Owning your vital data: mintBlue’s Niels van den Bergh talks Nowatch smartwatch partnership

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Smartwatches and fitness trackers have seen a surge in popularity in recent years, with one study showing that 3 in 10 working-age internet users own at least one such device. All this data ends up in the hands of companies such as Fitbit, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), and Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL). Niels van den Bergh wants to give back the ownership of this vital data to the users with a new Bitcoin-powered smart wearable device.

At the recent London Blockchain Conference, van den Bergh announced that his company mintBlue had partnered with Dutch company Nowatch on a new line of smartwatches.

“It doesn’t have the time. It gives you time. It tracks all your vitals: your breathing, steps, heartbeat, cortisol levels,” van den Bergh told CoinGeek Backstage reporter Becky Liggero in London.

Nowatch is committed to giving its users ownership of the data they generate, and what better way to do that than on BSV blockchain? This partnership could be the start of a “true peer-to-peer biometric data marketplace,” Niels pointed out.

Vital data ownership could spark the beginning of a new era in which users can be in full control of their health. A doctor, for instance, could tap into this data to track the effect a certain drug has had on his patient’s heartbeat, sleep cycle, etc.

Beyond users’ health, full data ownership opens a new data economy for smart wearable owners. Research companies or health organizations interested in mass user data can compensate the owners through micropayments. The users will have the option of decrypting specific data to specified parties, such as their heartbeat during the Superbowl game.

The project will generate hundreds of millions of transactions, which only a massively-scaling blockchain network like the BSV blockchain can handle. As van den Bergh shared, initially, mintBlue would push every piece of data—such as every heartbeat by one user—to the blockchain. However, the company is working on data packages that can bundle a specified number of transactions before recording them on the blockchain for efficiency and reduced costs.

To grab one of these smartwatches, head to nowatch.com and design it to your liking. The Amsterdam-based company ships its products worldwide.

Watch: CoinGeek TV with Tokenovate’s Richard Baker & John Anderson