizes the IPLD2 specification developed for IPFS to perform content addressable data exchange. The unencrypted delta’s of the data format updates are hashed, versioned, and anchored to the Ethereum blockchain using a modified specification of the Chainpoint open standard. This provides data integrity, making it possible for applications to verify the validity of data format updates without exposing the data itself. By encrypting the updates to the different applications’ public keys, the user remains in full control of who receives push updates. (Also, any account can sign the on-chain data format version hashes of any other account, and applications may require the signatures of certain other applications for verification.) Users can also choose to publish unencrypted updates and data to IPFS directly, so as to make them freely accessible. All versioning of the data formats will happen client-side and off-chain. The first implementation will use simple GIT4; the end-goal is a versioned key-value store similar to Noms5.
Dock.io data formats are essentially “the equivalent of microformats for Ethereum smart contracts”.
Whitepaper
Whitepaper is concise yet detailed, and presents a coherent business model and technical solution overall, but not a concrete development timeline. An unrevealing roadmap is provided elsewhere (on Medium). Whitepaper candidly discloses and explains underlying risks and complexities.
Some aspects of the model are still a bit unclear or difficult to understand, and perhaps should be explained better, particularly the token economics, but it appears that quite a bit of thought has gone into creating a token model that supports a truly distributed data economy.
Roadmap
The currently available roadmap lists the following:
Jan 2018: Release of the dock.io app (currently in alpha) and Rewards program.
Q1 2018: Partnership announcements (currently Remote.com, FundRequest, and SmartRecruiters are mentioned on the website) and Token Sale.
Q2 2018: Remote.com Partner Integration followed by additional partner integrations.
Q4 2018: Network Data Exchange – applications will be able to exchange data via DOCK tokens with encrypted packages over the IPFS network.
Compliance
Generally, the DOCK token provides applications with access to other applications’ user based data. Applications which are also token holders can signal on their contracts which data formats they accept via a simple list with data format names. DOCK token holders also gain voting rights, allowing them to introduce new proposals and vote on the future development roadmap of the protocol, but the mechanism by which this happens (submission and voting process, governance structure, fund allocation, etc.) is yet to be clarified. Token supply is deflationary via burn mechanism.
The company is working with Deloitte, a big four accounting firm, to ensure it is optimally managing funds, as well as with two top US law firms to ensure it is doing everything it can to be compliant. SAFTs are used for presale investors, as well as KYC for every investor, and a few regions are prevented from participating. At the time of token distribution, the network will be live with the full voting utility.
Token Sale
- Total Supply: 1 Billion tokens
- Token Price: $0.07
- Hard Cap: $20M USD (includes both private pre-sale and public sale). The company has already raised $12M through the presale and has a very high likelihood of reaching the $20M target.
- Token Distribution: 30% for sale, 30% for ecosystem incentivization, 20% for the team (2 year vesting), 10% for the company’s future use (2 year lock), 6% for investors, 4% for advisors (2 year vesting).
- Minimum investment in the presale was $200k, and all presale investors received the same terms: 40% bonus, and 50% of all tokens locked for a 4 month period.
- The public sale will have an individual max cap on participation, to be set after KYC is completed.
- Use of funds: 60% for research and development, 25% for marketing, sales, and biz dev, 10% for operations, and 5% for legal, compliance, and governance. The company is being funded solely via the token sale, as well as the 10% reserve for future use.
- Whitelist: February 8, 2018, Sale: February 21, 2018. KYC Required.
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