Data Collection

Data is the new oil

You've probably heard this before, and for good reason. Every company in the world today gathers data from its consumers because the data can be monetized for various reasons, such as delivering targeted advertisements. Similarly, healthcare institutions and wearable consumer device companies (Apple Watch, Oura ring, etc.) are collecting biometric data from their customers. But these data have limited access as they remain siloed away inside the centralized ledgers that house them.

What if such data was open-sourced and made available in the free-markets? Instead of academic institutions, contracted companies, and the like being granted exclusive access, the data can be opened up to trusted entities around the world through Distributed Ledger Technology applications such as the Ocean Protocol. What YouTube and podcasts did to mainstream media, this new wave will do to legacy data analytics. Economies of scale will be unlocked, patients can be directly compensated for their contributions, and society will benefit at large. No rent-seeking middlemen.

The Decentralized Psychiatry stake pool (and related DeFi initiatives) will allocate capital towards realizing these aims.

Data collection will initially proceed in two important ways:

• Neuromodulation biomarkers:

  • Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is a clinically approved non-pharmacological therapy for psychiatric conditions, and treatment begins by determining a nervous system measure called the Motor Threshold (MT). Off-label paired-pulse TMS paradigms currently being researched have far more potential as they enable the determination of cortical excitability using Electroencephalography/EEG ("brain waves") and Electromyography/EMG (motor-evoked potentials):

We believe this research should directly reward the patients who contribute to it. By unlocking the collection of such data at scale, we can move closer to delivering targeted mental health treatments rooted in objective biomarkers.

• Wearable devices:

  • There are a plethora of commercial wearable devices today that gather biometric data like heart rate, pulse oxygen saturation, and activity levels. However, there is no device that accurately tracks sleep using raw EEG data; rather, most wearables approximate sleep through methods like Ballistocardiography. Given that we are currently in a Sleep Epidemic, this is a matter of urgency. Learn how Proof-of-Sleep can address this:

pageProof-of-Sleep

Distributed Ledger Technology unlocks Consensus at Unprecedented Scale, because DLT is essentially a platform for programming incentives. By tokenizing sleep data to incentivize healthy sleeping habits at scale, we can collectively overcome this public health concern.

Data Markets unlock new frontiers.