This Entrepreneur Is Trying to Reinvent Big Data With Decentralized Networks and Cryptocurrency The founder and CEO of Constellation Network talks about his company's five-year plan and where blockchain technology is headed.

Ben Jorgensen and his team are dedicated to reinventing big data with decentralized networks. He sat down with Jessica Abo to discuss how his company works and the future of blockchain.

Jessica Abo: Let's start by defining some of these terms.

Ben Jorgensen: We'll start by talking about big data. Big data can really be defined as all the data that's produced from digital infrastructures and devices. Your apps, every click produces a piece of data. All the sensors that are connected to the internet are creating data. And big data is the ability to aggregate all those data points, compress it, and make sense out of it, make new products, run AI, and algorithms and analysis around it. And decentralized networks is really a new term, which is the ability of a network to be not centralized, but actually remotely hosted.

In a decentralized network, multiple actors from across the world are participating, acting as decentralized servers, incentivized with cryptocurrency to uphold it. Those actors also participate in decentralized governance that help establish the rules, permissions, and marketing around that network.

What problem were you trying to solve when you created Constellation Network?

We saw massive trends starting to form around cryptocurrency and decentralized networks. Developers are moving over from traditional businesses in the tech world into these decentralized autonomous ecosystems. Another opportunity was that existing blockchains were too slow and extremely expensive. So, we had to rethink existing blockchain technologies, what many people know of Bitcoin or Ethereum and think of a third evolution of a blockchain protocol that would be fearless and embrace the vision of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Our network would be cheaper by its nature, while the other networks are very costly. It would also be faster so as to be on par with existing digital infrastructures and the internet. We focused on creating a scalable blockchain that could be implemented in any digital infrastructure and be unanimous with all existing technologies and businesses that make up the gross national product.

How do people benefit from your company?

They can actually use our cryptocurrency for multiple products in our ecosystem. Constellation is really a technology ecosystem that, one, enables businesses to build on our blockchain and create their own token on our blockchain. They can then use that token to create an economy around their business which adds new revenue streams and cash flow to the business. Many people come into our ecosystem and they start by acquiring our cryptocurrency, either $DAG, or $LTX (Lattice Exchange - our Decentralized Finance platform), or many of the projects that are being built on us. We have about 35 different projects or companies that have real-world businesses and are looking to tokenize a component of their business: from disrupting digital advertising, through Alkimi Exchange, to reinventing the influencer/creator economy with Geojam. People can use their token to participate in getting first access into backing a project or voting in decentralized governance activities. In the near future, our currency will be used to secure bandwidth and access to our network. Many projects will build on Constellation because it has zero transaction fees - wouldn't you use a bank that had free transactions.

Where do you think this industry is headed?

What we're seeing with the industry, and a lot of our mission is around this is merging traditional businesses that make up the gross national product (revenue from all goods and services) with crypto economies. This is going to evolve cryptocurrency and blockchain technology away from speculation and into every organization. By tokenizing a component of each business, and the GNP, we bring cryptocurrency into mainstream adoption. This is how the entire industry should be thinking.

One of the big moves that Constellation is taking to make our emergence into traditional businesses is getting into the hardware space. We recently acquired a company called Dor Technologies that's been backed by tier-one VCs in Silicon Valley. They've largely focused on collecting data around brick-and-mortar retail stores through a device that measures foot traffic to improve operations for brick-and-mortar retailers. They have about 2,000 customers and generate software and hardware-based revenue. Additionally, they collect about 30 million data points every month. This is where we bridge the gap between traditional businesses and crypto economies: We can start to rethink how we can deploy our blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies into existing lines of business that aren't just crypto solutions. Just think about what that could do to evangelize the entire cryptocurrency and blockchain industry? We have a big vision around this that we are excited to share!

What's next for Constellation Network?

We have a whole five-year roadmap ahead of us. It's pretty exciting. We're seeing a lot of people in businesses that weren't able to use blockchain technology, because of how expensive it was, come into our ecosystem and learn how they build a business for the future and tap into the esoteric crypto industry. For example, we're incubating about 35 different companies right now that are rethinking their traditional business model to incorporate a cryptocurrency component to it.

We are also two years into working with the Department of Defense and the United States Air Force to use our network and solutions to improve how they process and communicate data across various networks to different agencies and vendors. It's a really exciting time to be a part of this space because so many people are rethinking past paradigms of technology.