The Zenotta Digital System combines the technology of Smart Data with a next-generation blockchain network to create an Internet of Files. In turn, this gives birth to a data democracy, and a real data economy where digital content becomes a digital asset. The new, decentralized file format standard of Smart Data gives data identity, rights, and compliance. This file format leverages blockchain technology in order to provide efficient and legally valid transactability, security, and portability. Together, these attributes give data true value for the first time.

The Zenotta Digital System (ZDS) consists of three layers:

1) A data protocol that gives life to an Internet of True Value based on real economic goods & services, powered by Smart Data.

2) A blockchain network as the backbone for the Smart Data universe, engineered with the next generation of Proof-of-Work consensus to be resistant to mining centralization and to monopolies.

3) A governance philosophy that adheres to the principle of governance without control: a community-focused, fair partnership built on a Socratic interpretation of Athenian democracy that ensures compliance with private legal acts and mandatory law.

These layers exist within a legal environment that is fully adapted to operate within a digital system, ensuring all aspects of the new Smart Data universe are legally valid, privacy preserving, and compliant.

A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Trade System

The vast number of innovative projects within the new blockchain paradigm have enabled decentralized money (Bitcoin, and many many others), decentralized contracts (e.g. Ethereum, Neo, EOS), and more recently, decentralized finance (e.g. Augur, Kyber, Compound, UniSwap). Every blockchain up until now has, however, been a form of gifting economy, with only the payment token tracked on the ledger; any movement of the item that was paid for is either down to trust or the engagement of a third party. The Zenotta system provides a bi-directional accounting, through the dual double entry ledger, of both the payment AND the asset, facilitating a real economy for the first time. The seller pledges to the network a real asset (which would take the form of a Smart Data file created through the Zenotta data protocol) and the buyer pledges some native tokens. Through the dual double-entry blockchain ledger, both halves of the trade are authenticated and the transaction is packaged into a block where the Smart Data asset and the tokens used to pay for the asset are exchanged between two wallets simultaneously. In the advent of any error or lack of correct authentication, the trade would roll back to the seller, who would simply retain possession of their provably scarce Smart Data asset, while the buyer retains possession of their tokens.

Ensuring that both the payment, and the goods, are transferred through the blockchain completes the role of blockchain as the backbone of a decentralized economy. Moreover, through the Zenotta innovation of a digital twin, physical assets as well as digital assets can be traded through the new data market. In this way, the Zenotta blockchain enables decentralized trade of goods & services.

Identity-based Ownership

The ability to impart a unique identity to data and to consign the record of that identity to an immutable ledger allows for a form of ownership that is identity-based rather than access-based. The Smart Data file is a new approach to data that ensures that access is no longer the defining characteristic of ownership, with a form of binary DNA constituting the unique identifier and allowing for verification of the owner without granting access to the content.

The use of public encoding and private encryption creates a signing scheme for data, that, when combined with the unique binary DNA of the file, protects the owner and secures the file in an identity-based form of cold storage. The signing scheme carries over the uniqueness of the binary DNA in order to ensure that every part of the file retains its identity and any identity-based data rights that have been programmed into the metadata.

Realizing True Value

In our current digital world, the only value that really exists is in the form of monetary value; cryptocurrency tokens, in-game items, reddit karma points, etc. This is a narrow definition of value. True value can be found not only in an economic form but also in forms such as the benefit of being able to truly own your digital content; the importance of retaining absolute privacy over your data; the legal power of an autonomous file with a unique identity; the freedom to create, and to decide what happens to your creation.

The categories of value listed here constitute the trifecta created by the ZDS when applied to data. Each category has a different role to play in our society, and in an increasingly digital society we must ensure that these roles function as intended.