Unigrid, a blockchain network, has vowed to become “The first totally decentralized and anonymous alternative to the ordinary internet.”
While the internet now pervades every part of our lives, it is not without its flaws. With high-profile data breaches exposing sensitive information, digital footprints have sparked persistent privacy worries. Censorship is also a concern, with some regimes censoring websites and jamming communications.
Today’s internet, according to Unigrid, is centralized and controlled by giant enterprises running huge data centers,” putting regular users’ personal data in their hands. Its network is dubbed a “low-level backbone” for a completely decentralized internet. Grid Nodes provide storage and communication routes, as well as acting as a swarm of proxies to keep data encrypted at all times.
Unlike traditional blockchains, which store data in a vertical structure by adding new blocks to previous ones, the Unigrid network shards data across an ever-growing number of blockchains for “redundancy, speed, security, and the ability to scale.”
Unigrid says its approach may help increase internet adoption and usage while also addressing the industry’s pain issues, such as high prices and limited product offers.
“Unigrid will give the world a global and democratic network constructed for the people, by the people,” Network Co-founder, Adam Waldenberg stated.
“With redundant storage and services on a global scale, we can put an end to unpredictable downtimes and make them a thing of the past,” adds Waldenberg, on Unigrid’s potential to improve internet efficiency.
For a long time, outages have been a major topic, with Amazon Web Services recently experiencing its third outage in 2021. Coinbase, Robinhood, Disney, and Netflix were among the major businesses hit. The network also intends to expand internet access by lowering prices with blockchain technology.
Unigrid emphasizes that the cloud computing market is worth a staggering $300 billion at present and these figures are only set to grow in the coming years. To spread adoption, the Unigrid Foundation is planning a series of hackathons to educate developers and partner with universities and scientific facilities, donating storage space on the network.
Additionally, the network has a number of use cases, including providing a safe environment in which medical records can be shared with trustworthy parties. Data on the network is also delivered from low-latency servers, and new decentralized apps can be built using popular programming languages. It also claims it will be the ideal site for storing unique photos and files, with high fees on the Ethereum network compelling NFT authors to store material on centralized Web 2.0 platforms.
According to Unigrid, many projects claim to be decentralized but in reality, many do not allow nodes to democratically contribute to the network. The project adds that this effectively moves the centralization to another point of failure rather than solving the underlying problem once and for all.
The blockchain network has a data center based in Gothenburg, Sweden with hundreds of servers ready and raring to go.
Unigrid and the Unigrid Foundation have enormous aspirations for the network, even if it is still in its infancy. They have a number of projects planned for the following year. For starters, they are excited by the prospect of integrating data storage. They also plan to add virtual private network (VPN) connections to the network. Finally, a new JavaFX wallet will be released.