What is Jasmy? (JASMY)

Data is a lucrative business. Companies like Google and Meta are known to collect their users’ data—things like their online behaviors, likes, dislikes, and connections—and sell them to advertisers and other parties for a profit. However, the users themselves get no cut of this business, and most often they have minimal to no control over how their data is used.

Jasmy hopes to reverse this trend by putting that data back under the control of the users. The Japan-based company believes in the “democratization of data,” and it plans to use Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure for users to collect value in exchange for their data.

IoT describes real-world devices that collect data and “speak” with one another through online connections, often allowing vital functions like automation.

The native token of Jasmy’s blockchain is JasmyCoin (JASMY), which is the medium of value exchange on the platform.

How was Jasmy developed?

Jasmy was founded in 2016 by Kazumasa Sato and Kunitake Ando. Sato earned a degree in economics in 1980 and immediately joined Sony’s information technology division. He remained at the company for many years before branching out into blockchain-based data security. Ando was the president of Sony Corporation between 2000-2005. Many of the other members of Jasmy’s leadership team have experience at Sony.

Early in its development, the Japanese company raised funds for the project through an initial coin offering (ICO), and has benefited from partnerships with other big companies within Japan partially facilitated by the leadership’s connections from their time at Sony.

In August 2023, the company announced the launch of Jasmy Chain, a layer 2 solution (L2) for Ethereum intended to facilitate fast and efficient transactions. Jasmy generated further excitement in May 2024, when it announced a partnership between another L2 incubated by the company (called JANCTION) and a Korean-based anonymous bulletin board.

How does Jasmy work?

Jasmy’s platform uses IoT devices (like wearable devices) to collect data on behalf of users. This data is stored in a Personal Data Locker (PDL), which keeps the data separate and private. It is an off-chain solution, and files are hashed (converted into an un-discoverable form) before being managed on the blockchain, which increases security.

There are two core services that power Jasmy’s economy of data:

Secure Knowledge Communicator (SKC) – This service has a few main functions, all of which facilitate the registration and management of personal data. The SKC first authenticates users as real people, serving a Know Your Customer (KYC) function. Users can then use Jasmy’s SKC to input their data into their PDL. Finally, the SKC gives users the ability to control and track their data.

Smart Guardian (SG) – As a mediator between IoT and the rest of Jasmy’s functionality, SG registers and connects users’ devices (“Know Your Machine,” or KYM). It links user- and device-specific IDs so validated data can flow through the SKC.

Jasmy’s platform provides the infrastructure needed for a data marketplace involving two parties: 1) users who generate, collect, and own data; and 2) companies that wish to use that data. It envisions companies paying rewards to users (in the form of the JASMY token) as data providers. Jasmy acts as an intermediary and charges companies a fee for connecting users with them.

How is the JASMY token used?

JasmyCoin was originally released with the ticker JMY, but it has more recently been accepted as JASMY. It is a token that conforms to Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard and is primarily used as a token of value exchange on Jasmy’s platform. Users can exchange their data for what is accepted as its value in JASMY tokens, thus being “paid” for their data provision services. Companies using Jasmy’s platform must also pay service fees in the form of JASMY tokens.

Token distribution

There are 50 billion JASMY tokens, of which 30% are owned by the company and intended for use as rewards for users. Another 22% were allocated to business financing (*i.e., *investors), 20% were allocated to a developer plan to support new directions for the project, 10% were planned for an air drop to stimulate excitement in the project, 9% were reserved for company employees and the development team, and 8% were dedicated to business operations.

Note: Company documentation does not account for the remaining 1% of tokens.

Conclusion

• Jasmy provides a marketplace for data to be exchanged between users who generate data and companies who wish to use that data.

• The project was founded by former executives at Sony, and its development has primarily taken place in Japan. It uses two core components to create its data economy: the Secure Knowledge Communicator and the Secure Guardian.

• The JASMY token is used primarily as a medium of value exchange on the platform, allowing users to collect rewards and monetize their data.