MaidSafe announced last week that hundred of developers hadalready 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 sothat only its owner has unilateral access to it.

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

Here are a few examples of applications currently underdevelopment:

●    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 firstworking 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 walletaddress (safecoin is the SAFE network’s currency) and get paid by the networkrelative 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 anyonedeveloping along this network.

First, the free, peer-to-peer structure means acquiringusers costs nearly nothing. Neither awareness nor costs should impede useradoption; 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 inreal-time to demand fluctuations.”

MaidSafe

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

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

“I thought the internet had become a very unnatural design and could notbear to see people lose control of their identities and personal thoughts,” CEODavid Irvine told us in April. “I figured that with all the computing resourceavailable in people’s personal computers that we could do a much better jobwith 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 isvery obvious. Math is correct and repeatable; and there are not many equationsthat become greedy and corrupt. The simplification of complex systems is anever-ending job and one we should all welcome.”