Sorry about the click-baity title but how else was I gonna get you to read this?Truth is I ain’t lying.

Before I get started though boys and girls I want you to know something. I am at risk telling you this s**t.

Not physically. I mean c’mon seriously I don’t think anyone is going to assassinate me or anything like that but I risk my reputation and future job prospects.You see, some people are going to be pissed off at me for telling you this and I’m not making that up just to make you feel special, it’s just the way it is.You have to understand something.Lots of people are planning to “Mine” this currency before anyone else does.There is potentially HUGE opportunity for financial rewards and here I am opening my big mouth about it to you.You see what I’m saying?So I’d appreciate it if you pondered on this information and respected it. This information is going to be life-changing for someone. Think about where you’d be now if you mined Bitcoin when it was first released.Lemme continue now.

First Thing’s First — Its Not Called Mining

Earlier I called it “Mining” and I did that on purpose so you’d know what I was talking about.You already know what Bitcoin and Crypto-Currency mining are, I assume, so I won’t waste your time getting into all that. If you don’t already know what it is, look it up.

This new form of mining is called Farming.

I’ll explain the difference below but first, you need to know about the currency in question.You might have heard of it before.It’s currently called Maid Safe Coin (MAID). Developed by a Scottish technology firm called Maidsafe and backed by a technology called the SAFE Network. I’ll explain the “currently” bit later.The SAFE Network is a new layer of the internet.If this makes absolutely no sense to you, sorry.I could ramble on about it for ages but for now all you need to know is that it is a decentralized Internet network that provides privacy, security, and anonymity. You can do anything with it, think Youtube, Facebook, eBay, Gaming etc.Because the SAFE Network is decentralized it means users of the network need another way to put data like text, images and so forth onto the network without storing that stuff on big central servers controlled by companies such as Google and Facebook.That’s all I’ll say on that for now. If you want to know more about their project just go their website or their forum or check out some of my previous articles (I’ll link em below at the bottom).Now that I got that out of the way.

What is Farming?

It’s when a guy who lives on a big bit of land has cows and fields and…ahh, I’m just kidding.OK, so like I said earlier Farming is not the same as Mining but it’s similar.I’m going to talk about it from a mining perspective because it’s easier for you to grasp as you already know what mining is. In saying that, it’s not rocket science, trust me I’m about as sharp as a bowling ball and if I get it you’ll get it.Farming is a lot easier to get into as compared with standard cryptocurrency mining because it’s cheaper. That’s all. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper.For you to mine Bitcoin right now and make a little bit of money you’d need to spend about three thousand dollars for a mining rig and then you have to consider energy and cooling costs and that’s for pocket money returns. If you want to earn the big bucks and quit your job add another zero or zeros to that initial investment figure.With Farming, you can basically farm from the very device you’re reading this on. Phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops can all farm Safe Coin. Hell, you can do it on a second hand ten buck Raspberry Pi if you wanted to.Pretty cool right!?Now take a gander at the infographics I made up for you below. It’s a good comparison to make. It’ll get your head around it much easier.

What Exactly Do Farmers Do?

Safecoin farmers “farm” data on the SAFE Network.They do this by storing the data on their farming devices and allowing network users to retrieve and use that data as and when they need to.So just like how you go to Fakebook or Instacrud and upload pictures of your kid’s awesome fridge art well when you do that Facebook and Instagram are hosting those images on their servers that they own and control.On the SAFE Network, farmers host that data anonymously and when someone needs it that provide access to it.This entire process is all 100% automated by the way.

What sort of data?

The SAFE Network is a peer to peer network so whatever you can create, store and use on the current Internet can also be done on the SAFE Network.Some examples include: Photo’s and images (like awesome fridge art), videos, GIF’s, audio and music, games and even entire websites and apps!And that’s the best bit. Because this network will be used for just about everything there is a big requirement for farmers to hold and supply peoples data.

What is the farmer’s device doing when it’s farming?

The device is doing what most general purpose devices already do. They store and retrieve or send data.Specifically the farmer is providing the following resources: Storage space (bytes), processing power (CPU), Bandwidth and Online Time.

Safe Coin and Network Data

Proof of Resource

PoR, this is the method that the network uses to identify which farmer holds the data and in return rewards the farmer for it.PoR is like Bitcoin’s Proof of Work (PoW). They’re both a protocol used to achieve something automatically. You can’t really say one system is better than the other, they’re just different.PoR is managed by the network automatically and nothing is required on the farmers part.

Proof of Resource

So how do farmers actually begin farming? What do they need to do?

The farmer will download a bit of software called a “Vault”. This vault will process everything automatically. All the farmer needs to do is provide a wallet address to receive his or her Safe Coin and to tell the vault how much space to allocate towards farming.So long as there is sufficient space and bandwidth and the farmer keeps their farm online the network will send Safe Coin tokens to the farmers wallet.

This all sounds pretty good, almost too good. What’s the catch?

There is no catch.Probably the only things to be mindful of right now are that the network is still being developed and tested (this is what I meant when I said all those people are planning to Farm/Mine this currency).The network is well on the way to full release.That’s probably the suckiest thing about all this if I am honest, the fact that you cant just dive right in, right now.There is a strong core team of developers in both Scotland and India with Maidsafe that are building and testing the network as fast as possible. If you want to help test head on over to Maidsafe or the forum and stay tuned for the updates.When I said it was well on it’s way to full release I meant it. The current test phase is Alpha 2 and the development team has already released a network authenticator, working browser, web hosting manager and working examples of email applications, messaging apps and API playgrounds.That’s not to mention the hundreds of sites and apps that SAFE Net developers are already creating and testing!

If The Network Isn’t Live Yet How Does Maid Safe Coin Exist Already?

Earlier I told you that the SAFE Network cryptocurrency is currently called Maid Safe Coin (MAID). This is true. Because the network has not been fully released the team has used a kind of holding currency (MAID) which is currently sitting on top of Omni Layer.This was done to fund development.Once the Maidsafe developers get to the vault and Safe Coin testing phase it will shortly thereafter release an official Safe Coin. These will be exchanged on a 1:1 basis with the current holding coin, Maid Safe Coin (MAID).

Some additional important points about Safe Coin below

(if you’re wondering why these are not discussed in whole, that would take another 15,000 words and this is an introductory article — that and besides I’m two glasses of wine deep)

Maid Safe Coin (MAID) is currently valued at $1.06 USD as of 5th January 2018
There will be 4.29 Billion Safe Coins in total
Safe Coin will be divisible
Safe Coin is green. It doesn’t drain energy resources like other cryptocurrency minting does because it runs on normal devices
Safe Coin is distributed dynamically. This process is based on network demand. If more space is required the network issues more tokens and vice versa.
Safe Coin is transacted from one user to another via an automated network transaction manager
Transaction speed is at network speed and network speed should only get faster with more nodes
Safe Coin and SAFE Net are scalable. Scalability is built into the network. The network only notes who the previous owner was and who the new owner is
Safe Coin is digital cash because it is tied to the network itself. It’s been described before as ‘the oil which fuels the network’ users will transact Safe Coins for all kinds of content, apps, and services

If you’d like to know more about Safe Coin Farming here are a few resources

To summarize Safe Coin Farming is cheaper and easier to get into when compared with cryptocurrency mining, Safe Coin has not been released yet but soon will be (if you’d like to get in on the action now, consider buying Maid Safe Coin MAID holding it and exchanging it 1 for 1 when Safe Coin releases), SAFE Network is currently being tested, as of 5th January 2018 it is in the Alpha 2 phase.

Source - medium.com