Powering the New Data Economy

We will shortly be launching the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) version of the AllianceBlock Data Tunnel. Ahead of this release, we would like to explain why the Data Tunnel is important not only for AllianceBlock, but also for the wider DeFi and TradFi spaces, and our vision for it moving forward.

7 min readMar 31, 2021

What is the AllianceBlock Data Tunnel?

We live in a big data world, but many organizations are unable to realize the value of the datasets they possess, rendering buying and selling of data difficult. To solve this, and in an important step towards the creation of a fully decentralized capital market, we have built the AllianceBlock Data Tunnel.

The Data Tunnel is a data marketplace that for the first time brings together both DeFi and TradFi data providers and consumers, making it possible to publish, monetize, and use data in a simple and decentralized way — without needing to understand blockchain. It addresses a number of issues, including:

Datasets can be hard to monetize
Data becomes siloed and unavailable
Current datasets come in different formats
Once sold, firms have no control over data access

The AllianceBlock Data Tunnel makes data accessible to all through a monetized marketplace, while ensuring traceability, transparency, and trust. Data providers and consumers will benefit from increased access to one another, driven through a secure and easy-to-use solution.

Our Data Tunnel makes it possible to publish data in a decentralized and easy-to-use manner, without needing to be proficient in DeFi, MetaMask, or private keys. This is crucial to attracting a wider, more mainstream audience. In line with this, the Data Tunnel also simplifies usability for data consumers and developers through a standardized output format. This is in contrast to current offerings, with datasets found in a wide range of formats, making it more difficult for consumers.

Ultimately, the Data Tunnel aims to become the oracle of oracles, being able to take data from oracles to the Data Tunnel, enhancing this data, and then feeding it back to the oracle providers. The Data Tunnel is chain-agnostic, in line with AllianceBlock’s wider vision, to allow for the greatest access and breadth to both datasets and consumers and to ensure as wide adoption as possible.

The AllianceBlock Data Tunnel aims to power the new data economy, bringing data providers and consumers together through a solution anyone can use, which incentivizes data providers to share more data, and which will become the conduit through which both DeFi and TradFi users can access and take advantage of increased data opportunities.

It is also an important component of the AllianceBlock Protocol. Our Protocol has three main pillars, focusing on compliance and regulation, data, and DeFi technology. The Data Tunnel is a key component of the data element, and it leverages our partner Ocean Protocol’s technology, as well as our partnerships with Parsiq, API3, Covalent, DIA and Chainlink.

Data Tunnel Product Website

As we prepare for our MVP release, we have launched the Data Tunnel product website.

The product website contains several impressions of the UI of the Data Tunnel, as well as a sneak peek of what is coming.

We are also working to onboard data publishers, and our site includes a form for any interested parties (both providers looking to publish a dataset and consumers looking for specific data) to contact us. Simply let us know as much as possible about your requirements, and we will revert as soon as possible.

Release of the Minimum Viable Product

The forthcoming release of the MVP includes select features, and we will continue to expand this feature set over time. We have designed the MVP to be as user friendly as possible, with a refreshing, modern, and easy to use user interface.

AllianceBlock’s Data Tunnel makes it easy to publish and purchase datasets

The most important features of the MVP worth noting include:

Upload a dataset in JSON, CSV or XML format
No matter how many nested objects or what schema has been used, all JSON, CSV and XML data are immediately converted to our internal data format. Because of our internal data format, all datasets are easily queryable with ABQL, and are all available in JSON.
Publish a dataset through Ocean Protocol using ALBT as payment currency
Before consumers are able to purchase datasets, the publisher must first enable access to the data through a payment in ALBT. Access to each dataset is decentralized thanks to the utilization of Ocean Protocol.
Extensive data schema definition tool
In a data economy where there is an extremely large amount of different datasets with an extensive amount of possible data points, it can be hard to find the right dataset. In order to solve this, we have implemented an extensive data schema definition tool that allows data publishers to define the dataset both as a whole, as well as to define each datapoint in the dataset in a granular and detailed manner. This makes finding datasets easier for consumers and provides the ability to create intelligent data analysis tools based on the data schema information alone.
Subscription service
Many data consumers find they require access to a dataset not only once, but on an ongoing basis as the dataset is updated. As such, we have introduced options that allow consumers to access updated versions of the dataset through a subscription service. This is vital, for instance, if products are built on top of a specific dataset and thus require the data to update as it changes. The MVP enables publishers to enable a variety of subscription options to meet these demands.
The proprietary AllianceBlock Query Language
Inspired by proven JSON based query languages, ABQL makes it easy to access all types of data. Together with the provided JSON schemas, ABQL can be auto-generated easily and quickly by custom applications.
Revenue Sharing
When data is accessed by consumers, ALBT is paid to either query or download the data. Data publishers receive the majority of this directly, in order to incentivize them to share data through the Data Tunnel.

Through the AllianceBlock Data Tunnel, publishers can easily upload their datasets for purchase

Utility for the ALBT token

As per the ALBT token economics, ALBT is a utility token used to gain access to services, use service’s features, and to pay network fees on the AllianceBlock protocol. The introduction of the Data Tunnel represents a new avenue of utility for ALBT. As established, all payments on the Data Tunnel such as uploading, downloading, or querying datasets, requires payment in ALBT. While our MVP is launching with ALBT only, a future update will allow users to pay directly in ETH or USDT. However, other tokens will always be swapped to ALBT to finalize the payment.

Technologies Used

The Data Tunnel has been developed in ReactJS and NodeJS. The frontend does not utilize any frontend frameworks (like Bootstrap or Material) or any JavaScript frameworks (like jQuery), other than ReactJS itself. All components are written in jsx with Sass (scss) for styling.

On the backend, NodeJS through AWS Lambda is used in a serverless architecture combined with Amazon Athena, in order to have a very scalable solution that can grow endlessly, accommodating hundreds of thousands of datasets without impacting performance throughout the system nor the network it is operating on.

Solidity is used for Smart Contracts on the Ethereum network, and Ocean Protocol’s technology is used in order to take care of decentralized access control and manage revenue streams from data purchases for the ALBT token.

AllianceBlock For Developers

With the launch of the Data Tunnel, there are multiple ways for developers to get involved with the AllianceBlock ecosystem, including:

Learning, using and implementing ABQL
Using the SDK for a specific programming language (JavaScript at first) to interact with the Data Tunnel in order to publish or query data from the Data Tunnel
Using the AllianceBlock API directly in order to publish to or query data from the Data Tunnel

To provide developers with sufficient documentation, an “AllianceBlock For Developers” portal has been developed that contains documentation for all possible development angles. The launch of AllianceBlock For Developers will take place a short time after the launch of the Data Tunnel itself.

Just the Beginning

We are delighted to have reached the stage where we can launch our Data Tunnel MVP, as it represents the fruition of hard work and development. However, we are also aware that we are just at the start of our journey with this product. We will be pushing our regular updates to the AllianceBlock community and Data Tunnel users going forward, and expect these to be many and swift. Below is a list of upcoming features that we believe will have a significant impact:

Support for other blockchains to drastically lower transaction fees
Oracle layer (to become the “Oracle of Oracles”)
Support for streaming data
Cross-dataset access
MetaMask as an option; user-friendly blockchain interactions
Pay per Query as an additional option vs Pay per Subscription

About AllianceBlock

AllianceBlock is building the first globally compliant decentralized capital market. The AllianceBlock Protocol is a decentralized, blockchain-agnostic layer 2 that automates the process of converting any digital or crypto asset into a bankable product.

Incubated by three of Europe’s most prestigious incubators: Station F, L39, and Kickstart Innovation in Zurich, and led by a heavily experienced team of ex-JP Morgan, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs investment bankers, and quants, AllianceBlock is on the path to disrupt the $100 trillion securities market with its state-of-the-art and globally compliant decentralized capital market.