As we all anticipate, patiently or impatiently, the full release of the SAFE Network implementation, it’s easy to overlook a few things of which the technology is capable RIGHT NOW. These are milestones which have slipped by without massive celebration because they are not the fulfillment of the whole dream.
Yet these milestones are hugely significant. In fact, they are so significant that MaidSafe could have a multibillion dollar valuation right now, if David and the team were willing to just develop a product something short of the complete vision of Privacy, Security and Freedom for Everyone.
Think for a moment about what we have functioning right now. There is a vault network running on data center machines. What 100 vaults? There is still to finish the implementation to deal with the wild, wild world of complete unbridled peer-to-peer, where some people will be trying to connect monster vaults and others will be trying to use low-spec smart phones. (That last is not an easy problem, though I have every confidence that it will be in place in fairly short order.)
But say that MaidSafe wanted to “go to market” as a proprietary system and run a network which could be accessed by anyone, be private and secure, without backdoors. Do you think they could make some money charging people for storing data and communicating via that network? Do you think they could make a billion dollars licensing the technology to a more closed market?
The impact of where we are at started to surface after I participated in what I think is an historic accomplishment, which it turns out wasn’t as unique as I thought. @19eddyjohn75 appreciated my podcasting and promotional efforts for the community, and decided to send me some bitcoin. That’s not unusual. He’s been my most generous donor. What was different is that he paid me via the SAFE Network, an action which is significant. How did he do it? Using the Tutorial Mail App, he sent me the PRIVATE KEY to a bitcoin address containing what he wanted me to have.
To have done this via regular email would have been somewhat unthinkable. Encrypting it would have made the transaction workable over email, but we’d have to have exchanged keys, etc. Complicated.
Instead, he just entered the key as part of his message and sent it. That’s how secure the system is inherently. Of course, this is a Test Network, so all disclaimers apply. But he trusted it because he understood that NO ONE ELSE could intercept it, or even know that he had communicated to me.
My thanks to @neo for his insights that helped bring home the significance of that with this post.
Of course, such communications had already been occurring since the first test nets, just not with money involved, as far as I know. The point is that there is no way I or anyone else COULD know, unless they participated or found out from a participant. (Again test network disclaimers apply.)
So, as much as I would like to make a big deal out of how I took part in the first passage of monetary value over as SAFE Network implementation, that’s not the point that we should be appreciating.
What we should take away is the David Irvine could have taken his genius visions of this technology and made a billion dollars on just the component breakthroughs he’s made to accomplish the whole. At any of a number of points, he could have pivoted MaidSafe to be a proprietary technology company and licensed various aspects for literally billions, enriching himself and his early investors handsomely. Instead he’s keep to the vision of Secure Access For Everyone, with Privacy, Security and Freedom as the default.
He’s amassed a team and a growing community to share in the bigger vision. So I can comfortably say that WE are changing the world here. And very shortly the broader world will start to see that which many of us here on the forum have seen for some time. The world will change in ways that it is hard to grasp.
