Universal Data Income is here. Meet the Swash app.

EDIT: The $100K budget was met and the referral bonus for individual referrals has finished.

Swash is reimagining data ownership by enabling all actors of the data economy to earn, access, build and collaborate in a liquid digital ecosystem for data. The Swash app enables people to put their data rights into action and earn from the value of their data, recognising them as integral components of the data economy.

Since its inception in 2019, Swash has grown into one of the biggest, most robust applications in the blockchain space, growing from 5000 to 90,000 members within mere months.

This momentum hasn’t gone unnoticed, with Swash featured as a prime example of a ‘ bottom-up’ data institution by the Open Data Institute (ODI) and featured in pioneering research by the Mozilla Foundation that determined the need for “killer apps” if we want to create sustainable Data Futures.

The success and adoption of Swash has also propelled Data Unions into the mainstream, attracting attention from the likes of MIT, the Financial Times, and the EU Data Governance Act.

As the world’s first and largest Data Union, the Swash app stands as the flagship of the First Wave Solutions — the products and services to be built on Swash core technology — followed by sIntelligence, sApps, and sCompute

To make the Swash ecosystem and First Wave Solutions a success, Swash needs to reach all corners of the information economy.

This is complicated and uncharted territory, so we have distilled the driving force behind the movement into four key principles to address the immediate concerns of each stakeholder (individuals, businesses and developers) and to offer the right incentives for them to get involved in a sustainable, scalable way.

The following four principles will be used to underpin all design, development, and innovation within Swash, keeping everyone engaged and the Swash community active:

• Incentivise: Provide a way for users to get paid for the value of their data and to encourage more people to join the community
• Access: Improve access to high-quality, zero-party data for businesses and data scientists
• Build: Encourage developers and entrepreneurs to join a new generation of data solutions
• Collaborate: Work alongside ecosystem partners to allow for interoperability and mass adoption at scale towards a wider vision for the future of data

Additionally, these principles help to make sure that everyone; including individuals, developers, businesses, partners, community, and innovators, are motivated by the same vision and stay aligned as Swash grows.

The Swash team are excited to introduce you to the new update of the Swash app — complete with new features, a new look and, of course the Swash token.

Let’s meet the Swash app

Swash’s app emerged as a fully-fledged solution in late 2019, enabling individuals to earn while they surf the web. One of the key elements that bolstered the adoption of the Swash extension is its cross-browser support, taking away any friction, so you can take ownership over your data without changing your habits.

Currently, the Swash app captures non-sensitive data from the biggest websites across several categories, including:

🌐 General
🔍 Search
🛒 Ecommerce
🏄‍♂️ Surfing
👥 Social
🗞 News
🎵 Music
💄 Beauty and Fashion

As well as continuously updating the list of sites so Swash members have more opportunities to earn, the team continues to reflect on industry demands to ensure that Swash data remains desirable for data buyers in a way that brings more value to the community.

Keep reading to learn more about some of the new in-app features and their uses.

🤖 Preventing bots and faux accounts with email verification to bring more value to loyal users

One issue that the team have been tackling since nascency is implementing measures that can reduce the risk of bots, fake users, and other fraudulent behaviour that would taint the ecosystem and drain earnings from the real Swash members.

Along with introducing captcha and other mechanisms to verify users, the best way to do this is with email verification. Simple, yet effective.

Now, when you onboard Swash app, you will be asked to verify your email address with a code sent to your email inbox. This email address is only used to verify that you’re a real person, although you can also choose to opt-in to receive project updates and other kinds of Swash marketing here too.

💸 Understanding referrals and withdrawals

Referrals:
The magic of Swash is that it centres on redistributing the value of data back to those who create it. Data is unique in the sense that, the more of it there is, the more valuable it becomes. Especially if that data is high-quality and given straight from the individual (a.k.a. zero-party) like Swash’s data.

To continue growing the Swash movement, you can invite your friends to Swash to up your earnings even more! You simply share your referral link with them so they can join. The current referral program is as follows:

• The person who brings the most new people to Swash using their referral link each month will receive 2000 $SWASH prize

Withdrawals:
When using the Swash app, you earn Swash’s native cryptocurrency, $SWASH, for the value of your captured data as you surf. Now, let’s explore what you can do with it.

When you want to withdraw, there are several things to consider. First, if you have invited others to Swash and have some earnings in your SWASH Referral Bonus, click ‘Claim’ so the amount is added to your ‘SWASH Earnings’ and the total balance is available to withdraw.

With $SWASH, you can withdraw it to exchange it for other cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies on exchanges. Withdrawals happen on Gnosis Chain, a cheaper, faster, and more efficient alternative to Ethereum mainnet.

🚨Withdrawal Limits

To withdraw your earnings, you need to meet certain requirements. This is to ensure that you are verified as an active user while further preventing bots and fake users from draining the tokens from the Swash ecosystem, meaning those tokens are distributed fairly between real Swash members.

❗ To withdraw your $SWASH earnings from the app, you need to meet the following two conditions:

• You should have more than 10 SWASH in your wallet
• You should have been using the new version of Swash for at least one month

If you uninstall, didn’t use your browser, or turned Swash off, then your withdrawal counter will reset to 0. Check the day you are detected as active or inactive within the extension in the History page under ‘Management’.

⚔️ Brave New World — Swash branding and new UX

The concept of the Swash brand identity is built around the title of Aldous Huxley’s famous book; Brave New World. Although Huxley’s book holds a dystopian theme, Swash takes it into the realm of actualised utopias while aligning with uncharted territories yet to be explored, the playfulness of deconstruction and redesign, and the same appetite for creation of mid-20th century technologists with overarching futuristic, psychedelic, and science-fiction themes.

The new Swash app will extend the branding theme, with a simple and welcoming interface to bring even better UX to our members. Swash embodies simplicity and comfort for all types of community members, no matter how fluent they are in crypto or apps in general, to bring blockchain closer to mass adoption.

Details within the Swash app, such as your wallet private and public keys, have been amended. To cater to an Early Majority user base and to ensure security and clarity, your private key is now located in the Settings section of the extension and we have added a product tour to introduce each area of the app.

🌱 Faster, cheaper, energy-efficient: Going green with Gnosis Chain

Despite being the most-used blockchain, it’s no secret that Ethereum suffers from inefficiency, expensive gas fees, and a carbon footprint big enough to make your eyes water.

Swash prioritises ease of use for users, whether that’s through friendly design, simple aesthetics, or accessible language for new audiences. However, these efforts are pointless unless issues are tackled directly.

Using Gnosis Chain puts Swash far ahead when it comes to efficiency. It allows for the Swash app itself to be greener while giving Swash members a faster, cheaper, and greener way to handle their earnings.

Also, if you choose to withdraw your $SWASH using Gnosis Chain, Swash will cover the cost for you!

🎗 Donate to social impact causes with Data for Good

To further grow the Swash Data Union by attracting new and diverse audiences, we have introduced a donations feature called Data for Good.

Once installed, Swash allows people to earn for the value of their data as they browse, without having to do anything differently. This ease of use is crucial for adoption which is why we wanted to make the donations feature equally as frictionless.

The Data for Good feature allows for you to search and browse the list of charities, filter by relevant tags, and determine whether you want to make a one-off donation or set up a recurring one with a percentage of your Swash earnings each month.

Inspired by Ecosia, the search engine which plants trees with the value of advertising spend, and other audacious clicktivist internet movements like Sleepify and Views for a Vision, Data for Good allows for passive donations to leading causes, including the likes of Unicef, Save the Children, and Oxfam.

When Ecosia has over 15 million users, and clicktivist acts attract millions of people with tens of thousands raised for their cause, Swash’s Data for Good feature is well-positioned to put people power to work in an unprecedented way.

Data for Good is a huge endeavour and is a new feature that will be released within the Swash app in stages. It will also continue to grow and evolve even after release, as we expect to continue onboarding new socially-driven organisations, reflect the impact the Swash community makes, and see more causes adopt cryptocurrencies as a donation method.

As one happy Swash Data Union member sees it:

“This is a new world in data collection when the user decides what to share, what data to report himself. Most importantly, you’re still an anonymous user!”

Join Swash in building a fairer, more transparent, and empowering data economy. Install Swash app today 🌟

About Swash

Swash is an ecosystem of tools and services that enable people, businesses, and developers to unlock the latent value of data by pooling, securely sharing, and monetising its value.

People share their data to earn while retaining their privacy. Businesses access high-quality, zero-party data in a sustainable and compliant way. Developers set up and build systems within a collaborative development framework with ease.

Swash is reimagining data ownership by enabling all actors of the data economy to earn, access, build and collaborate in a liquid digital ecosystem for data.

Let’s connect: Twitter | Telegram | Reddit | LinkedIn | Website | NewsletterOriginally published at https://swashapp.io on November 11, 2021.