I have been a researcher and builder in web3 for many years and have also been an early adopter of wearables. I also firmly believe that the killer app for web3 will be focused on the QS movement, combining elements of AI, Web3 and QS tools.
So, I have been trying to figure out if it makes sense to put QS data on a blockchain, all with goals of achieving hyper personalization and redistributing some of the value chain.
IMO, we should put QS data on chain. Here are a few key points:
Data Ownership - Not your keys, not your coins is a phrase often said by the web3 community. But, this phrase can also extend to - “Not your keys, not your data” … In web2, we don’t actually own our data, even though we might have access to it and have legal disclaimers that prevent the misuse of our data. So, if we truly care to own and control our data, the ownership features of blockchains make the most sense to me.
Data exchange - there needs to be a better way to exchange our data, with greater transparency and value exchange. We currently lack data exchange standards and blockchains seem to offer a better solution to have unified standards.
Crowd sourcing and governing large models - there is a web3 project called Numerai that is doing this for finance. I assume a similar model could also be useful to do this for QS data. This of course will require new thinking, but nonetheless blockchain can offer greater governance over models and transparency into how models are using our data.
Understanding the biggest barriers in putting QS data on chain are privacy, cost of storage and speed, I do think these issues will be solved and in fact are being solved.
While these are just some ideas, I would love to hear from the community and have a meaningful conversation. Does blockchain make sense to put QS data on chain?
Very much makes sense!
Obviously requires domain adaptation, but there are several solutions I’m looking at that are making interesting progress in applying web3 principles to health data, mainly health data decentralization (democratization .
You mentioned that you are a researcher and builder in web3 , happy to run by you an idea I’m thinking of for mental health currently (but not exclusively)…
LMK? bh.limor@gmail.com
Cheers
Sorry but I disagree. We here all know the value and sense of QS and collecting our personal data but as we are very much a niche group I fail to see that what we do will generate the massive exposure to create a Web 3 killer app.
As to the usefulness/practicality of blockchaining QS data I have no idea. It is in my mind associated with crypto currencies and that is a domain I have no intention of entering. To me it is undesirable.
Valid points, thank you for your feedback. Privacy and security of our personal data and data in general is undoubtedly the biggest concern. So is ensuring compliance in specific jurisdictions.
The unfortunate reality, is that blockchain, web3 and crypto have become synonymous and have cultivated a rather toxic and scammy culture. However, what I have grown to understand is the nature of what the tech can do, if we have the right design. More importantly, if you look at just the bitcoin blockchain, it is arguably the most secure database we have in existence. So much so that whoever hacks it will take down the entirety of web3. To my knowledge the only way to do this is through quantum computing.
You mention that governments are useless at maintaining the privacy of citizens. I agree. This is 1 example of why we should consider using the security that blockchains offer. Some might say that blockchains are not private and that is mostly true, however there is a massive push to add not only security but also privacy into the blockchain stack, using things like zero knowledge proofs and private compute. You can reference George Church’s genomic company, Nebula Genomics, which leverages the Oasis Network, a privacy focused blockchain platform https://nebula.org/oasis-labs-partnership/. Also reference Starkware, another privacy focused blockchain platform https://starkware.co/. And anyone can design a blockchain to comply with national / regional / organizational rules - reference subnets Avalanche Subnets: Use dApps Like Never Before.
Lastly regarding cryptocurrencies, most of these tokens are nonsense and their platforms are useless. However, some of them have value and serve as a tool to pay for storage and process transactions. The price of the tokens does not matter, however, if leveraging the security and privacy of select networks is to be a reality, then select tokens will be needed to use the platforms.
It helps to detach from crypto and focus on the outcomes of the tech. Kevin Kelly had 2 really good talks on both subject matters.
I’ve been poking around blockchain solutions for storing different types of data, especially anything sensitive or valuable. Putting QS data on-chain could be good for transparency or making data portable, but the privacy concern is pretty real. I always end up thinking about how to keep control over who sees what, and how expensive it can be to write lots of data to a chain. On another note, I’ve seen some cool projects that use blockchain tech to enhance liquidity for solana-based tokens, so there’s definitely some creative uses if you need more than just basic storage.
Personally I have no desire to put my QS data on a blockchain. Indeed sharing data (as per most wearable QS devices) is not what I want. My data is my data and no one going to get near it. Indeed the only people who I would want to see my data are my GP and oncologist. No one else. And even then I will share only the minimaist required data possible. Hence there is no need to blockchainify any of it.
In fact I hate the idea of groups in the Ulrahuman app (for my Ring Air) and the equivalent Oura app. The one and only person I am competing aginst is myself.
As the layr Enid Mumford of the Manchester Business School used to say “just because you can does not mean you should”.
Fascinating to see the QS/Blockchain topic show up at this time. In 2019 we had a joint QS/Hyperledger meetup in Amsterdam, and there were some very interesting, fairly deep discussions of how real world problems of data workflows, provenance, and control in personal data could be supported by cryptographic techniques. @tblomseth presented some ideas for the first time related to being able to show 3rd parties that the data you claim to have collected with a certain instrument at a certain time were really collected by that instrument at that time. This is not a core self-research need, but there have been times when people have collected interesting and potentially important data sets but trust in the data’s provenance is low. Long story short: we worked on this together intermittently for a few years and more steadily since 2024, and I think we may have something to show soon! One of the most interesting discoveries for us in this research is that “putting QS data on a blockchain” turns out to be not very interesting. But the meta-data, on the other hand…!
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