MaidSafe’s SAFE Network in 90 seconds

Yes, the one featured on Silicon Valley.

The MaidSafe team is reinventing the internet. The SAFE Network will replace corporate servers (like Facebook data centers) with a peer-to-peer network (like file torrenting) — where all of humanity’s data can be spread out and securely, privately backed up across everyone’s computers using spare storage space.

A working Alpha version is already available.

It was invented a couple of years before Bitcoin was announced, and it’s powered by a cryptocurrency called Safecoin that doesn’t use blockchains at all — so there are no scaling problems (websites and data actually get faster as more people use and cache them); coin transactions are instant (rather than simply “fast”); and there are never any transaction fees for sending coins.

It’s free to browse this new internet — currently using the SAFE Browser available here, and likely with a simple browser extension in the future — but you’ll pay a nominal amount (fractions of pennies) for uploading data. You’ll also get paid for hosting other people’s data; assuming you want to offer up your own storage, then the fees cancel out and you end up with unlimited private cloud backup for all of your files.

The greatest thing, in my opinion, is that people who create apps for this network will get paid based on the usage of those apps — they won’t need to rely on advertising. To quote a recent new hire:

When we no longer pay for technology with our personal information and our attention, it allows for something remarkable: the worth of a product is based on its utility — what it can do for society — not on its ability to exploit people’s intimate data.

Want to learn more? Dive deep with this explanation if you’re familiar with Bitcoin terminology, otherwise watch this 2-minute video. Then head over to their subreddit.

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