OKP4: The Next-Generation Data Applications
Data is like the oil of the 21st century. People can extract knowledge through data and further generate immeasurable social value. However, due to factors such as risk, complexity, cost, and lack of incentives, individuals and companies store data in silos to isolate and protect the data, so that the value of the data cannot be fully exploited.
The project OKP4 aims to convert data into knowledge. They firmly believe that knowledge is crucial to the common interests of a group, but they should also keep each individual obtaining the minimum knowledge so as to prevent knowledge from being abused. In order to achieve the above goals, OKP4 (The Open Knowledge Protocol For) is designed as an open and interoperable smart contract blockchain platform. The protocol meets highly customized business scenarios through CosmWasm smart contracts; balancing data openness and isolation through data space and other technologies to coordinate rights and obligations among participants.
- OKP4 Protocol Architecture
The OKP4 protocol consists of five parts, including OKP4 Blockchain, Data Spaces, The Dataverse, Dataverse Gateways and OKP4 Development Kit. Among them, OKP4 Blockchain is a L1 blockchain developed by Cosmos SDK that supports CosmWasm smart contracts. It mainly provides functions such as consensus services, P2P transmission, and community governance; Data Spaces is a set of digital resources combined by specific rules, including data set, algorithm, storage and computing resources. Data Spaces not only greatly improves data utilization while preserving data sovereignty, but also reduces the risk of data abuse and the cost of data sharing; The Dataverse is a combination of many Data Spaces, which can implement complex business logic and generate the overall effect that is greater than the sum of the parts; Dataverse Gateways realizes the on-chain and off-chain interaction; OKP4 Development Kit provides a complete set of development components to facilitate users to create or customize data spaces and Dapps.
2. Detailed explanation of OKP4 protocol
2.1 OKP4 Blockchain
OKP4 Blockchain is a Pos chain based on the Cosmos SDK, drawing on the advantages of many Cosmos ecological chains. First, it uses the proven Tendermint consensus mechanism, which has not had major security vulnerabilities since the launch of Cosmos Hub; second, the use of CosmWasm not only broadens the scope of application of the OKP4 protocol, but also allows developers to use existing code bases, lowering the development threshold. And CosmWasm has verified the security and feasibility in Juno Hub; in addition, OKP4 also inherits the IBC cross-chain. IBC is the killer feature of Cosmos. IBC solves the problem of blockchain interoperability in a trust-minimized, secure, scalable and universal way. Finally, OKP4 Blockchain is paying close attention to ICA and ICQ technologies, and the use of which will further enhance the competitiveness of OKP4 Blockchain.
OKP4 Blockchain inherits the operation mode of Cosmos L1 blockchain, and 100 active verifiers produce the latest block according to the TVL weight and verify the latest block. The protocol will not only reward honest verifiers, but also punish verifiers who are offline for a long time or double-sign to ensure the safety of the entire ecosystem; OKP4 Blockchain uses $KNOW as the original token, and $KNOW is used to pay transaction fees. Staked $KNOW holders can not only share inflation benefits, but also govern community proposals.
2.2 Data Space
OKP4 defines Data Space as a totally decentralised digital space that enables the knowledge economy. Data Space supports trust-minimized data sharing, bringing new growth momentum to the knowledge economy. In order to lower the threshold of use and enable anyone to freely design and create Data Space, OKP4 provides templates and no-code tools for users.
Factors constraining the development of the data economy include access control, data misuse, and lack of incentives. In terms of authority control, when creating a Data Space, you can not only specify the name, description and label, but also choose to use $KNOW for authority control; to prevent data abuse, once the Data Space is created, it will be decentralizedly running on the blockchain in the form of smart contracts. Anyone can freely audit; in terms of incentives, service-based pricing can be achieved since Data Space is created based on specific business scenarios.
2.3 The Dataverse
Data Space only realizes the digitization of a certain business scenario, and the ultimate goal of OKP4 is to build a scalable, auditable and interoperable general ecosystem to realize XaaS (Anything as a Service). This requires that Data Spaces can be nested and overlapped to form a Dataverse. The Dataverse is an ever-extending universe comprised of all the Datasets, Algorithms, Softwares, Infrastructures, Identity Solutions, Workflow Engines, and other resources referenced in the Blockchain. The Dataverse is an effective integration of existing Web2 and Web3 resources, and finally presented on OKP4, realizing the effect that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
In The Dataverse, there are a large number of calls and data interactions between the OKP4 blockchain and Services, and between Data Spaces. To ensure security during the interaction process, OKP4 designed Secret Vault to manage identity and data encryption. When the data provider stores data, the implementation will protect the original data through credentials and store the credentials in the Secret Vault, as shown in Figure 3; when OKP4 needs to call the data, it will query the credentials from the Secret Vault through the workflow service to complete Data authorization, as shown in Figure 4; after the data authorization is completed, the workflow service can call the data, as shown in Figure 5.
OKP4 also supports private deployment of Data Space for storing sensitive data, ensuring that private data is hosted locally and never leaves the data space.
3. OKP4: Industrial Blockchain Solutions
Industrial blockchain is driven by data, but in actual implementation, it first faces the problem of data silo. The main reason for the emergence of data silos is the mismatch between the risks and benefits of data sharing. The specific performance is that the data owner cannot effectively supervise the scope of use from the buyer side. In order to avoid data misuse, the owner prefers to store the data in isolation. Data silos are determined by the characteristics of Web2 itself, thus cannot be resolved by itself. However, the existing L1 blockchain cannot effectively manage the scope of data use.
OKP4 is a L1 blockchain designed for data sharing, with the characteristics of scalability and trust minimization, which can solve the pain points of data silos. Scalability means that anyone can create a Data Space according to custom rules without permission, thereby converting their own data into valuable services; minimizing trust means that anyone can only follow the rules of the Data Space to access results (indicators, icons, applications, etc.) obtained, and can’t obtain the data itself.
OKP4 is currently in the testing stage. In order to achieve industrial landing, it is necessary to achieve on-chain and off-chain data interaction. In the product design scheme, OKP4 doesn’t store the data. It only refers to the data with permissions granted by the data provider. This design can control data use permissions. But it is necessary to introduce the oracle machine for data interaction on-chain and off-chain. OKP4 Datasets Deposit is a Web3.0 interface that allows data providers to register datasets into the OKP4 Protocol. This method is more efficient, but it also has the risk of single-point failure and easy to be hacked, and possesses relatively high technical requirements for the team. In addition, the implementation of industrial blockchain will involve a lot of cross-departmental collaboration. Thanks to the deep cultivation of the OKP4 founding team in field, the data-driven The Dataverse scheme was proposed to reduce the complexity of cross-departmental collaboration. The Dataverse will be an important moat for the OKP4 protocol on the industrial blockchain.
