EQ8: DataVerse: Conducting Trustworthy Surveys Through Blockchain!

Data is the lifeblood of any organization. Usually obtained through multiple channels like surveys, questionnaires, polls, and other marketing campaigns, it holds great significance in the modern-day marketplace. Furthermore, if used appropriately, the obtained data can fuel an organization’s development efforts, enabling them to steer its course in the correct direction. However, whether these enterprises and organizations really benefit from such data or not, is an entirely different question altogether, and is definitely arguable. It depends a lot on how the said data has been acquired.

And this is where the conventional data acquisition models often fail to deliver.

Talking specifically about surveys from among them, they have their own set of limitations. For instance, it’s very difficult to ascertain who was actually behind the monitor filling up the survey? If it wasn’t a man masquerading as a woman, filling up a women-targeted product survey?! Or if the responses were ticked by a bot?

Then there are many companies that hire third-party agencies to conduct surveys on their behalf. Often, confidential information exchanges hands. Now how genuine are the data gathering practices of these agencies and how secure is their handling of the confidential data, are also up for contention. Leave alone small organizations, even entities as big as Facebook have fallen prey to data breaches. In the case of Facebook, 530+ million users’ data was compromised. There are many more cases of organizations like Under Armour, Equifax, Zynga, Marriott, and even Yahoo, that too have faced the brunt of such attacks in the past.

Additionally, owing to the lack of incentive for respondents and usage of bots, companies end up receiving unverifiable and inaccurate data, leading to wrong business decisions, and hence the downfall of many organizations.

EQ8 — Helping conduct trustworthy, blockchain-based surveys ​

EQ8 Network solves the above problem by shifting the entire data economy to the Web3.0 ecosystem, thus creating the world’s first Web3.0 Dataverse. It’s a multi-chain decentralized app (dApp) that enables secure aggregation, licensing, and exchange of data; acquiring data directly from the source (survey respondents) and putting it into the hands of data requestors (companies). Surveys conducted through EQ8 offer:

Authentic, verified, and decentralized data: courtesy of a genuine and reputation based panel ​

EQ8 offers a common platform to bring companies/market research firms and survey respondents together. Every respondent to the survey has an on-chain reputation managed through the issuance of SBTs (Soul Bound Tokens). The EQ8 protocol issues different SBTs to users based on their demographics, educational credentials, profession, and the quality of data that they contribute to research campaigns. Thus eliminating the possibility of bots and fraudulent panel members. These panelists are required to complete their unique profiles, thus providing an insight into their preferences and behavior patterns, and enabling their easy matching with appropriate data surveys.

EQ8 Network taps into blockchain tech and obtains verified data right from the source. Resultantly, a lot of time and resources are saved which are otherwise spent on data filtering. The obtained data is stored on a decentralized storage layer, with the data provider always in complete control over his/her intellectual property (IP). With data decentralization, no single entity can alter the data, leading to complete transparency between data providers and data users.

Hence, any analysis carried out on this data, and then subsequently used in business decisions, stands to have a far better impact on organizational growth, as compared to actions based on conventionally obtained data.

Better response rate through data monetization​

Data authenticity and verifiability would hold no significance if the survey respondents don’t provide any responses. The data providers or respondents should have enough reasons to feel motivated to fill up surveys.

As respondents are directly paid for their responses, without any intermediaries, they receive a bigger chunk of the company’s marketing spend. The latter on the other hand gets authentic and unadulterated data, direct from the source.

The incentives are processed by blockchain-powered smart contracts that compute and execute payments in real-time. Hence, there’s no scope for anyone getting missed or not receive his/her due.

As EQ8 does away with the need for intermediaries for data acquisition purposes, companies can save a lot on marketing spending and can redirect their capital to the EQ8 platform which assures them maximum bang for every spent buck. They also don’t need to hand over any confidential info to a third party, which as explained earlier, often leads to other vulnerabilities.