TL;DR
VETRI offers individuals access to the trillion dollar data economy and empowers them to take back the control over their personal data.
VETRI is a project backed by the Swiss digital identity provider Procivis AG. A team of 25 people plus advisors are currently working on delivering VETRI. The proof of concept was just presented to potential clients at the Web Summit and the team is working towards the release of the MVP in April 2019. The MVP will target mainly the DACH market. Global scaling will happen with the full roll out of the product in October 2019.
Find out more about VETRI on the website.
Check out our latest tech update on Youtube.
Got further questions? Get them answered on Telegram or join us on Twitter.
Would you like to see VETRI listed on Bitfinex and Ethfinex? You can vote for us here.
AMA Protocol
Ethfinex community manager: Ben
VETRI Team: Dominique & Yves
Ben: Thanks again for joining us! Perhaps we can start from the very beginning… How did VETRI come about and what key problems are you addressing?
Dominique: The VETRI project was initiated by Procivis AG. Procivis is a Swiss company which builds digital identity solutions and with eID+ already successfully rolled out its first product to both a government client and a humanitarian NGO. VETRI was created out of an understanding that our digital identities today are much more than what is stated on our passports. It is also our Google search history, our Facebook likes and Amazon wish list. Today, this data creates trillions of $ in value at the expense of our privacy (did you know that even your doctor may be using this data to determine your risk category?). With the VETRI wallet and marketplace, we want to empower everyone to be able to participate in this value creation under the conditions they chose. We just completed our proof of concept last week and will be launching our MVP in April of next year.
EmanuelEthfinexSupport: What’s the plan to target clients?
Dominique: To target data consumers, we have a dedicated sales team that is currently pursuing leads. We presented our proof of concept to a few potential consumers at the Web Summit in Lisbon this week and got very good feedback for it
Khira: Since lots of tokens on Ethfinex have very low volume, how do you plan to create liquidity if you get listed? Any market makers planned?
Dominique: We intend to provide market making capabilities.
DaniZ: The release of the MVP is just a few months away. Can you tell us your progress so far?
Dominique: Progress is going well. You can watch our latest tech update we published a few days ago on Youtube. In the next few weeks we will release details of the proof of concept
TD: According to the VETRI road map, the MVP is planned to be delivered in April 2019. Does it mean that we as data producer and others as data consumer can test the market place by April 2019?
Dominique: Yes, that’s exactly what it means. It will be an MVP so it won’t have all the features of the final product yet but you will be able to receive data requests and get remunerated for sharing your data.
Indelible Trade: Hi VETRI, what do you think about the recent collusion by EOS block producers voting, can the value/respect of the EOS token impact on you?
Dominique: Things like this hurt the credibility of the blockchain ecosystem as a whole, but we are based on Ethereum, so we are not directly impacted by this issue
DaniZ: Are you targeting specific countries/markets?
Dominique: The MVP will target the DACH market since we already have a strong supporter base there.
Sinz: So are you just digital identities or more than that? Sounds similar to SAN and Streamr Data
Dominique: We are more than just an identification solution. I would call it personal data management more than identity because there is also the monetization aspect.
Indelible Trade: Is it about proving who you are , or is it about selling your data?
Dominique: Mostly about selling your data, but we are building on the identity solution of Procivis as well.
Yves: Our core business (Procivis) is digital identity and the applications it enables. With VERI we expand our solution to integrate a personal data management platform enabling users to monetize their anonymized data whilst guaranteeing data consumers that the data is linked to real, breathing individuals and not personas or bots
TD: What is your opinion, which industry sectors (health care, financial services, entertainment, …) show most interest in a data market place like VETRI?
Dominique: For the type of data that will be offered in the MVP stage, our interviews have shown that market research agencies are interested in this type of data as well as in the possibility to do targeted consumer surveys.
DaniZ: How simple will it be for clients who know nothing about blockchain to make the payment process on your marketplace?
Dominique: Very good question. That will be an important success factor. This is why we have been intensively working on the UX since the very beginning. For the MVP, it will probably still require some basic knowledge of the concept of crypto currencies, but for the full roll out we aim to make it a seamless experience where people don’t realize they are interacting with a blockchain protocol.
DaniZ: Can you tell us about the team behind VETRI? Size? Background? Skills?
Dominique: 25 people full time plus advisors on specific topics. you can check out the full team and their positions here.
DaniZ: What kind of features will be implemented on-chain? Why did you decided to do that project using blockchain technology?
Dominique: Blockchain is used for the marketplace place mainly. Smart contracts allow us to make the system accessible for everyone without having to trust us as a middle man to handle their data. Again, you can learn more about our technology stak by watching our tech update.
Booom1: How much influence as a politician does Doris Fiala has regarding VETRI adoption?
Dominique: Doris Fiala is a strong supporter of Procivis and generally a champion of blockchain technology in the Swiss parliament. We of course hope, that she will be able to bring knowledge to the table when it comes to making regulations for the industry.
Yves: VETRI was created by Procivis AG, specialised in gov. verified eID platform. As a Board Member, she can facilitate access to politicians and decision makers. THAT SAID, VETRI and its IP is to be placed into a Foundation structure just recently incorporated and as such will be operating completely independently of its maker, Procivis AG
Sinz: I’m struggling to see how as a data provider how token reward/token price will be juggled
Yves: Let me first reiterate that we are talking about anonymized data here. Pricing for a particular data set will be determine by our pricing, itself clearly a result of supply and demand. Demand is determined by a number of factors, namely:
– data consumer’s budget for such initiative
– price of alternatives, i.e. competing solutions but also other, more traditional ways of reaching out or obtaining the data.
Sinz: You’ll need healthy exchange markets to make this work otherwise people wont bother to part with their time/information for what could be worthless tokens
Dominique: Definitely true. Hence why we are looking to get onto a few reliable, user-friendly exchanges that can support us with this
DaniZ: I see that you are located in Trust Square in Zurich where many other blockchain related startups are located. Does this connection to others help in order to get the product ready?
Dominique: There are definitely a lot of synergies here at Trust Square, since a lot of us a facing similar challenges in terms of getting their product ready for mainstream adoption
DaniZ: Do you have any defined targets you want to reach in lets say 1 year? In terms of user base, etc.?
Yves: We plan allocate a significant marketing budget destined for user acquisition and are encouraged by the very high conversion rates generated by our extensive microsite testing. Furthermore, we have a significant token allocation fund (30%) reserved to oil / kickstart the system and create network effect
