What is Blockchain Email?

in #email6 years ago (edited)

If we follow the development of Blockhain, one thing that attracts attention is the application of this technology is still very limited, for example in its use for email (electronic mail). If in your mind the question arises what is Blockchain e-mail, basically, Blockhain's e-mail is a technology to send e-mail (e-mail) by utilizing decentralized ledger technology.

Currently, many Startups are starting to build decentralized email platforms based on Blockchain technology, but the number of available services is still very low. Startup companies are less competitive than organizations that are trying to get big profits with online search engines or advertising.

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In fact, Blockchain email can be a brilliant innovation, because it is able to overcome several problems related to conventional email services. One example is the case of privacy violations on Yahoo Email that makes many users eventually switch to end-to-end encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and iMessage. However, can we redesign the messaging service as an email platform?apa-itu-surel-blockchain-284591-23191.jpg
This is where the Blockchain e-mail shows its superiority. User privacy at Blockchain mail is more secure because sending, receiving and saving messages does not use a centralized server from a commercial company. Some email providers eventually decided to replace a conventional email system with Blockchain. Some examples are email services such as John McAfee's CryptaMail and SwiftMail.

Data in Blockchain Emails Are Safer

According to CryptaMail, there is no gap for data leakage because Blockchain is decentralized. All data is peer-to-peer, thereby reducing the risk of third parties accessing the message content and ensuring that only senders and recipients can have the message. That is, the message has been encrypted and sent as a transaction on the Blockchain network.

McAfee has high trust in the performance of the SwiftMail platform and SwiftCoin Blockchain. For security testing purposes, the company even offered a 10,000 USD SwiftCoin gift to any hacker who could find a gap in the Blockchain e-mail network. Daniel Bruno, member of the SwiftMail team, says that Blockchain email will speed up messaging time, as long as you keep synchronizing with Blockchain.

Considerations Using Email Blockchain

In practice, CryptaMail uses the NXT protocol that provides more functionality than Blockchain Bitcoin to send messages. Meanwhile, SwiftMail uses an independent Blockchain called "Solidus Bonds", to get more SwiftCoin through interest-based systems. This is because this platform does not allow mining activities like NXT.

For now, the problem with Blockchain e-mail is that there is no compatibility with other e-mail platforms. If we usually use Outlook and can send email to Gmail and Yahoo users, Blockchain's mail is limited to each other only

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Another disadvantage of Blockchain e-mail is that this service is not free. All Blockchain mail sent between users must be included in Microtransaction, so there will be a commission pull for each activity you do.

CryptaMail enforces 1 NXT per message, which is about 0.006147 USD for every email delivery, while SwiftMail uses 0.001 SC (SwiftCoin) per message, which is about 0.001 USD. So even though it's not free, the actual fees are relatively low.

Advantages - Excess Email Blockchain

User Privacy
Today, most consumers use email services, such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail, which are free of charge. Although users can set up their own private mail server if desired, but most consumers do not know how to do it and the host infrastructure can be very expensive.

In addition, user personal data is not necessarily safe on conventional email platforms. Email providers can collect personal information about users and use that data to serve ads to them. Sometimes data collection includes names, addresses, zip codes, to telephone numbers. Most email providers promise that user messages are only parsed through automated tools, but this can still feel like a privacy nuisance to consumers.

Blockchain-based email can solve this problem, since the system does not rely on commercial firms to provide email services. The infrastructure required to host email servers and store messages can be distributed across Blockchain, where no party has the ability to read every user's message.

Reliability of Email
Conventional email and data contained in it can be lost due to various things. The user may accidentally delete it or be exposed to overwrite by a depleted storage server. Additionally, disruption to the email provider infrastructure could result in data loss (which has occurred in terms of services such as Gmail).

This risk is no longer to worry about if email data is stored in a distributed database. Central email server failure will not cause data loss, as there will not be a central server on Blockchain based email solutions. The server's storage capacity is virtually unlimited, as long as Blockchain used to store data can grow as needed. Users can even recover deleted messages through several methods, including by accessing off-chain nodes that have stored intact email data.

Message Authenticity
The third common challenge with conventional email today is authenticity. It's easy to create an email account with someone else's name, and it's hard for the email recipient to confirm that the email is coming from the actual user. In fact, the time stamp and routing data in the email header can also be manipulated.

Blockchain based email system can provide authenticity of innate messages that can hardly be changed. Because Blockchain serves as a record of unchanged transactions, it's easier to confirm when exactly the email is sent, and by whom the email is written. In addition, the hacking of the Blockchain network is almost impossible, and nobody can modify Blockchain-based email records.

Challenges Faced by Blockchain-Based Emails

Decentralized e-mail servers still have several obstacles to solve. One of the biggest challenges is the size of data that needs to be stored in Blockchain to run a decentralized email platform. If we want to store all user messages on Blockchain, the required storage can reach Terabyte. At present, it's still unclear whether Blockchain can handle data size issues.

Similar challenges are also encountered by Clock-based Clock storage services, even though they already have a strategy to address them. In the future, it is expected de

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I was reading this post having regard to data size from the beginning. From the technology point of view data size doesn't matter blockchain protocols can handle it, but the real issue is the price of that storage.

If it comes to fees 0.001 or even 0.01 dollar is fair enough I think. Personally I'll pay that fee for the privacy and ad-free mailbox. What's more this fee will significantly reduce the numer of spam and marketing e-mails.

Unfortunately there is a long, long way in order to mass adoption of blockchain based mailboxes because of services like GMail, Yahoo etc...
First off all, there is need for the integration between traditional and Blockchain e-mail services and then we are on straight way to disrupt this area.

Yes, you are right . thank you

this is a nice blog. keep up the good work @luthvandy3
follow me for a follow back.