2016:
- Loads of work done (several people several weeks) on getting "Crust" ready. This is the lowest layer where IP-addresses and NAT and hole punching take part. Maidsafe wanted SAFE to be
encrypted from bit 1. So the public keys to connect to the bootstrap-servers are used from bit 1. Your node connects over an encrypted layer to the bootstrap-server and gets IP's from other users to connect to. This work payed off very well as I was able to connect to around 30 tot 40 nodes under a few seconds in several test-nets from home. All these connection were encrypted so no ISP will ever understand what you do on SAFE if they look from the outside. - This year we finally saw test-nets with "Vaults" which we ran from home. This is also very important as SAFE will be a fully encrypted P2P-network that stores everything from websites to data. We've had around 5 or 6 test-nets with Vaults from home.
- Another thing we got in 2016 was the client-part of the network. SAFE will never force you to run a Vault, instead everybody should be free to connect to the network and browse websites and data. Maidsafe proved that both "Self_Authentication" and "Self_Encryption" worked like they intended. Same for a decentralized DNS where everyone can register their own public name and/or domain. The concept of SAFE is feasible.
- Dynamic data was added as well. This means you can own an address on the network, store a .txt file on it which you can change time and time again. The address of the file will stay the same but the bits so to speak can be updated. This is VERY important for every P2P-network that wants to host websites as well. Think of forums, reply-fields and more.
- Maidsafe sold a piece of the company using BankToTheFuture. The equity sell was successful and Maidsafe formed a joint-venture in Hong-Kong called "Maidsafe Asia".
- Maidsafe will work with the University of Glasgow where computer science students will build apps and stuff for SAFE.
- Routing got a complete overhaul as explained in the "Disjoint Groups" RFC. Routing is the layer above "Crust". This was several months work but will make routing more secure.
- API's were released which let external devs connect their apps to SAFE. A series of tutorials showed the inner workings of these API's and external devs created apps based on them
2017:
- We are again waiting for Vaults. This shouldn't be that exciting as we already had like 5 or 6 test-nets with Vaults. But here's the catch: In the upcoming Vaults the new routing (Disjoint Groups) is implemented. Each chunk of data will be stored at least 8 times on the network. This is an upgrade from the former 3 times. The new routing will have a system implemented which can merge/split groups when they become to small/big so this will also help data-retention on the network. Remember that all data, including your personal encrypted files are chunked and stored on the network. In the old test-nets people lost their account quite quickly (in days) because of nodes joining and leaving the network. My guess is that data-retention is massively improved with the new routing. No matter what data you need, it's like BitTorrent but with always 8 seeders to serve your needs. When 1 Vaults goes offline, the other 7 will find a new one as fast as possible.
- Safecoin is next when we have stable vaults on a stable network. We'll see test-Safecoin first. Transactions are expected to finalize under a second. There's no scaling problem as well like with blockchains as SAFE uses a different protocol. Hundreds to thousands of transactions a second will be possible.
- "Node Ageing" is a protocol where nodes (Vaults) join the network in a secure manner. It will kill slow and corrupt nodes.
- Farming is what mining is for blockchain networks. It means joining the network, delivering and storing chunks and route data. You get paid Safecoin when you deliver a chunk of data from your Vault.
- "Archive Nodes" will allow the network to fully crash (like with a worldwide power blackout) and come back online with all data available again. Archive Nodes will store all the data from a group and a "datachain" containing all the hashes from bigger parts of the network.
Hope this gives some idea about the current status of SAFE and the upcoming releases. I'm mostly looking forward to the new Vaults. The team said in November that this is their primary focus: delivering Vaults to the community again. I guess it will be called TEST 12 and it should be there in the coming weeks as they're being tested over the last few weeks.
