Proof of Resource and the SAFE Network
The SAFE Network is a vast project which involves many different technological innovations. That’s hardly surprising when you consider that our mission is to provide a new decentralised internet that will provide privacy, security and freedom for the world. But it does mean that it’s not unusual to find that certain principles behind the SAFE Network architecture require a little bit more explanation than others.
One of the ways that we’ve addressed this is by releasing a few high-level videos: for example, explaining why a SAFE future can’t be blockchain-based and Safecoin, the utility token that will incentivise participation in the Network. In essence, these are just taster videos to give people a place to start in their journeys into the SAFE Network.
Today, we’re releasing another video and once again it’s been funded by donations received from SAFE supporters around the world as part of the Community Engagement Programme (thanks once again to everyone who contributed!). The new video focuses on Proof of Resource and you can now check it out below:-
But what is Proof of Resource? Well, with the recent growth of the crypto-economy, many people are familiar with Proof of Work. Even if the details remain hazy, there’s a general awareness that it has something to do with “expensive Bitcoin mining” that’s taking place around the world. So we feel that it’s important to explain what Proof of Resource is and why it’s different. Hopefully this video will not only introduce some to the concept but it will also help to remind people that the SAFE Network doesn’t use blockchain technology.
Put simply, the Network uses Proof of Resource to check that Farmers (the nodes that store chunks of encrypted data) are following the rules of the Network. Proof of Resource measures a Vault’s ability to retrieve or store chunks of data based on its CPU Speed, bandwidth availability, disk space and online time. It’s a way of ensuring that all Network nodes are up to scratch. Fail to reach that standard and that node is removed from the Network automatically.
The video is just a taster and there is of course much more detail available elsewhere about how Proof of Resource works on a technical level. So if you’ve got further questions about how this — or any other aspect of the SAFE Network — works, check out the SAFE Network Primer and join the Community Forum (https://safenetforum.org/) where you can become one of the thousands of people who are discussing the growing world of the SAFE Network everyday.
