Dock Cryptocurrency (founded in July, 2017) is a Decentralized data exchange protocol that lets people connect their profiles, reputations and experiences across the web with privacy and security.  It is a digital Currency which has been designed to help solve the issue of data hoarding while using Blockchain technology. ^[1]

Dock provides a range of tools incorporating Blockchain technology that enables businesses and developers to create verifiable credentials.  

Overview

Dock Operates on the Ethereum Blockchain, It is a Decentralized data exchange protocol that lets people connect their profiles, reputations, and experiences across the web with privacy and security. In its initial use case model, the company envisions itself as something of a ‘decentralized LinkedIn,’ where users can share information such as employment history, educational background, and certified skills.  In order to achieve this goal, the crypto will implement a protocol that encourages data exchange and transfer between different digital platforms. According to the team behind the project, Dock crypto which is also referred to as Dock.io will connect profiles, reputations, and networks into one shareable source using the Blockchain technology. 

The project is designed in such a way that users can take control of their own data and exchange it between 2 or more dApps. This will be made possible through the use of data encryption and an incentivized Token model. Moreover, the Dock.io native currency helps to facilitate information exchange by providing lucrative rewards to all the involved participants. ^[2]

Dock seeks to solve the most difficult issues that face the credential industry today. Currently, most companies rely on centralized platforms that hoard data or issue digital credentials that are easy to forge.

Dock was specifically built for this purpose of enabling organizations to create verifiable credentials on a Decentralized network that are cryptographically secured and exist independently of any organization. Dock’s mainnet will enable issuers to create their own decentralized identities (DIDs) to authenticate credentials, while also enabling recipients to control, present, and retain ownership of their credentials. The mainnet is completely open-source and its use of the W3C’s industry-leading standards ensures interoperability across many platforms and applications.

By having a dedicated, special-purpose Blockchain, Dock aims to ensure that transaction costs are kept to a minimum and there is no impact from unrelated activities, which is not the case with Ethereum and many other public blockchains. In addition, Dock’s anchoring solution is Blockchain agnostic wherein any Blockchain can be used to anchor credentials issued via Dock and any solution can be used for storing the credentials.

Dock provides easy-to-use tooling and infrastructure for issuers to develop apps or integrate with existing solutions. It is also one of the first to utilize the W3C’s Verifiable Credential Data Model (VCDM), a standard born out of work by a diverse international community of experts dedicated to creating open standards across the internet. 

How Dock Works

Under the Dock platform, users can form an ad-hoc network between themselves. In such a setup, all the data will be encrypted using receiver’s on-chain stored public key. According to the team behind the project, the originators of data are only required to be on the internet or online if the data they want to publish is fresh and it has not been published to the network before.^[3]

The Dock platform employs an open-source standard for anchoring data to the blockchain. This standard was designed to help in the anchoring data to a single chain. It will also be used to make sure that it is possible to prove that updates are done within the native system. According to the team;

• The executor is the only person within the network who is aware of the latest data updates.

• Users are able to participate in selective data-sharing. This will be made possible by using third-party applications within the user-application contract.

• After the application decrypts its update with its own key, it can be used freely by anyone.

• The user loses control of data after it has been shared with an external application. This will happen whether that information should or should not be shared with other dApps. 

Sharing data on the Dock.io platform is a simple concept. Users upload whichever data they like to the platform and decide who can access that data.

They can connect with companies or applications on the platform and each of these relationships is recorded on the Blockchain through a Smart contract on the Ethereum Blockchain. This is a critical difference from the current centralized platforms, where users can control who views their data, but cannot control the platform’s access to their data. 

Technical Side of Dock

The Dock platform is built on the Ethereum Blockchain and given the network congestion already seen on Ethereum there’s no way for Dock to store and retrieve resume data and the other data it is built to hold.

So, the Dock team is using the IPLD specification, which was created to help the open-source peer-to-peer Interplanetary File System (IPFS) perform content addressable data exchange.

The IPFS network is similar to a torrent network, but it stores hashed files rather than torrent files. These hashed files are stored in the collection of IPFS nodes, and any time a user needs to retrieve a file they do so by calling its associated hash from the Blockchain. This lowers the overhead for the blockchain since it doesn’t need to store the data, just an associated hash.

While the platform is committed to the Ethereum Blockchain, for now, the team has said that they will consider creating their own native, standalone Blockchain in the future if it becomes necessary.

The Dock Data Sharing Model

Dock data sharing is controlled by the tokenomics model of the platform, which is pretty unique in the world of decentralization and incentivization.^[4]

The first difference is the DOCK token denomination, which the team has said should be done in fiat rather than Ethereum like most projects. In fact, the ICO was valued in United States dollar rather than Ethereum.

The reasoning for this is to encourage price stability. It’s well known how volatile cryptocurrency prices can be and the team believes that by using fiat to denominate the Dock token they can avoid extreme price swings.

The other difference is the way Dock creates incentives, which is focused on applications rather than users. 

Dock Application Incentives

The Dock system has created incentives for applications to share data with each other via the Dock tokens. Basically, if an application wants to acquire data from another application it needs to pay for that data.^[1]

This system also prevents applications from hoarding data because the sharing of data is involuntary. There is no way for an application to prevent another application from paying for its data. Only the user can create rules that prevent data from being shared. In this way, Dock prevents data hoarding from occurring on the platform. 

Dock User Incentives

Unlike nearly every other Decentralized platform with tokens, the Dock platform does not incentivize users to share their data. This was done intentionally and deliberately. The Dock team wants people to come to the realization that their data is far more valuable than they believe, and that any amount paid for their personal data isn’t enough. Instead, they want users to value their data for its own sake.

There’s another reason not to incentivize users for providing data, and that’s to avoid a flood of people spamming the platform with false information simply to collect rewards. Dock realizes this would be the fastest way to kill the platform, and they are avoiding it in any way possible.

Moreover, the lack of incentives actually makes things clearer for users, who won’t have to worry about keeping up with micro-transactions and payments. All they have to focus on is making sure that their personal information is up to date.

Rather than offering small payments for valuable data, Dock is giving users complete control over their data and convenience. By keeping data all in one place users are easily able to control who can access their data, and they can maintain the data without having to go through the trouble of remembering all the different sites that have a profile for them. This keeps data always updated across the web and avoids scenarios where people are seeing data that are no longer up-to-date. 

Consensus

Dock is built on and uses the consensus mechanism offered by Substrate which is a hybrid as it separates block production and finality and achieves them through different methods. The finality is achieved through a finality gadget called GRANDPA (GHOST-based Recursive ANcestor Deriving Prefix Agreement). It finalizes chains rather than individual blocks and offers provable finality. More details on GRANDPA are available on the Web3 Foundation's. It is implemented in Substrate in.^[4]

Dock will start with a Proof-of-authority (PoA) network and therefore the block production algorithm in this phase will be. This algorithm divides time into fixed intervals and gives each validator an equal chance to produce 1 block in round-robin intervals. It is implemented in Substrate in.^[2]

When Dock transitions into utilizing PoS, the block production algorithm changes from Aura to BABE (Blind Assignment for Blockchain Extension protocol) which selects a validator for each slot (interval of time) randomly using a VRF (Verifiable Random Function). BABE is similar to IOHK's.^[1]

Governance

The Dock Governance Framework describes the combination of off-chain and on-chain rules that enable the Dock Association (a Swiss non-profit) to manage the ongoing development of the network in conjunction with Dock token holders. In the short term, during the PoA network phases, the Association will assume significant control over the network and governance decisions. It will gradually transfer an increasing amount of voting power to Dock token holders over time and thus decentralize governance of the network in the process.

In the beginning, and in order to ensure the ongoing health of the network, the Dock Association may make changes to the network without inviting any proposals from token holders. As the network matures, token holders will be able to propose changes and vote on these proposals. The framework itself will evolve over time in a direction chosen by the Association and the token holders.^[1]

The network will start with Proof-of-authority (PoA) consensus but as it transitions to Proof of Stake (expected during 2021) consensus a different governance mechanism will be used. Both PoA and PoS governance will first be launched on a testnet before migrating to a mainnet. The Dock development team aspires to minimize protocol changes between testnet and mainnet and the only significant difference should be the enhancement of tooling between the two networks.^[3]

Tokenonomics

Dock has a total supply of 1 billion ERC20 tokens via the Ethereum Smart contract. The Dock Association has committed 200M (20% of total supply) to emission rewards which will be released over time on the Dock mainnet. This release will be launched in 2 phases; the first phase is Proof-of-authority (PoA) where Dock's governing council will select validators based on the validators testnet performance.

The second is Proof-of-stake (PoS) where validators will be selected on the basis of their staked tokens. For more detail on each phase please check the respective documents.

Dock held their ICO in February 2018 and sold 30% of the 1 billion total supply for $0.08329 each, raising $20 million. The tokens weren’t released until April 2018 and soon after the Dock token hit an all-time high of $0.242743 on May 4, 2018.

From there the bear market took over and the token sank throughout the rest of 2018, finally reaching a bottom on January 10, 2019, when the token hit $0.007543. It subsequently made it as high as 0.020441 in April 2019, but as of May 13, 2019, it has dropped back to $0.011445 and is roughly 90% off its ICO price.  The Dock token isn’t listed on too many exchanges, but it is on Binance and that’s where nearly all the trading in the token takes place. There’s also a tiny amount of trading on Huobi Global, KuCoin, and Gate.io.^[3]

This could create an issue from an exchange reliance perspective. Given that most of the BTC volume of Dock is being traded on Binance, liquidity could fall off a cliff if there was ever a de-listing. While this is not likely, it is a concern that potential traders have to consider.

Once Users have bought their Dock, they are going to want to get it off the exchange if they intend on hodling them. Because Dock is an ERC-20 token it can be kept in any ERC20 compatible wallet, such as MetaMask or MyEtherWallet.^[2]

Dock Team & Investors

The Dock team consists of 16 members who are located across the globe, although the project is headquartered in San Francisco, California. The core team has worked on projects together in the past, with many coming from Remote.com.^[1]

The CEO and co-founder of the project is Nick Macario, who came to Dock with more than 10 years of experience in web and mobile application marketing. Most recently he was the co-founder and CEO of Remote.com.^[2]

The other co-founder and COO of the project is Elina Cadouri, who was also a co-founder and CEO for Outsource.com. She has over 8 years of experience in marketing research. Dock has also received investments from a number of traditional and blockchain focused venture capital funds. These include the likes of Passport Capital, the Digital Asset Fund, Blockwater Capital and Connect capital among others.

The Dock Community

Dock has a large and enthusiastic community. Dock has an ecosystem which relies on its users sharing their data.

Dock has a fairly large following on social media, which is typically a good sign for a Blockchain project. Their Telegram group has almost 25,000 members, and their Twitter has 45,800 followers. They are even well represented on Facebook, with nearly 35,000 followers.

One disconnect is the project’s subreddit. While they have over 15,000 followers, there is almost no interaction. The Dock team is pretty much the only ones posting there, and the postings have very few and often no comments.^[3]