Blockstack is building the new decentralized internet. You own your data and apps run locally without remote servers.
It’s an open-source project with support from around the world. Blockstack has been in production for over three years and as of this writing has 75,953 domains registered and 13,149 community members.
The team is led by co-founders Muneeb Ali and Ryan Shea.
Essentially what Blockstack is doing is creating the infrastructure for building on the new decentralized internet.
The idea is to decentralize the central points of failure of the current internet. Those are the Domain Name System (DNS) and Certificate Authorities.
The problem with the current DNS system is that web addresses are centralized. Blockstack would put web addresses on the decentralized blockchain. You wouldn’t have to trust a single authority anymore. It would also eliminate the need for Certificate Authorities.
The real breakthroughs with Blockstack is eliminating the need for passwords and enabling human readable names.
Once you’re signed up with Blockstack you can use your Blockstack ID to sign into other apps. No long do you have to create a new password every time.
You can also turn your blockchain addresses into human readable addresses. It’s a pain point right now and will make the blockchain easier to use for mainstream users.
Right now Blockstack works on top of the bitcoin blockchain. However, Blockstack intends to run its own blockchain on top of bitcoin and utilize it’s native ‘stacks’ token. It’s running a token sale right now. You can find out more at the website.
This is just the tip of the iceberg on Blockstack. I plan to write more in the future as I go through all the features.
I went ahead and installed Blockstack, created an ID, and got it up to Trust Level 2. So far so good and easy to use.
The drawback is the bitcoin wallet is not supported in the Windows build, so I’ll have to wait before I can officially purchase my ID.
I don’t know about you but I look forward to a decentralized internet and Facebook dying.
Blockstack is one to watch.