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While the data industry is surprisingly young, it’s coming of age with platforms like Big Data Protocol (BDP). BDP is shaking up the way that traditional data is siloed to only the wealthiest and most powerful consumers by using tokenization to make it available to the everyday consumer. They’re relying on ATTOM as one of their underlying, real-estate focused, data sources to make it happen.

Recognizing Gatekeeping in the Data Industry

Mark Donovick, the Co-Founder of Big Data Protocol, came of age alongside the data industry. During school, he worked for a systematic fund who leveraged “alternative data” before starting his own company with his co-founder, Jordan Hauer. One of the key things he’s noticed from his time in the industry is that the process for data distribution is opaque, typically involving numerous middle-men and closed doors.

“Data is traditionally sold by a consultant or data broker, shadowing the underlying source of where that data is actually coming from,” he says. “Meanwhile, those data brokers are taking anywhere between a 30% – 50% revenue share of the cost.  Honestly, we were an active player in this arena given the favorable economics for a bootstrapped startup… why not?”

In Donovick’s eyes there are two things wrong with this model. First, the revenue and value creation are going to the wrong place. Rather than going to the creators of the data, a large portion of revenue is going to the data brokers and 3rd party data tools, who serve as middlemen in the process. Second, this model is cost-prohibitive to individuals and ensures that only well-funded parties like hedge funds, banks and insurance providers have been able to access crucial datasets.

Democratizing Data with Big Data Protocol

With those hurdles in mind, Donovick and his co-founders started Big Data Protocol in 2021.Using Web 3.0, it is possible to capture and increase the value of data by tokenizing it, making it more liquid and easier to access. This move sets them apart from other data marketplaces by enabling consumers to view purchased datasets on a variety of platforms instead of limiting them to just one.

“We’re offering a true peer-to-peer exchange from the creator of the data to the consumer. If someone wants to consume a dataset, they purchase a token and that unlocks a link to wherever that data lives,” explains Donovick.

Historically, organizing that type of data exchange has been a challenge, especially for those who weren’t members of well-established platforms like AWS or Azure. However, now that BDP has found the solution, they’ve been able to open up the data economy to the masses, participants who have never before had access to this type of information.

Fueling Their Marketplace with ATTOM

While BDP is still in its early stages, its founders have decided to partner with ATTOM to fuel crucial segments of its data marketplace. Donovick boasts that there is no end to the amount of applications that ATTOM’s wide breadth of real estate data could have, from helping a vacation rental company gain insights about consumer behavior to agents who want to stay on top of market trends.

“ATTOM is the go-to for granular real-estate data extraction,” admits Donovick. “There’s a lot of real estate platforms out there, but they’re the ones who are minimizing downstream risk and really taking the data from the underlying source and bringing it to market. Plus, they’re open to and supportive of watching other creators build derivative products on top of their data.”

Right now, BDP is in the process of building up supplier datasets in its marketplace, but initial tests have proven the interest for its marketplace. Their first token launch had a little over $6.5B USD in transactions within the first six days.

As they continue to grow, they envision partnering with ATTOM and other data providers to create new opportunities for monetization within the data economy. For example, the digital securitization of real estate assets like mortgages and insurance policies.

“These digital securities are all going to live on the blockchain and are going to require underlying data from somebody,” he says. “When we thought, ‘Hey, who’s the best group in real estate data?’ ATTOM was the easy answer.”

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