Vision
Akord's vision for data ownership was forged in response to three unresolved issues relating to data storage: permanence; privacy; and people. In our current Web 2.0 world, the way that these issues play out is that data is vulnerable to take-down, unapproved readers, and can't necessarily be shared or traded in a safe manner. Akord - co-founded by Richard Caetano and in partnership with Arweave - is concentrating its efforts on building a data storage solution which will ensure that owned data cannot be copied, manipulated, changed, or censored, and can be shared and interacted with in a manner which the customer decides.
The Social Vault
The Social Vault is Akord's proposed solution to these data storage issues.
"Think of the Social Vault as a DAO for data"
Instead of file-sharing with a cloud provider where the customer owns an account but relies on them as a company to administer the account (and where the customer has to hope that they don't lose access to the account, can afford the account in perpetuity, and isn't ever unfortunate enough to be physically or mentally unable to make decisions on their own behalf), Akord's Social Vault ensures data remains in place, secure, and in custody of those in whom the customer trusts. It does this by allowing the customer to pay upfront at a reasonable cost for data storage in perpetuity; and set access permissions to the vault.
The use cases for this form of data storage are endless. To name just a few, priceless and irreplaceable memories in the form of family photos; important legal documents which must be preserved; or unreleased music compositions. Any person who deems their information to be sufficiently important that it requires permanent storage and tightly controlled access could be a real beneficiary of what Akord is building.
Start with 100MB free: Akord is running a promotion currently which provides you with 100MB of free storage
"It's about exchanging data in perpetuity and making it really easy to access that data and set permissions..."
"The world right now is so complex and so confusing, there's been a collapse of reference points, we are in a post-truth world...it's an overwhelming time for humanity. The antidote to that is simplicity - foundational trust - what we have not seen before Arweave is permanent data storage, everything has been temporal based... what makes Arweave so special is that you pay upfront and the endowment takes care of the perpetual storage for your data."
Akord had designed a cryptoledger to give the customer powerful properties, in that no-one at Akord could change a customer's transaction, no-one at Akord could sign on behalf of the customer, nor could anyone at Akord see the customer's data. But this design alone did not deliver censorship-resistance, which Akord considered imperative for it to meet its objectives. Once they discovered Arweave, they knew they had found the network on top of which they wanted to build.
The next stage of Akord's progression will entail developing the Akord Explorer (a blockchain explorer to track activity on the network) and The Gallery (the viewer for the customer's contents inside of the Social Vault). This will largely be an open-source enterprise.
Beyond this, the Akord team hope to move its whole business model (distribute tokens; establish revenue streams; form DAO) onto the Arweave network in 2022.
To facilitate this development, Akord is looking for:
1) Smartweave developers to build out the social vault protocol as well as web developers
2) A community manager to drive organic growth
If you are interested to find out more about what Akord is building:
Website: http://akord.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AkordTeam
Discord: https://discord.gg/qgYGhHfS
