AKASHA
Advanced Knowledge Architecture for Social Human Advocacy
A friend of mine asked me to look into AKASHA recently and since I was doing all this research for him, I figured I might as well share my findings with my followers too. I'll be honest, ever since I heard what they are trying to do I have had a very skeptical point of view. I mean come on, they are talking about competing with Facebook, Steemit, and Reddit! Can they really have any chance at success?
What is AKASHA?
AKASHA is a decentralized application (dapp) that serves as new social media platform. Their mission is to create a new social media platform that is resistant to internet censorship. The platform is built on Ethereum and the Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS). It was difficult to find details on what exactly the IPFS is and how it works, but from I have been able to gather from Github, their blog, and Slack channel, it is built on many of the same principles commonly seen in peer to peer and torrent communities. So that means the articles and blogs found on Akasha do NOT reside on a central server, but spread across the AKASHA network.
The development team is talented and dedicated. Unlike so many projects out there, they posted all of their personal details. Also, the team at AKASHA took a very interesting approach to the way they announce themselves to the world. Instead of holding an ICO to raise money for development, they decided to build a working product and sort out the coin issue after their Alpha release. The Alpha release happened on December 24, 2016 and has been in continuous development since that time.
Currently the alpha release is out and functional. I have downloaded it and tested it. The install was quick and even with the Geth download it was done in under 10 minutes. Account creation was quick and very simple and I was ready to post within a couple of minutes. Despite the utter lack of instructions in the Alpha release, it was surprisingly easy to use. I was posting within a minute of creating an account. The UI is a bit clunky at the moment, but the team posted in May, 2017 that they are preparing a new UI to be released at some point this summer along with coin/token details.
ICO? Coins? Mining?
Since their inception, the team seems to have lived by the mantra: "dapp first, coins later." The team has continuously focused all their efforts on proving that their concept can work. Now that their Alpha release is doing well and preparing for a UI overhaul, they are finally talking about having an ICO and developing an ERC-20 token. The team is currently experimenting with several funding models and token ideas, but this information is very limited until they settle on the token model that is compatible with their dapp.
Unfortunately, that is where my research hit a wall. The team is not releasing any details about then token models they are experimenting with. They are trying to avoid media attention while they develop the new coin or token. From what I have been able to gather, there will be a developer blog update coming soon that will answer all the questions about their coin/token and maybe even details about their upcoming ICO.
Even though I doubt their ambitions for competing with all the major social media networks, I will continue to follow the development of AKASHA. The reason for my interest is their development team and their approach to the project. They are not here to just make a quick buck, they genuinely seem to want to make a difference in the world. As soon as I find out more details about their ICO, I will be posting a follow up article.
Thank you for reading and please upvote, follow, and resteem if your enjoyed my article. Or at least upvote 😉
AKASHA Image Source: AKASHA.world
Crypt0.Critic Images: CleverCat
This blog is written for informational and entertainment purposes only. As the author, I can honestly say that I am in no way associated with any blockchain based company. My opinions are my own and are offered freely. My opinions and suggestions and are NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE! Please do your own research before considering any high risk investments.