Data Coinization: Why Should Your Personal Information Be Controlled by You?

Have you ever thought about how every post you make on social media, every click, and even your location information are secretly being packaged and sold by some company? This is the reality of the Web 2.0 era. But with data coinization technology, things could change completely.

What is coinization, and why can data also be coinized?

First, understand a basic concept: a coin (token) is not just a cryptocurrency; it is actually a digital unit on the blockchain. For example, Bitcoin and Ethereum are coins, but there are other forms of coins—such as NFTs that represent a piece of digital art, or a coin that represents a ticket.

The beauty of coins lies in the fact that they are transferable, verifiable, and tradable digital certificates. When we apply this logic to data, a new concept is born: data coinization.

In simple terms, data tokenization is the process of converting your sensitive information (such as credit card numbers, health records, or your social media profiles) into special digital codes (coins), which can then be securely transmitted and verified on the blockchain, while your original data remains hidden.

Coin Data vs Encrypted Data, which one is safer?

Many people confuse coinization with encryption, but they are actually two different things.

Encryption is the process of scrambling your real data, so that only those with the decryption key can understand it. Imagine you send a coded message to a friend, and only those who know the code can see the real content. Encryption is widely used in online communication, data storage, and identity authentication.

Tokenization is direct replacement—not scrambling the data, but using an unrelated substitute to represent it. For example, your credit card number is converted into a random string, which can be used to complete payment verification, but it has no correspondence with the original card number. Even if someone intercepts this token, they cannot deduce your real card number.

Tokenization is most commonly used in financial payments, healthcare, and personal data management, as it inherently isolates the original sensitive information.

How does tokenized data work on the blockchain?

Imagine a scenario: you want to switch from one social media platform to another, but you want to keep all your posting history, follower list, and profile.

In traditional Web 2.0, this is simply a dream. You have to start from scratch to register a new account, fill out all the information again, and the data and connections from the old platform cannot be transferred at all.

But what if we have data tokenization and blockchain?

You need a digital wallet, such as MetaMask. The address of this wallet represents your identity on the blockchain. When you connect the wallet to a new platform, all your data—posting records, followers, NFT assets—will automatically sync from the old platform to the new platform. Because all this information is stored on the blockchain, and coins represent your ownership of this data.

What is the result? You have complete control over which platform you belong to, and your data truly belongs to you, not that large corporation.

Three Major Benefits of Coinization of Data

1. Real data security

When your sensitive information is tokenized, even if hackers attack this coin, they only obtain a code that cannot be reverse-engineered. Your real data remains locked in a secure backend vault. This greatly reduces the risk of identity theft, fraud, and other cybercrimes.

2. Comply with regulatory requirements

Strict data protection regulations (such as GDPR in Europe) are now in place around the world. Companies that casually handle sensitive information of customers face severe penalties or a crisis of trust. Tokenized data makes it easier for businesses to comply with these regulations, as the data they hold is already in a “non-sensitive” coin form.

3. Secure Sharing and Expansion

Companies can share coinized data with third-party service providers, partners, or research institutions without revealing the original data. This opens the door to cross-platform use of data while significantly reducing security and compliance costs.

But coinized data also has pitfalls

The information accuracy may decline

When location data is tokenized, the recommendation system may not accurately identify your exact location, resulting in the recommendations you receive becoming less relevant. This is a classic trade-off between accuracy and security.

cross-system compatibility issue

If Platform A has tokenized user emails and Platform B has also tokenized emails but used different tokenization schemes, then the two platforms will be unable to recognize you as the same person. This means you may not receive notifications from other services and may even be unable to perform cross-platform operations.

The gray area of law and ethics

Who owns monetized data? Do users have the right to decide how their data is used? If a user monetizes their posts on social media, does this infringe on the platform's rights or undermine freedom of speech? These questions currently do not have clear answers.

high recovery difficulty

If the coinization system crashes, restoring the data will be very complicated. Companies need to rebuild both the coinization data and the original database at the same time, a process that is both time-consuming and prone to errors.

Real-world Coinization Data Applications

Social Media and NFT Ecosystem

Current social platforms crazily collect user data every day to serve ads. But if users could monetize their data - including personal profiles, posting history, and social graphs - the situation would turn around.

Users can decide: Who can see my content? Who can interact with me? Do you need to pay to access my content? I can earn income through tips, subscriptions, or other means. In this way, users have real voice and monetization rights.

Summary

Tokenized data technology has already been tested in the medical, financial, media, and social fields, and is developing rapidly. With the rising demand for data security and increasing regulatory pressure, tokenization will continue to expand into more industries.

But the key to successfully implementing coinization of data is to act clearly and responsibly, respecting users' rights and expectations, while complying with the laws of various countries. The goal of coinization should be to truly empower users to control their own information, rather than providing businesses with new ways to exploit.