Datawallet

According to estimates presented by the TMR report, the global data brokers market will clock an impressive 11.5% CAGR for the forecast period between 2017 and 2026. In terms of data category, the demand for consumer data is estimated to contribute more than one-third revenue share of the overall market by the end of 2026.The incessant use of mobile devices have led to generation of vast amount of consumer data that can be used for business advantage. Project team propose few potential use cases for their future platform: Market Research, Customized Services, Deterministic Advertising, Personalized Car Insurance, Personalized Loan Underwriting and Psychographic Hiring. In fact, all these industries already have non-blockchain solutions with strong market leaders. Project’s CEO told, that “the last confirmed data, that we have” is 2012 year, it is extremely strange statement. Since 2012 market of data brokerage completely changed. Cloud data warehouses completely changed data market.

Datawallet would consist through few key points. Datawallet App provides users with a self-sovereign wallet that belongs to them and only them. It empowers them to unlock the financial and utility value of an asset that is rightfully theirs. The project is going to create Datawallet API, the first hub for developers building AI driven applications centered around personal data. The most crucial problem for such model is attracting developers on this platform. The project is going to use usual proof-of-work consensus method. There is no innovation, as a result, it seems, that platform would not be popular within AI developers.

In fact, project wants to disrupt market of data brokerage industry and business of social-media companies. However, the hardest thing is network effect on these markets that creates huge barriers to entry. There is no incentive for the consumers to share their information with any companies, unless it creates value for themselves. In social media, user’s data is created not for any company, but rather for interpersonal exchange. The only one possible value of Datawallet platform is monetary compensation. However, there is no incentives for the companies to pay for data from a tiny audience. As a result, there have to be extensive subsidies for users to create a well-established platform. Datawallet ecosystem assumes, that users earn token through expressively sharing their data with select companies. And they can utilize their tokens in order to use pay for AI driven services in the Datawallet App Store.

The project is going to attract $30 mln, for VC it is somewhere between A and B round of financing. Usually in VC companies already has a working product and attract money for market expansion. The project was started in Nov 2014.In Jan 2015 project attracted $300K at the seed stage. Early investors are Tim Draper and Marc Benioff. This amount is lower than average on seed stage in VC. Moreover, 3 years since the last stage usually too much. Now, it wants to raise funding 100 times without significant development of its project. Datawallet does not have any monetization plan. In general, it has to earn mostly by commission from operations at the platform. However, there are no commission rates or any other fees is announced.

At the first glimpse, the project has a very strong team with well-known brands, such as Harvard, Stanford, Morgan Stanley etc. However, in fact, there are many red flags. First of all, the team works in San Francisco, NY, Texas, Berlin and Milan. The official HQ of the company is located in San Francisco. Secondly, more than half of team members joined project only in November 2017 - January 2018. Moreover, few team members do not have any information about Datawallet in their LinkedIn profiles. Chief Strategy Officer lives in Texas, he used to be an advisor. Chief Marketing Officer does not mention project Datawallet in his LinkedIn. There are two business developer leads, but both of them have joined project only in Jan 2018, according to LinkedIn.