I had Just finished reading an article about privacy and how the likes of Google, facebook, twitter etc leak(hand over) our meta data, the government are using our data incorrectly and I wished there was a way I could get away from this trap that everyone seemed not to be aware of or dont just take it serious at all. Then I remembered the Edward Snowden's drama from 3 years ago, isn't it funny how everyone else has forgotten about it?.
I spent hours thinking about this until I got an email notification that I had received 100$ worth of bitcoin on my Blockchain wallet, prior to that I had totally forgotten about Cryptocurrencies. I had forgotten that Cryptocurrencies came to take power from the government and give it back to us.
I had a big smile on my face afterwards, then i opened twitter app on my phone just so I could see the latest tweets on Crypto Twitter (its always fun). I saw a tweet on someone's twitter feed which was a reply to another tweet saying "Bitcoin Fixes This". Immediately I read that, the first thought that came to my mind was, "does Bitcoin solve our privacy issues and the incorrect use of our metadata by the government?". The answer is "No" right?. Bitcoin doesn't fix everything.
I decided to make a reseach on cryptocurrency projects that were planning to solve this "big issue" that no one spoke about. I searched through different articles for about one hour and I found none, I was frustrated. I decided that I would check the top 100 "Cryptos" on Coinmarketcap and read their bio to see if they are working on something related.I had only checked about 5 or 6 different cryptocurrencies (started from the bottom) when I saw something that caught my attention - Status.
Their Team did a good Job in writing the "bio", a really good job and I'm going to copy paste it in here for you to read.
About Status
"Status (SNT) is an open source messaging platform and mobile interface built to interact with applications that run on the Ethereum network. The Status network token (SNT) is a utility token that fuels a decentralized push notification market, governance of the Status client, along with curation of user-generated content on the network. The team at Status hopes to promote adoption of the decentralized web while staying true to principles such as liberty, security, privacy, transparency, inclusivity and censorship resistance".
It was all I needed to see. Before I began my research about Status to be sure it wouldnt be a waste of time, I had to check something. The marketcap at the time was about $45Million and the volume was about $190Million. I was really impressed, thats 4.5x it's market cap. I was only focused on one thing which was mainly privacy and security of my meta data and that was why immediately i opened Status's website i went to the features page so i could read about their messenger.
Upon loading the page, I realized that Status already launched their Messenger App already and i was surprised no one was talking about it and it was what prompt me to write this article. The Status team is really good at catching someone's attention and they did it again on this page, they explained how their "Secure Messenger" works and made sure I clicked the "Learn More" button so i could get more(a lot) technical information.
Private Messaging with Whisper
"Whisper uses peer-to-peer dark routing–making it impossible for anyone (including us) to know anything about you or who you're communicating with. We're also conducting R&D in improved messaging protocols."
Perfect Forward Secrecy & E2E Encryption
"Status uses the ‘Double Ratchet’ algorithm on top of Whisper and end-to-end encryption for the highest grade of security and privacy."
The two pararaphs above were from Status's website and they explained how the secure messenger works, you got it right? if you still want more technical information on that, you can check through this link:
After reading all through, I was already a big fan of Status but it wasnt all done yet, they had other amazing features which i will list and then you can check their webpage (status.im) to learn more about them.
- Governance over the Status Client
- Username Registration over ENS
- Community Curation and Content Discovery
- A Decentralized Push Notification Market
- The Status Teller Network
- he Status Sticker Market
- The Status DApp Directory
- Access to Features like “Tribute to Talk”
- The Status Acquisition Engine
You will need the Status Network Token which is built on the Ethereum network to access/use any of the above features and that is a whole lot of utility in one app which is live already and can be downloaded from their website - https://status.im/get/.
I'm a big fan of Status already and I'm ditching whatsapp for Status's app, although the app needs a lot of UI/UX improvments, ain't no way I'm risking my metadata being leaked out when there is a solution already.
Join me on my journey, henrybitmod.stateofus.eth