Akord: A next-generation storage application based on the Arweave network
Based on the Arweave network, Akord's digital vault can "permanently and securely" store users' files and information, supporting types ranging from personal photos to PDF files, with users including individuals, families, and businesses.Author: D1 Ventures
Akord recently completed a round of $2.3 million in funding, with investors including D1 Ventures, Maven11 Capital, SevenX Ventures, and the Arweave team.
Built on the Arweave network, Akord's digital vault can "permanently and securely" store users' files and information, supporting types ranging from personal photos to PDF files, with users including individuals, families, and businesses; Akord provides a complete set of solutions tailored to market needs, allowing users and developers to unlock more use cases and possibilities based on Akord's features.
As real life becomes increasingly "digital," the amount of data we own and need to store is growing, and existing solutions have their pros and cons. For example, hardware devices have advantages in security but are relatively closed and do not allow for good collaboration with others; cloud storage solutions like Dropbox excel in convenience and collaboration, but as centralized solutions, many users still have concerns about storing private or valuable information, and at the same time, cloud service providers may go bankrupt!
One-time payment, permanent storage
Akord, built on the Arweave network, features "one-time payment, permanent storage," allowing users to not worry about their data storage duration; Akord aims to protect your data until the end of the world.
To understand Akord, one cannot overlook its core component, Arweave. Arweave is a complete decentralized storage protocol that incentivizes miners to store as much data as possible, prioritizing the storage of scarce data with fewer copies.
Arweave's "Proof of Access" (PoA) is a simple extension of Proof of Work (PoW). Each round of PoW puzzles is related to a past block (memory block), and only miners who have stored the memory block are eligible to participate in the PoW guessing game. Since memory blocks are randomly determined and cannot be predicted in advance, the more blocks a miner stores, the greater their chances of participating in the PoW guessing game and receiving block rewards. If a miner's storage space is limited and cannot save the entire block history, they will prioritize storing blocks with fewer copies in the network. Because each block has an equal probability of being chosen as a memory block, when a scarce block is selected, only a few miners are eligible to participate in the PoW competition, making it more beneficial for miners to store scarce blocks. This ensures that scarce data can also be stored by miners.
Unlike other centralized or decentralized storage solutions, Arweave ensures data permanence and reliability. So far, several NFT markets or organizations have adopted Arweave as a solution, such as Mintbase, Machi X DAO, and Avastars.io.
As an upper-layer application of the Arweave network, Akord inherits this feature, allowing it to permanently store everything from family photos to favorite band songs and NFT metadata.
At the same time, Akord is gradually decentralizing, directly deploying its product on the Arweave network. Even if the Akord team stops development and maintenance, the product will continue to operate on the Arweave network, and the data stored by users will remain permanently available.
Security & Privacy
Akord employs end-to-end encryption technology to ensure the security and privacy of user data. Before being uploaded to the storage network, all user data is encrypted locally.
No third parties can access the data, there are no backdoors, service providers cannot monetize through advertising, and users do not need to worry about data breaches due to server hacks.
Collaboration
Any user can invite others to collaborate after creating their own data vault and grant corresponding permissions.
For example, if the creator of the data vault invites someone to become a contributor, they will have access to all core functions: publishing encrypted information, uploading files, adding new file versions, renaming files, etc. If the creator only grants someone "view" permissions, they can only view or download the relevant data.
This feature makes Akord collaborative, allowing users to manage or access data together with others, thus expanding the range of Akord users to include businesses, non-profit organizations, foundations, and other multi-person organizations.
Akord Product Progress
Akord was initially launched in March 2021 and is fully operational on the Arweave network, offering 500MB of free storage space to new registered users.
Currently, Akord has completed the basic functions of the product, including: member mode, search, notifications, decentralized storage, fiat payment (based on Stripe), referral programs, etc.
A week ago, the team released a new product, Akord Notes, allowing users to create their own notes in a secure and end-to-end environment, with no risk of data loss, leakage, or hacking.
In 2022, the team will continue to complete the product, including: Akord Explorer (a lightweight open-source client), Akord Notes, Public files (adding support for Arweave public files), mobile versions, etc.
Related References:
Liu Yi: The potential of Arweave is to revive the Library of Alexandria
Akord Documentation: https://docs.akord.com/
Akord Official Website: https://akord.com/
