In the age of information, data is pretty much the most important asset you could have. The modern-day technologies were specifically designed to harness as much of it as possible in order to boost sales, and that includes everything — from who you are to where you go, what you do, what your interests are, and more. In other words, on the current, decentralized version of the internet, not a single detail that concerns you is truly private.
All of this data is harnessed by mega-corporations, governments, hackers, advertising companies, and pretty much anyone else who can benefit from it in any way. And, even the data that you store willingly on cloud services is not safe, because it is stored on centralized servers. These are the servers owned by companies, and as such, they grant these companies full insight into the information that you are storing.
This is why, in 2018, Jonathan Schemoul, aka Moshe Malawach, decided to create a solution that would offer an alternative to the current state of things. He created Aleph.im, basing it in Paris, France, and setting it up as an open-source, blockchain-agnostic network that would offer decentralized database services, such as computing, file storage, and DID (decentralized identity) framework. Today, we wanted to see what this project has to offer, and whether or not it can be a good investment opportunity for those seeking to diversify their portfolios by including some less popular projects and their altcoins.
How Does Aleph.im (ALEPH) Work?
Aleph.im is a cloud computing platform for DeFi and Web3, but simplified to a level where it is accessible and useful to everyone. It is blockchain-agnostic, lightning-fast comes at an extremely low cost, and it is fully trustless thanks to its transparency. The project offers access to multiple of its own dApps, which let users back up their NFTs, stake their coins, pin their files, folders, or IPFS hashes, and more.
The project offers users the ability to build dApps without the centralized components, thus making them truly decentralized. As such, it is offering the first generation of fully decentralized applications that are 100% what they claim to be, and in a way, this is also revolutionizing the entire DeFi sector, as well.
What Problems Does Aleph.im (ALEPH) Solve?
To start off, let’s take a look at some of the solutions that the project has to offer, as well as the problems that it seeks to address.
Interoperability
The first thing to note is that Aleph.im is a blockchain-agnostic project, which means that it is not bound to a single chain, but rather, that it can be integrated with multiple ones. This is a feature known as interoperability, which makes its service cross-chain. This is important because interoperability is crucial for the future of blockchain technology and the creation of Web3, but not a lot of projects can achieve it yet, which gives Aleph.im the edge against the competition. In addition, it can serve users from multiple chains, meaning that they don’t have to switch to a specific chain on which it would otherwise have to run.
Decentralized file storage, computing, and DID framework
We talked about how important decentralization is for the security of data. On centralized platforms, your data is fully available to the company that owns the service you are using, but in a decentralized world — there is no central authority. Everything is run by the community, so your data is only yours to access and use. This means that it is safe to use Aleph.im’s services, such as file storage, cloud computing, and even storing sensitive information, such as your digital identity.
Boosting the DeFi ecosystem
Aleph.im has an interesting core mission, which is to help decentralized applications and protocols reach 100% decentralization. As things are now, they are still mostly decentralized, but they do have certain aspects of centralization. With its technology, the project can strip off the centralized parts of its stack, achieving a fully decentralized architecture, and in doing so, it is essentially supercharging the DeFi ecosystem.
Blending on-chain and off-chain technologies
Aleph.im is a unique project that has the ability to blend on-chain and off-chain decentralized technologies. Essentially, its decentralized network is the off-chain component. However, it can only be interacted with through a blockchain network, which is the on-chain part. This allows for several key features, such as advanced crypto-economics and increased security.
Benefits of Aleph.im (ALEPH)
Next, let’s talk about some of the benefits that you can experience directly by interacting with Aleph.im. There are several important ones to note, such as:
Greater security
Security on the internet is of utmost importance, as losing your data and having it fall into the wrong hands can cost you, a lot. If your banking information gets stolen, your money can be stolen by hackers, and if your personal data is compromised, you can even experience cases of identity theft. Not to mention business secrets, private purchases, and other information that is not meant to be shared with the public. Thanks to blockchain technology and Aleph.im’s personal approach to securing data, all of your information stored within the project’s network will be safe.
Lightning speed
We have come to live fast and expect our technology to be even faster than that. As a result, speed is of extreme importance in these emerging technologies. If you need further evidence of this, just take a look at Ethereum’s network, which is extremely slow and unable to scale. Because of it, there are now countless Ethereum alternatives, and developers, users, and even entire projects are choosing to switch to them and abandon Ethereum.
Speed will be even more crucial in the future when Web3 becomes a norm, and most of the internet users around the world start using decentralized projects. The demand alone will require speed and scalability in order for the projects to be able to satisfy demand, and without it, they will be replaced by better, faster alternatives.
Low cost
With speed also comes low cost. In fact, with projects such as Aleph.im, the low cost comes for two reasons. The first is, of course, the speed. With the project being able to process transactions almost instantly, there are no long waiting times that would result in people offering higher fees to have their transactions processed faster.
The second reason is once again a result of decentralization. Centralized companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, which also offer storage solutions and cloud computing services, have to buy and maintain servers around the world, and that costs money. So, in order to be able to profit, they have to charge for their services. In a decentralized world, the community contributes to the project and gets rewards from the protocol, so users don’t have to pay massive fees to use these protocols and their services.
Gain actual ownership of your data
Finally, with your data only accessible to you and no one else, you can be sure that you are the only person who actually owns it. This ownership of data is unique to the blockchain, as you don’t really own anything on the internet, including the things you paid for. You have simply obtained a license to own assets, and as far as your data goes, you are freely sharing it under the false impression that it is stored privately.
Bottom Line
Aleph.im is a revolutionary project that stands to seriously disrupt online database networks by making its own decentralized, fast, secure, and available to everyone at an extremely low cost. As such, we believe that it has great potential to thrive in the future. Especially when Web3 reaches mass adoption and when it becomes one of the biggest providers of this kind of service in a decentralized and safe environment.
