Move over Pied Piper, there’s a new guy in town.

Unfortunately for Richard Hendrix, there is plenty of competition sprouting up in the race towards building a decentralized internet.

Today’s coin has been gaining traction, and requested by our community: Substratum.

Let’s dig in…

Substratum (ticker: SUB)

Mid-Tier Shitcoin

Wtf is this shit?

Substratum is creating a decentralized internet platform. The Substratum Network, much like any other distributed platform, is made up of many nodes, in this case Substratum nodes. You can spin one up by downloading the Substratum software.

Basically, nodes allow anyone to host or access content on this new web. If you want to host, then you can run a node and get rewarded in SUB for your contribution to the network.

Some cool shit about their architecture:

• There are Substratum nodes
• Each node is part of a neighborhood, made up of other Substratum nodes
• Each node is only aware of immediate neighbors (according to Substratum this is to boost anonymity for nodes and security from penetration)

When someone requests a website:

• A node creates a Request Package for an immediate neighbor. (A Request Package contains a bunch of encrypted data like the fee payload, to and from destinations, and a route stack)
• The route stack is pre-determined by the original node.
• The route is just defining which nodes data will pass through...basically.
• Each route is different, so routes to hosts, clients, and the data associated is more secure.
• Substratum nodes only know the IP addresses of immediate neighbors...and nothing about the client or host.
• Only the node intended to receive the Request Package can decrypt it...no other node will be able to process the package.
• All of this is to reduce the potential attack surface.

Substratum is working on different products as well:

• Substratum Host, a web hosting provider to compete with GoDaddy, Namecheap, and AWS. They will take advantage of their peer-to-peer network to reduce costs and improve reliability and usability. Hosted websites will be accessible by both the centralized and decentralized web and users will have access to an easy-to-use control panel similar to CPanel or PHPMyAdmin. 
• CryptoPay, an online payment processing system that companies can easily integrate with.
• Amplify, an exchange they are building, primarily decentralized...using the Amplify blockchain, a blockchain they built..PoS consensus to offer cheap fees and fast order-matching...we recommend reading more about this effort.

They also offer developer tools (APIs and SDKs) for people to create apps and websites on the Substratum platform.

Anyways, there ya go - the effort is to create a decentralized internet. 

Why tf is this important?

We won't spend too much time here as it gets a bit philosophical but in recent years the need for a decentralized internet has grown significantly. We have rampant censorship in the form of governments restricting access to websites and content. Have you ever heard of the Great Firewall of China? No, we didn't just make that up, it's a real thing. It's a combination of legislation and technology which China has implemented to restrict domestic access to the internet. The result: In China, you need a VPN to access Google.

But wait, there's more..

Do you look forward to the days where you'll have to pay your mobile service provider extra for access to YouTube, Facebook, Netflix...? Yep, Net Neutrality. Big companies are always looking for new opportunities to screw their customers. One of the latest being the prioritization and throttling of internet access. This is some pretty messed up shit.

These are just some of the ways a decentralized internet can improve on what we have now. Now back to your regularly schedule programming :)

Who tf is behind this shit?

They have three co-founders: Justin Tabb (CEO), Abram Cookson (CIO), and B.J. Allmon (COO).

Justin has been doing a solid job leading Substratum, and has previous experience as the founder of OverridePro, a web development company, with some major clients including Apple and Facebook.

Abram, their CIO, has experienced as a consultant in the software development world...working with both large and small companies. He was also the CTO for a couple of healthcare-technology companies.

B.J.’s background is not quite as clear, but has experience in product development, leadership...and also seems to make his own music when he can.

B.J. and Abram both worked at a company called Cardinal Health it seems.

All in all, mid-tier shitcoin, major aspirations, seems a bit high, but let’s see how they do.  

Hope you learned some shit.

Chat soon!

- Mike and Aaron