Future in Focus: ADAMANT Messenger
Disclaimer: The Lisk Foundation in no way endorses projects that are interviewed for the series.
This week, the Future in Focus series takes a peek into the future of messenger services. We’re featuring Russia-based ADAMANT Messenger, a blockchain-based messenger with an integrated payment system. ADAMANT uses end-to-end encryption for all messages. We had the chance to speak with co-founder Dmitriy Soloduhin to learn a bit more about the project.
Jennifer: Please tell me a little more about the history of ADAMANT Messenger and your relationship to blockchain technology.
Dmitriy: I have always been a fan of new and interesting technologies. Prior to the founding of ADAMANT, one of the other founders, Alexey, was obsessed with cryptocurrencies, and offered to start a blockchain-based project. At first, it was simply a hobby, an interesting project to toy with and solve. But sometime later, I realized that this project could address the needs of many people and help make the world a better place. This is how ADAMANT came to be. There were many naming and design iterations before it ended up in its current state.
J: Why did the founders decide that the world needs ADAMANT Messenger?
D: The violation of privacy rights is becoming an ever-growing problem all over the world. Snowden’s 2013 leaks exposed the large scale of scandals involving the sale of customers’ personal data by big companies. Corporations often make customers sign finely printed terms and agreements that give software creators the right to exploit highly personal information. People need a secure and anonymous messenger encrypted with blockchain that does not collect any personal data. This is why the world needs ADAMANT Messenger.
J: Why did you decide to base ADAMANT Messenger in Lisk code?
D: We are big believers and proponents of open source. For this reason, we considered various open source projects to bootstrap our project. Most of the cryptocurrencies at the time (mid-2017) were simply forks of bitcoin. We initially began with a proof-of-work (PoW) system, but immediately decided against this, as it was not compatible in the long term with messengers, as nobody would like to wait for long periods of time to send and receive messages. For that reason, the delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) model looked like a great alternative; that was when we decided to base our system on Lisk’s codebase. Lisk’s usage of NodeJS and PostgreSQL also influenced our decision.
J: What issues are we currently facing in the realm of messenger services and apps?
D: Users are finally becoming more aware of companies’ ability to spy on them in different applications, such as messengers. The messenger apps and services we use today are all centralized, and this often works to benefit corporations. Corporations and advertisers often work together to advertise more efficiently, therefore any information about who you are, where you are, what you like, etc. is useful to them. Another problem is regulation. Any centralized service can ultimately be shut down or banned. For example — all of BlackBerry’s services are banned in Russia, including BlackBerry Messenger. Recently, the Russian government decided to totally block Telegram in Russia. Every year, more governments request total control from messenger companies, and if their demands are not met, they ban the services. Therefore, the only viable and long-term solution is a decentralized, fully transparent and open system. But there is a problem with today’s modern messaging services. They can share and intentionally give the information to other third parties. Additionally, all messengers require access to the device’s address book, passing all this information to their own servers. Finally, messaging services collects important data as personal phone numbers, email addresses, browser activity and more. The ADAMANT project aims to respond to these serious questions of trust in private data transfer security. Using blockchain technology, users have granted their anonymity. Compared to centralized message transfers, it is impossible to link the message history to a specific person. Users do not need to enter their cell phone numbers, emails or social accounts.
J: What problems will ADAMANT solve?
D: ADAMANT provides pure messaging — the ability to have instant and secure communication in an easy-to-use way. It is an unstoppable service, much in the same way as bitcoin — anonymous, secure and open source. Everyone should have the ability to communicate 100% privately. Sometimes we want to stay anonymous; anonymity is not for criminals. Our primary focus is on privacy, security, trust and reliability. For example, if you don’t trust the public ADAMANT network, we allow users to easily host their own blockchain.
J: Who do you plan to collaborate and work with to achieve these goals of creating better ways of communicating?
D: We know we can’t build the future alone; we have plans to work with security teams around the world to make ADAMANT the most protected and secure messenger in the world. Given that all decentralized systems are social, we are eager to work with socially active people that will help make ADAMANT truly decentralized. Nobody knows what the future holds; as Bulgakov stated, “men are unexpectedly mortal”, but social structures we put in place today could possibly survive forever. ADAMANT will be an independent infrastructure that will not be influenced by external factors.
J: Where do you envision ADAMANT will be in five years?
D: I believe that in five years, the world will see a shift from free and centralized applications to decentralized, but not free, applications. People will realize that their time, privacy and data costs money, and will not give it away so easily either. At the present moment, ADAMANT is the only fully decentralized messenger available, but we think demand will lead to the rise of more of these types of messengers. ADAMANT will evolve, change, and be used more widely, but will not replace all currently existing messenger applications. ADAMANT will get extensive functionality as well. The technologies associated with messengers have a great deal of time of development behind them. When the time comes for a paradigm shift, every small improvement requires research, design, development and testing. And with the help of community, ADAMANT Messenger can be secure and functional, and will provide a platform for messaging services. We are currently working on push notifications, but anyone can contribute by creating their own services, such as for the storage of images and files. Moreover, service developers can earn commission for doing so.
J: How do you anticipate blockchain technology will change the world? What is its potential?
D: Blockchain helps prevent the rewriting of the past and has the ability to shift the paradigm of every process to an open and valid one. It will ignite many positive outcomes, from fairer elections to less thieves. Although the potential of this technology is great, in order to allow it to change the world it will need proactive and dedicated individuals with a shared vision of a better future. This will help bring other new technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality and 3D printing from something only seen in science fiction to real life.