Greg Pelleteri and Bridge: Giving Consumers a Stake in the Data Economy
Seasoned fintech CEO Greg Pelleteri is the creative visionary behind Bridge. Leveraging his experience as a retail banker, Greg has gone on to launch several successful startups, most recently Bundlefi. One day, while walking through Manhattan, a lightbulb moment struck, fueling his passion for helping to level the playing field for consumers on the blockchain platform. That moment became the foundation for Bridge, a disruptive business model that allows consumers to mint NFTs of their own data on the Web3 platform and claim a piece of the highly lucrative data market, an industry that has existed for nearly two decades. Here, Greg discusses how Bridge works, its enormous market potential, its implications for a global consumer base, and the buzz surrounding its launch in March 2023.
How did the concept for Bridge evolve into what it is today?
We’ve always been early adopters of crypto, NFTs, and blockchain technology. In the collectible art market, NFTs prove authenticity. One day while walking, I started thinking about NFTs and how they could reference a person. I know everyone’s data has value, and I wanted to figure out how to get that data referenced by an NFT so consumers could be compensated directly for it. That’s where Bridge came into play, and we began building the platform. Data is a 500 billion dollar a year market, and we’re able to get consumers a small piece of that for their own information.
We use the Web3 blockchain, which relies on crypto and NFTs. If a consumer signs up for their NFT on Bridge through the cash application, they input basic information about themselves, and we mint an NFT for them. There’s a significant amount of security protocol built into that journey, and once complete, they hold an NFT that references their data.
How does Bridge actually work?
What the consumer sees is very simple, but the back end is quite complex. We go to consumers and let them know we have a data buyer, a broker looking to purchase data for a specific industry or product on behalf of someone else. We search our database of NFT wallets and identify a group of, say, 10,000 people who fit that demographic. That information is then sent to the data broker, who holds a key to unlock it, allowing them to market to those consumers for thirty, sixty, or ninety days, depending on how the contract is structured. This wasn’t possible in the Web2 world, which is why the evolution of Web3 was necessary to make it happen, since it allows us to build in additional layers of security. The smart contract is really what makes the entire system function.
What matters most to the consumer is compensation. Every consumer holds value in the market they participate in. If someone wants your email address, phone number, or home address to market to you, that already carries a value that is already being paid for by someone. The data industry has existed for nearly twenty years. What we’re creating is a way for the consumer to step into the middle of that transaction. We never see anyone’s actual data, all we see are wallet addresses, and we never want access to the underlying data itself. If we ever needed to access it for legal reasons, it would require three separate executives within the company using individual keys. The only parties who ever see the data are the consumer and the buyer, with a monetary transaction occurring directly between them. From the consumer’s perspective, it’s simple. We pay them in crypto, and they choose how they’d like to receive it. Using crypto matters because it allows this to work anywhere on the planet without the complications of fiat currency. Once consumers receive crypto into their account, they can transfer it to another wallet or send it directly to their bank, whatever they prefer.
Turning Data Ownership Into Everyday Empowerment
At its core, what Bridge is really attempting to solve is a long standing imbalance, one where consumers have generated enormous value for companies without ever seeing a share of it themselves. By giving people direct ownership over their own data footprint, the platform reframes a passive byproduct of everyday life into something consumers can actively manage and benefit from, shifting the power dynamic of an industry that has quietly profited from personal information for two decades.
We can’t go back and remove data that already exists. The only thing we can do is put as tight a cork as possible on the data flow going forward. But buyers want the freshest data available on each individual consumer.
There’s also a meaningful environmental impact tied to blockchain technology, since the computing power required draws a significant amount of energy. To help offset that, we’re planning to plant trees tied to these NFTs, providing something of a carbon offset and giving a little back to the environment.
What kind of proprietary IP does Bridge have in place?
We have IP protection built around our use of Web3 and blockchain protocols, and we’ll likely file additional patents as time goes on. The way we’ve built this is proprietary, again relying on Web3 and blockchain infrastructure. The NFT itself simply acts as a reference point for the data held within the wallet, letting the system know where to look. Crypto then comes into play for compensation.
When someone sets up a cash NFT on our platform, it goes through a highly verified process, unlike a social media platform such as Facebook, where fake profiles are easy to create. We know exactly who these people are, which means we’re not only offering the freshest data possible, but we can also assure data buyers that these are real, verified individuals, helping to avoid some of the data integrity issues that plague current social media platforms. We have specific methods in place to verify identity and confirm we’re dealing with the right person.
Do you think some people would create multiple profiles in the metaverse to collect additional revenue?
We mitigate that in two main ways. First is the verification process itself. If someone simply floods the system with information, the value of their data becomes deflationary. We receive feedback from data buyers and run that through an algorithm to determine who holds higher value versus lower value. We’re also able to monitor wallet activity in real time for anything that looks nefarious or underhanded. There’s always a small chance, maybe one percent, that someone slips through, but we have a very specific security protocol in place for signing up for your first NFT. Consumers can also add more data to their profile to increase its value. And higher end products with longer customer lifetime value, like a bank looking to open a new account, will typically pay a higher premium for that information.
What growth opportunities do you see for Bridge?
The scope of this product is enormous, and its global impact is significant. There’s zero cost to the consumer, and everything we’ve built is entirely consumer centric, designed to get people as much value as possible while keeping their best interest at the center of everything. The more people who use it, the more robust the ecosystem becomes. The consumer receives the majority share, we take a piece, and another portion goes back into the blockchain itself. In theory, simply creating your NFT, even without ever selling your data, can generate income over time. As more people join the blockchain, value continues to accrue to existing members. We want to build a genuine community around this. Social media platforms and data aggregators have built their own communities, but no one has built one centered on the consumer side, and that’s exactly what we’re creating. This economy already exists. What we’re trying to do is make sure consumers finally get their share of it.
We’re targeting early March for our full product launch out of beta, which will represent our alpha version, available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
