[walden42]

Decentralization, and thus p2p, is the very reason services like these are being created, to protect against censorship. That seems the logical next step.

And besides the "altcoin" problem, MaidSafe does this. You pretty much provide a hash to the API, and it fetches your files using chunks from a decentralized system. It's genius. All the hard work they're doing is the "magic work behind the scenes" that implements that.

As for the altcoin, the word "altcoin" connotates a "copy" of bitcoin or something negative. It's not fair to call SafeCoin an "altcoin", since it has nothing whatsoever to do with any other coins. It's completely original (and does not use a blockchain), and it deserves a chance to prove itself. But I understand all the bitcoin evangelists don't even want to consider that another digital currency can make it to the top.

[chuckup]

> But I understand all the bitcoin evangelists don't even want to consider that another digital currency can make it to the top.

Can you explain why "Safecoin" is needed and more importantly, how it is superior to Bitcoin? It sounds like a reinvention of something that already exists, done to raise funds (they wouldn't have received millions of USD$ in funding otherwise). I've never seen a good technical explanation, it's all very hand-wavy and vague.

Secondly, Maidsafe seems to be trying to solve a problem that does not exist - backing up personal data to a p2p network. It's a flawed idea because there is no way to know if your data is sitting on a botnet that could disappear any moment. There is a financial incentive to pretend to be multiple clients and use as little hardware as possible. Maidsafe cannot know if your 10 copies of data are on 10 hard drives or 1.

[walden42]

Ah I see you're not really familiar with the project. "backing up personal data to a p2p network" is far from what they're doing. They're creating the backbone for a completely decentralized internet. It's up to everyone to use their API to build the "apps" on the network, whether it's a website, social network, media site (youtube), etc. The possibilities are endless, just like the current internet you now use. The only difference is that it's made with security and privacy in mind. No DNS, centralized servers (like AWS), etc are required to host your apps--it's all taken care of for you.

On to your safecoin questions. They're inventing a new digital currency that aims to get rid of the problems that exist with bitcoin. Namely, scalability. If you're familiar with bitcoin, you'll know that every full node is aware of every transaction. The current limit is 7 transactions per second (though there are talks of lifting it, which has other implications, but that's another matter). Bitcoin also requires specialized hardware to mine and keep the network secure. Miners service no purpose except this end.

Safecoin has no blockchain, therefore not everyone is aware of all other transactions. Transaction are 100% free and unlimited, and the "miners" are nodes that provide storage and bandwidth on the network, thus adding actual value (and this is how the network AND safecoin is to be bootstrapped, answering your first question). Also, app-builders are also rewarded safecoins for people using their apps, adding further incentive to build on the network (yes, you can earn money just by building a useful app people love). Since all nodes don't need to know about every transaction, scalability is not an issue. DDOS protection is already built into the network.

I can go on, but in reality, if it works, it'll blow everything else out of the water and truly change the networking landscape. I'm actually planning to write a blog post explaining how it works since questions like yours come up all the time.

Edit: oh, and feel free to ask questions and browse posts on the forum at maidsafe.org.