Like Dropbox, but Decentralized: Interview with Startups of the Year Nominee, Exa Protocol

Hey Hackers,

Exa Protocol has been nominated in HackerNoon's annual Startup of the Year awards in Delhi, India.

Please vote for us here: https://hackernoon.com/startups/asia/asia-delhi-india

Read more about us below to understand why we deserve your vote.

Meet Exa Protocol

Exa Protocol is a peer-to-peer distributed file system that enables humans to store their data on a decentralized storage network created using the free available storage space on mobile devices. It’s like Dropbox, but decentralized.
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This is achieved by using mobile-first, peer-to-peer, and blockchain technologies.

With the mobile-first approach, people who do not have the means to harness the power of decentralization and blockchain will be able to do it for the first time. This in a true sense will be the democratization of blockchain technology.

The team at Exa Protocol is led by Founder Saurabh Singh, Chief of Research Usha Rengaraju, and Chief of Technology Arpan Garg. We are also supported by advisors Joe McCann (Founder, Asymmetric Capital), David Aronchick (Director of Research, Protocol Labs), Sherman Lee (Co-founder, Deep Ventures), and Tommy Tran (Co-founder, Compute Ventures).

My Role

Saurabh Singh - I’m the founder and CEO of the project. I started off this project with a white paper on a distributed file storage system using mobile devices in late 2021. As a founder, you wear all the hats ranging from engineering to design to marketing.

I along with our CTO (Arpan Garg) been responsible for creating the architecture of the mobile-first blockchain, Darwin, and publishing a Yellow Paper on it. Apart from this, I do outreach for the project and have been responsible for raising funds.

How We're Disrupting/Improving the Web3 Industry

Exa Protocol's core is a custom Layer1 blockchain - Darwin - which runs natively on mobile devices. It allows mobile devices to act as full nodes ie. the phones can validate the transaction in the network and earn native crypto assets in exchange.

When Satoshi wrote the Bitcoin Paper, he envisioned a world where people like you and me could take part in the network and maintain it. Over a decade has passed and it seems like the power to maintain the network is in the hands of few (I’m talking about ultra-large mining farms).

With Darwin, we intend to help people (not corporations, not rich few) take custody of the decentralized system that enables crypto asset transfer and serve as a backbone infrastructure of the internet.

Standing Out from The Crowd

A smartphone today is as capable as a PC from 2 years ago (computationally) – but lies dormant for a substantial amount of time – or worse yet, uses minimal computing resources while watching TikToks or Reels, especially post-COVID.

With current Layer-1 protocols not being mobile-first, billions of people who own a smartphone, and not a PC, have been left out from the Web3. People with smartphones have become merely traders of crypto assets.

Our Layer-1, Darwin, runs natively on mobile devices and allows them to act as full nodes. This will allow billions of smartphone owners to join Web3 and maintain a blockchain network for the first time.

What’s remarkable about Darwin is that it can theoretically reach up to 7.8 Million TPS at scale surpassing all known L1s performance. We achieve this by creating independent parallel chains that evolve to increase TPS as the network grows.

Our Predictions/Thoughts on the Web3 Industry in 2023

Web3 is over a decade old but relatively new given the time scale of the internet. The last decade has taught people that a functioning decentralized system can exist. A central authority is no longer required to govern digital asset transfers as a trustless system can govern itself.

Just like how Web2 transitioned from PC-first to mobile-first in the late 2010s, Web3, which is PC-first currently, will inevitably transition to a mobile-first approach by 2025.

We believe that smartphones are powerful enough to run the current Web3 infrastructure.

What word defines the state of Web3 in 2023?

Trustless beats trust any time on the internet. Web3 is trustless, you don’t have to trust a system if you can prove it. With all the Proof of X (work, skate, personhood) mechanisms people are well aware that Web3 works.

Although there have been failures in Web3 such as Terra/Luna, the top-tier projects with over 80% market cap have been resilient during these downturns. Because of these downturns, people in 2023 know when to spot a scam relatively easily.

However, even in 2023, a lot has to be done to make it easier for people to understand Web3 and onboard them. For example, the first step to getting onboarded to Web3 is creating a wallet. It is a daunting task for many as most of them have no knowledge of the working of a computer code or to understand what a public or private key is and why a wallet address usually starts from 0x… - Hexadecimals an alien language for the masses.

For businesses, it is the prime time to join the Web3 wave as their customers have a mature understanding of Web3. The jumping of businesses such as Starbucks (NFTs), PayPal (launched PYUSD), etc. in the Web3 bandwagon will only spread Web3 adoption even more.

However, Web3 adoption for billions of users will only happen if we go mobile first.

Why we decided to participate in HackerNoon's Startup of the Year awards

Hackernoon's reputation as a prominent repository of information on Web3 made our decision to participate in this initiative obvious. Engaging in this opportunity promises not just an expanded audience for our project, but also a valuable source of constructive feedback from individuals invested in our work.

Final Thoughts

For some, Exa Protocol/Darwin may be just another blockchain, for us, we see a brand new approach towards decentralization. Hoping that the person who is reading this (probably on a smartphone) will understand the importance of a mobile-first blockchain. With our project, we intend to give people like you and me a way to take custody of the decentralized system.

We will soon be launching an invite form to allow people to take part in our TestNet and improve it. Watch out for updates on our Twitter!

Will you take part in this journey with us?