Blockchain-based data-sharing protocol using Data NFTs (ERC-721) and datatokens (ERC-20) for access rights, plus Compute-to-Data — sending the algorithm to the data rather than moving raw data, a genuine technical analog to SINE’s MPC approach, but built on a fundamentally different (tokenized/permissionless) trust model. “Ocean Predictoor” (2023) is a crypto-price prediction market — a pivot toward crypto-native speculation, away from the original “enterprise data sharing” mission.
Org form & funding
Ocean Protocol Foundation Ltd., a Singapore non-profit (incorporated 2017), founded by DEX Pte. Ltd. and BigchainDB GmbH (Berlin). Raised ~$39 million across ICO/IEO rounds, 2018–2019. OceanDAO’s grants program wound down at Round 23 (~2022); a touted “$140M” allocation ceiling was aspirational and never actually distributed (>$1M actually distributed by 2021). OCEAN token is down more than 90% from its April 2021 all-time high; market cap ~$24–44M at time of research.
The 2024–2025 governance collapse — a cautionary case
Ocean merged into the “Artificial Superintelligence Alliance” (ASI, with Fetch.ai and SingularityNET) in 2024. In July 2025, ~661M OCEAN tokens were converted to FET and ~263–270M FET sent to exchanges without clear on-chain authorization. Ocean withdrew from ASI on 9 October 2025; Fetch.ai’s CEO publicly alleged a “rug pull.” On 4 November 2025, Fetch.ai and token holders filed a federal class-action lawsuit (SDNY, case 1:25-cv-9210) naming the Ocean Protocol Foundation, Ocean Expeditions Ltd. (Cayman), and co-founders Bruce Pon, Trent McConaghy, and Christina Pon as defendants. Unresolved and actively contested as of this research (2026-08-05).
Traction
Named enterprise pilots (J&J, Roche, Unilever, Aviva, Daimler) all date to 2019–2020 with no evidence of progression to production use. Real 2025 usage (Predictoor, ~$2B trading volume) is crypto-price speculation, not enterprise data commerce.
Strategic relevance to SINE
Ocean bet that permissionless tokenized incentives could substitute for institutional trust and accountable governance. The 2025 collapse — now in US federal court — is a concrete, currently-unfolding cautionary case against that model, and a strong point of contrast for SINE’s accountable-consortium/nonprofit-e.V. governance approach: the same Compute-to-Data technical idea, pursued under a fundamentally different (and so far much less stable) governance and incentive model. See the Hypothesenpapier’s discussion of governance model choice.
Sources
sources/research/2026-08-05-competitor-data-exchange-standards.md (Ocean
Protocol section; live web research, 2026-08-05). Litigation status current
only as of the research date — verify before citing further, as this is an
active, unresolved case.