MaidSafe announced last week that hundred of developers had already signed up to help create decentralized apps on their network.

That network, called SAFE (“Secure Access For Everyone”), relies on blockchain technology that shreds, encrypts and distributes data so that only its owner has unilateral access to it.

Now, MaidSafe is ready to build applications on this platform, which it says “holds the promise of decentralizing nearly every aspect of the internet, including all web services.”

Here are a few examples of applications currently under development:

●     altcoin wallets

●     unlimited file storage and sharing applications

●     a decentralized music store

●     secure messaging applications

●     a decentralized altcoin and fiat currency exchange

The Business Model

MaidSafe’s creators think they have created the first working open source business model.

Developers will not need to support or promote their apps, according to a statement. Instead, they can just code in their safecoin wallet address (safecoin is the SAFE network’s currency) and get paid by the network relative to the number of people who use their apps.

“This will enable them to stay focused on what they do best: creating great software,” the statement read.

Such a model opens up a few big opportunities for anyone developing along this network.

First, the free, peer-to-peer structure means acquiring users costs nearly nothing. Neither awareness nor costs should impede user adoption; the primary factor will be the app’s utility for the end user.

Second, security and privacy are built in to the network.

Finally, MaidSafe notes its network supports “a back-end infrastructure that automatically adapts in real-time to demand fluctuations.”

MaidSafe

This has already been a big year for MaidSafe, a project that has been underway since 2006. Last month, its crowd sale of mastercoins brought in $8 million. 

MaidSafe’s goal is nothing short of overhauling the internet, or at least the current paradigms under which most people use it.

“I thought the internet had become a very unnatural design and could not bear to see people lose control of their identities and personal thoughts,” CEO David Irvine told us in April. “I figured that with all the computing resource available in people’s personal computers that we could do a much better job with what we have.”

In that same interview, a Bitcoin:money::MaidSafe:data analogy was made.

“I see both systems as vast improvements to society,” Irvine replied. “Removing the requirement for humans to do work and replacing this by math is very obvious. Math is correct and repeatable; and there are not many equations that become greedy and corrupt. The simplification of complex systems is a never-ending job and one we should all welcome.”