MAID is one of the few high market cap tokens operating on Bitcoin's omni-layer so I thought I'd check it out.
It's currently sitting at rank no #144 with a marketcap of $143 million, around three times as much as Hive's
But is it worth three times as much as hive?
What is MaidSafe? https://safenetwork.tech/
It's a company based in Scotland whose primary aim is to develop an autonomous, decentralised data storage network that runs on the spare capacity of people's home computers and which can't be shut down or censored.
The Safe network aims to secure data by encrypting and storing it across multiple computers (including people's home PCs), and by shifting that data around constantly in an untraceable fashion to guarantee privacy. You will be able to browse information anonymously and without a password
Access to your stored data will be via self-authentication so no third parties have access to it, and you can port it.
You'll only pay fees when you upload, so no monthly costs for storage.
Safecoin will also distributed via the network, which will be used to reward users for providing storage capacity (running a vault) and to pay developers.
Not a blockchain
NB the safe network won't be a blockchain, it is designed to be an autonomous network - computers connect directly with each other to provide storage space and then there's a routing layer and rules which will sit on top of that to move data around and ensure computers are in consensus.
Safecoin/ MaidSafeCoin
Safecoin is the coin that users will get paid in for providing storage space in the network and for developers when users use their dapps, proportional to the usage.
There will be no public ledger, as it's not a blockchain, with transactions only know to the previous people in the chain of transactions. This ensures privacy.
NB - MAID was a crowdfunding initiative launched in 2014 to fund the development of the SAFE netowrk, and every MaidSafe coin will be swapped for one Safecoin when the network starts.
What can you do with MaidSafeCoin?
NOTHING at the moment as the network described above isn't yet operational.
When it gets swapped for Safecoin you'll be able to stake and farm rewards for providing data storage, that's it!
ATM all you can contribute on github or ask questions on a forum though. Here
Safecoin will be distributed on the following basis:
- (1) Pay Vaults for providing service (85% of rewards)
- (2) Pay developers who produce apps that people use (10% of rewards)
- (3) Pay the maintainers of the Network code (5% of rewards)
As far as I can figure out from the white paper Safecoin is capped at 4.2 billion coins, with 400 million Maid currently printed.
So there's plenty of scope for the coin to go down in value once the network is up and running.
The timeless roadmap
There is quite an extensive roadmap with lots of features ticked off and seemingly not too many to go, but there are NO DATES on the existing roadmap, and given that the project started in 2006, I'm not holding out too much hope of the Safe Network springing into life anytime soon.
The best source to get yourself an overview of what the project aims to do is the fundamentals page.
MaidSafeCoin/ Safecoin - worth more than Hive?
Well the project - decentralised peer to peer storage of data linked with a 'cryptocurrency' is the dream, right?
However, it's now been 15 years since the project founded and no banana, and with only 90% of the coins yet to start being printed (I think) I think I might sit this one out!