DENT is a blockchain-based exchange platform that enables users to buy, sell, or donate mobile data. DENT Wireless Ltd. is the brains behind the project. The company, which is based in Hong Kong, began work on the project in 2014 with the goal of creating the world’s first global mobile data exchange.
DENT Pricing, Market Cap and Volume
DENT was launched in a crowdsale that was held in July of 2017. There is a finite supply of 100 billion DENT tokens, of which 70% were sold in the pre-sale round and public token sale. The remaining 30% is held by the DENT team for market seeding, telecom acquisitions, user incentives, and salaries and bonuses.
The value of DENT was relatively low for the majority of 2017, but it managed to become one of the top 100 crypto assets by market cap in 2018. Its market cap spiked in January 2018 to reach ~$1.1 billion USD, likely because of the growing interest in Bitcoin alternatives, but it failed to maintain an upward momentum.
Problems That DENT Addresses
1. Liberation of mobile data – DENT envisions a data sharing economy where users can freely buy, sell, or donate their mobile data to other users. The DENT exchange will act as a global marketplace for trading mobile data and DENT tokens will be the global currency used to facilitate trades between users and telecom companies.
2. Elimination of data roaming fees – International roaming is a big problem for anyone traveling abroad. By using local breakout (LBO), DENT can eliminate the cost drivers that cause high data roaming charges, such as expensive routings between carriers in different countries.
3. Purchase of mobile data – DENT can be used to purchase data packages for consumers and IoT devices. Users will get the best price from the most suitable carrier in their country without being concerned about buying too much or too little data. Operators can easily connect with DENT to serve a global consumer base.
Billions of Dollars Lost Every Year
An industry report by Parks Associates estimates that global mobile data usage brought in $386 billion USD in revenue for mobile network operators in 2015, and it may reach $630 billion USD by 2020. Under the existing model, access to mobile data is controlled by a few companies in every country. Those companies lock customers into rigid mobile data offerings that expire when unused after a period of time. Assuming just 15% of that data expires before it can be used, users lose $4.8 billion USD worth of value to telecom companies every month.
DENT wants to liberate mobile data by allowing users to sell or donate whatever extra mobile data is left over before their package expires to someone else via its mobile app. It also wants to build a community of mobile data users with sufficient power to participate in targeted global partnerships with telecom companies.
The DENT community will represent a “union” of telecom customers who can leverage their collective power to liberate mobile data. When you consider the lifetime value of a telecom customer, even a small community of just a few million users would represent hundreds of millions of dollars at stake for telecom. That’s enough to at least give DENT a seat at the table in negotiations with large carriers.
Strategic Partnerships
DENT already has strategic partnerships with influential mobile carriers from around the world, including: AT&T and Verizon (U.S.), Airtel (India), Vivo and Ol (Brazil), and America Movil and Telefonica (Mexico).
DENT Wireless also recently announced it has signed agreements to begin offering global airtime top-ups by the end of 2018. DENT users will be able to purchase airtime and send it to the users of over 400 mobile operators in 130 countries. The airtime recipients don’t even need to have the DENT app installed. They will receive an SMS notification from their carrier informing them that they have received airtime from DENT.
DENT’s long-term goal is to create a global marketplace for mobile data where users can directly buy, sell, or donate their data just like how other commodities are traded in international currencies around the world.
How DENT Works
The actual sale, purchase and donation of data packages is done on the Ethereum blockchain. Data packages offered by DENT are governed by Ethereum smart contracts controlled by the DENT exchange.
DENT’s internal token is the universal currency for purchasing mobile data. You can already use DENT tokens to buy data from carriers partnered with DENT Wireless, such as Verizon, AT&T, Telcel, and more. The DENT mobile app serves as the central interface for users to buy or sell mobile packages.
Using the Ethereum blockchain to create the marketplace saved the DENT team from having to build a blockchain system from scratch. Smart contracts provide a secure way of defining data packages and the process of buying and selling them, while simultaneously keeping an immutable ledger visible to everyone, which is crucial for preventing fraud. DENT gets all those benefits for free by adopting the Ethereum blockchain as part of its infrastructure.
DENT vs. Other Cryptocurrencies
There are very few blockchain projects that are attempting to combine digital assets with mobile data. DENT is the first project to tokenize mobile data on a global scale, and it has shown that its use case is plausible with the release of its mobile app. Here are some reasons why DENT stands out:
Clear Target – DENT is trying to capture low-income users in emerging markets that use prepaid cards to top-up mobile data.
Scaling Potential – The mobile data market is still growing and as a blockchain-based platform, DENT has the ability to scale and easily service millions of customers.
Unique Use Case – There is no established second-hand mobile data market. DENT is entering completely new territory.
Strategic Partnerships – DENT has already established partnerships with large data aggregators like U2opia (Asia) and Aquto (North and South America). These aggregators have agreements with several telecom operators that serve millions of customers.
Automated Data Purchase – DENT allows IoT devices with internet connectivity to automatically and securely purchase data packages from the DENT marketplace when they run out of data. This is will be valuable in a future where IoT devices are commonplace.
Buying and Storing DENT
DENT tokens can be bought and sold at Coinrail, Kucoin, HitBTC, OKEx, OKCOIN, Fatbtc, ForkDelta, EtherDelta, IDEX, Qryptos, and UPcoin. You can also buy tokens using PayPal directly from the DENT mobile app (available on Android and iOS).
DENT is an ERC20 token, which means it can be securely stored on Ethereum wallets like MyEtherWallet (MEW), Jaxx, Mist, and Parity. For long-term storage, hardware wallets like Ledger Nano S and Trezor are good choices.
Liquidity of DENT
DENT has fairly good market liquidity. It appears to be extremely popular in the Asian cryptocurrency market with exchanges like Coinrail, OKEx, and Kucoin carrying the largest global daily trading volume of DENT tokens. The value of DENT will likely increase if the market continues to expand and more data packages are introduced to the DENT Exchange. DENT presents a unique opportunity to leverage an existing market and it’s a project worth keeping an eye on.
