Maybe you have heard about it: There is a new social network, AKASHA, coming up! Akasha is, like steemit, a social network based on the blockchain technology which makes censoring content impossible.
So, here are some facts:
-"AKASHA ( [aːkaːʃə], आकाश) is the Sanskrit word meaning “ether” in both its elemental and metaphysical senses." (quote from the akasha website)
-In contrast to Ethereal (https://steemit.com/new/@moodledidoodledi/new-social-network-using-ethereum-ethereal), which turned out to be a hoax, Akasha seems to be a serious project with a working website, timeline and slack-channel
-Akasha will be using Ethereum
-There will be no ICO as no tokens will be issued (not final, this may change after Alpha)
-Like on steemit, upvotes are bundled with ETH micro-tx
-Mihai Alisie is the CEO and Founder
-Vitalik Buterin is named as an advisor
-check out their website: http://akasha.world (you can get into their slack at the very bottom of their website)
Akasha is said to release its alpha version soon and you can submit your E-mail address to get an invitation to it on the website.
Why might this be of any interest to the daily steemit user? Well, it may well be possible that Akasha, by using an existing stable and tested cryptocurrency, is:
1. way more easier to use and understand (Akasha will probably not use things like Steempower, Steemdollars which make things complicated)
2. solving many problems that steemit has/had: Inflation (solved by using Ethereum), Steem-whales censoring content because they have so much voting power, etc.
However it remains unclear how they designed the payment mechanism that pays authors. As they cannot create new Ether out of thin air it might well be possible that you have to deposit a small amount of Ether on Akasha and that you actually use some of these deposits when you upvote a post.
Conclusion: Interesting project, let's wait and see what future brings!
A bitcoin-magazine article concerning Akasha: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/censorship-free-social-network-akasha-aims-to-tackle-internet-censorship-with-blockchain-technology-1464810249
As always: if you find any information being wrong please post below and I will change/edit this post. Source for this information is http://akasha.world.