Oasis Network - why you should REALLY be paying attention if you like privacy & data ownership

For starters, I am not advising anyone here buy the ROSE token or here to talk about the token or tokenomics, or investing in any way whatsoever. I want to separate this conversation from speculative investing altogether (which, let's be real, is so much of what crypto is these days for better or for worse), and focus 100% on the tech.

To build some ethos, I've been actively involved in the crypto/web3 world for ~6 years now and work full time at a large web3 company, so I'm fairly in tune with the industry in general.

99%+ of the crypto you see today will not exist in a handful of years. There are a multitude of reasons for this. Some are outright scams which were too successful and now put on a show so the "founders" can do their best to avoid going to jail. Some had good ideas but built those ideas poorly, or impractically. Some are merely cults of personality - not true scammers, but no original ideas, no means to build properly, and mostly have seen success because there are charismatic people at the helm who have tricked a lot of others into believing in them. And so on, and so forth.

The point I'm making is, given my position and knowledge of the space, it is rare for me to actually find tech I'm interested in being built despite the fact that I genuinely believe in the promise of blockchain and web3. I think the big problems to solve are just generally TOO big for most people, even those with the right intentions. This isn't to say there aren't plenty of other people bringing interesting development to the industry, but the really earth shattering stuff is few and far between.

Privacy & data ownership are things I am insanely passionate about. I have not had a Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or other "traditional" social media account for nearly 5 years now. I rarely visit Reddit. I use specific browsers, I refuse to use apps or websites which want more data than I'm willing to part with. I genuinely hate what the Internet has done with human privacy, and the fact that I simply can't avoid it if I want to function in modern society.

Probably the single most exciting aspect to me about web3 is the possibility of taking back our data. And the single most exciting project I've seen in web3 in relation to this is Oasis Network.

Some of you may have seen the recent announcement where they've partnered with Meta (aka Facebook) and groaned or grumbled... "ugh, Facebook.. NEXT". I get that, I really do. But I think it's worth digging deeper, and I want to make it easy for you.

Here is my perspective as both a passionate member of the web3 community & someone who works in the industry:

Web3 enabling more privacy and a clawback of data ownership is inevitable. The question only remains of what web2 companies will do in response.

Facebook is a company, and above all, companies want money. Oddly enough, what Oasis Protocol is doing enables two fun things to happen simultaneously:

• You get more privacy and more ownership over your data
• Facebook gets more money

How could both of these things be true when their entire business model depends on having your data to sell?

Simple: Oasis allows Facebook to have your data while protecting you from anyone ever knowing it is your data. The data can not be linked back to you. But at the same time, the blockchain guarantees this data is accurate. Simultaneously, Facebook can eventually serve you ads through Oasis Network (or a protocol like it) without them ever knowing what ads are getting served to you. So the end result is this:

• You are still sharing data, but nobody can connect that data back to you, and you can choose which data you share (likely where sharing more data will mean additional perks - this might be you getting paid, discounts, or simply actually getting more relevant content for you without any risk of your privacy being exposed)
• Facebook has better data to allow advertisers to use. One of the largest problems in advertising today is there is tons of bad data. Plenty of Facebook accounts, for example, hold false information such as locations, birthdays, etc. which advertisers use in forming their ads. The blockchain can help guarantee the accuracy of this information in a privacy preserving manner, such as with Oasis.
• Advertisers, now equipped with better data sets, can serve better ads, will make more money, and will spend more on ads
• You, on the other end of the ads, can control which kinds of companies you give which data to, perhaps which ads you see (or if you see them at all), and none of your choices or ads served to you ever reveal any personal identity information. That is all dealt with in a highly secure cryptographic way on the blockchain.

Nobody actually cares if they know who what data is tied to or who sees what ads as long as they are making more money. This is the premise of capitalism. And the wonderful thing about privacy preserving networks with confidential execution environments is that they can allow businesses to do this while also protecting the greater interests of the humans on the other end. Everybody wins.

Advertising isn't going away. Data collection & reselling isn't going away. But there is absolutely an evolution for these things which is favorable to you and me, and personally I'm excited about the possibility blockchain brings here and I really want to ensure I'm a champion for building a better world in these regards.

I actually give a lot of credit to Facebook as a business for moving so quickly here. Don't get me wrong, still hate everything they represent, but they are on top of their game in terms of staying ahead of business trends and that is kind of impressive.

You can always go off the grid, but if you have any social media today, I think it's important to pay attention to Oasis Network and any competitors which might pop up so you're in tune with how you can continue to support your own data rights and back the people who are working to protect you.

Now, I could go on and on about the tech team behind Oasis which I'd say is best in class, largely because Dawn Song is a fucking brilliant humanitarian and well connected enough in business & academics to actually make things happen. I could go on and on about all of the fancy new DeFi and NFT use cases you'll see getting developed as a result of Oasis, etc. etc. (there's a lot a novel protocol like this brings to the table), but I'm going to leave it at this:

Do not ignore this protocol. They are doing things which could actually make our lives & society way better. If you actually care about how blockchain and web3 may better our lives, I implore you to be aware of this real ground breaking tech which is already making bigger waves than arguably any other crypto project after just 2 years of development.

I am fucking floored every time I think about it.