Masa is launching its ZK-data network and marketplace in hopes of building an open, secure, and incentivized economy for the world’s personal data. The launch is slated for Q1 2024. Masa aims to finally empower people to take back control of their data and be fairly compensated for its use. 

Personal data is created at a rapidly growing rate, and with technology further permeating everyone’s daily lives, it will only grow more aggressively. It is estimated that 288 million terabytes of new data is created each day. 

Handling this demand requires high-performance blockchain infrastructure to ensure the best experience for Masa users, both data owners and companies interested in using that data. The Masa team worked with AvaCloud to deploy a gasless, self-sovereign Avalanche Subnet, a dedicated, customizable blockchain network, which empowers developers to access and verify high volumes of zero-knowledge encrypted data at a massive scale, at a low cost.

To accelerate adoption of Masa across the Avalanche platform and all of its Subnets, Masa is receiving support from the Avalanche Foundation and a strategic investment from Avalanche’s Blizzard Fund.

What Masa is Building on Avalanche

Today’s personal data — from internet browsing history to X (f/k/a Twitter) direct messages — is locked up in proprietary silos controlled by big tech companies. These companies are reselling personal data without consent and without compensating the owners of that data.

This is worsened by the proliferation of AI. There is an astronomical demand in using peoples’ personal data to train AI models and AI agents. In the AI era, data is the new oil. Unfortunately, people are not actively consenting for their data to be used, and they receive no benefits or financial incentive for their data contribution. 

Masa envisions a world where your data pays you. To achieve this vision, Masa invented a revolutionary technology, the Zero-Knowledge Soulbound Token (zkSBT). zkSBTs serve as a personal data locker. A person’s digital footprint and social graph, such as a person's participation in Web3 communities or usage of a decentralized application, is encrypted and stored in a completely private way in a personal zkSBT data locker. 

In a little over a year, over 890,000 unique user wallets have permissioned over 8 -million data events to the Masa Network. Upon the Masa Network launch, users will be able to view their personal digital footprint in their zkSBT data locker, and share (via staking) their data in the Masa Data Marketplace for financial incentives. 

For example, a user can grant a financial institution access to their Masa zkSBT for age verification. The financial institution can verify that a user is over the age of 21 without seeing their date of birth. The data is then transmitted using an encrypted message stream that utilizes the blockchain infrastructure to ensure that no third party gains access to the data and that the data remains secure and private. 

Anyone building applications needing data, from privacy-preserved advertising to training AI models, will be able to tap into this massive collection of private-by-default user data. 

Welcome to the new data paradigm.

“We explored different options in the market when selecting the infrastructure to build a dedicated Masa blockchain. In order to build the world’s largest ZK-Data network and marketplace, gas cost was a focal point for Masa. Building on Avalanche using AvaCloud, Masa is able to launch a gasless self-sovereign chain which enables high throughput of transactions and powers use cases that consume high volumes of private data – all at a low cost.“ - Masa Co-Founder, Brendan Playford

"AvaCloud has simplified the process of launching custom blockchains, having launched 14 custom blockchains by games, governments or enterprises. This is the perfect architecture to support our ZK-Data network and marketplace. By deploying on a dedicated Avalanche Subnet, major financial institutions, AI startups, and large-scale consumer tech applications can access secure, scalable, ZK-encrypted user data without paying any gas. ” - Masa Co-Founder, Calanthia Mei

“Masa is a team pushing the boundaries of ZK tech, which comes with many new complexities, as building ZK-enabled apps is still very nascent. Working closely with the team brings valuable feedback to help continue to improve the AvaCloud service and Avalanche infrastructure to accommodate more ZK-enabled apps to come.” - Ava Labs VP of Marketing, Jay Kurahashi-Sofue 

About Masa

Masa is building the largest zero-knowledge user data network in the world. Masa is architecting the “decentralized Google” for the AI era: A scalable, secure, and resilient global data marketplace, where billions of users get compensated by their data contribution, and millions of developers build innovative applications using private-by-default user data. 

Masa has amassed 890,000 users through exponential growth since launch in August 2022. It has raised more than 7 millions in funding from leading investors, and was incubated by Coinlist’s Seed Program and Binance’s Most-Valuable-Builder Accelerator.

About AvaCloud

AvaCloud is a managed blockchain service enabling teams to rapidly build, deploy, and scale decentralized networks–customized for any use case. In minutes, launch robust blockchain networks with 50k+ transactions per second, sub-second transaction finality, and net-zero carbon impact. AvaCloud features a no-code portal, automated infrastructure, network monitoring, and 24/7 customer support. Stop worrying about your blockchain infrastructure, and start growing your business and maximizing your revenue.
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About Ava Labs

Ava Labs makes it simple to deploy high-performance solutions for Web3, led by innovations on Avalanche. The company was founded by Cornell computer scientists, who partnered with Wall Street veterans and early Web3 leaders to execute a promising vision for redefining the way people build and use open, permissionless networks. Ava Labs is redefining the way people create value with Web3. 

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About Avalanche

Avalanche is a smart contracts platform built to scale infinitely and finalize transactions in under a second. Its novel consensus protocol, Subnet infrastructure, and HyperSDK toolkit enable businesses to easily launch powerful, custom blockchain solutions. Build anything you want, any way you want, on the eco-friendly blockchain designed for both Web3 devs and businesses.
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