Request for Discussion: Data Economy Index (DATA)

[jdcook]

I am a big proponent of this Index - the vision of Web3 relies on decentralized data economies. This sector has massive growth potential, and I believe a substantial short-term AUM to be gained. I have heard rumblings about this type of index at the Coop for a few months, so it is great to see this proposal come through! A few of the highlights of the proposal from my perspective:

Differentiated

@Thomas_Hepner

The initial 4 components of DATA represent approximately $14.2 billion in market value and have no overlap with our two existing index products. This suggests that DATA would be a highly differentiated product for the Coop with a significant, compelling market opportunity.

Both immediate and long-term growth potential

@Thomas_Hepner

Currently, DPI is $167m in AUM, approximately ~0.5% of the circulating market capitalization of its constituent tokens. DATA will have ~$80m in AUM if it captures the same share of the Data Economy that DPI has captured of DeFi.

Strong sector belief, similar to MVI and the Metaverse

@Thomas_Hepner

We believe that the Data Economy is at the same stage of development that DeFi was at the beginning of 2019.

Imo, this is the clear next choice for a sector index

@Thomas_Hepner

Expands Reach: DATA would represent another on-chain industry covered by Index Cooperative. This potentially expands the reach of the Index Cooperative’s brand as the premier on-chain asset manager to projects and communities currently outside of DeFi and NFTs.

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Now, onto a couple initial questions that I have:

@Thomas_Hepner

Token weights for individual assets within DATA are determined via a Matrix Scoring System:

Could you provide more color behind why these ^ were chosen as the final weights?

What are y’alls thoughts on IP with DATA? GRT tokens have great opportunity to earn via delegation or curation. OCEAN can be staked against data on the Ocean Protocol. NMR can be staked against models if you are a Data Scientist, but also there is a possiblity for lending NMR to data scientists on Aave. Do you envision the Coop taking an active role in these economies using the underlying tokens? What are the possibilities you see there?

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I really want to see a DATA index. Looking forward to the review and discussion here. Great work @Thomas_Hepner & @Kiba