What is Aleph.im?

Aleph.im is a cross-chain network featuring decentralised cloud storage, cloud computing and a decentralised identity framework. Note that Aleph.im is not a blockchain but a decentralised network which has cross-chain compatibility with a number of smart contract platforms including Ethereum, Polkadot and Cosmos (full list can be found at: https://aleph.im/#/chains). 

The developers of Aleph.im state that Aleph.im’s core mission is to help support dApps and protocols in achieving a fully decentralised architecture. This is done by providing decentralised databases with accompanying storage, computation and a decentralised identification framework.

Currently, 60% of all Ethereum nodes are run using centralised cloud service providers (25% of all Ethereum nodes are run on Amazon Web Services) which creates a significant point of failure as centralised cloud providers could voluntarily restrict its services from the blockchain, for financial gain or legislative changes, resulting in the majority of Ethereum and other blockchains going offline.

Aleph.im is decentralised and still as fast as centralised databases with confirmations in 50ms benefitting from the unique blend of onchain and offchain decentralised technologies that comprise the network.

Data that is stored using Aleph.im is stored on the network’s nodes and messages are stored onchain. It is also set to private by default and users can replicate their data to IPFS if necessary.

Aleph.im’s network will consist of two different nodes, the latter of which is to be released later in 2021.

Core channel nodes will function for network validation and security (via staking), management of the network and dispatching the workload. They can also provide services that the network requires such as database, file storage and computing services but this is optional and not required by the nodes. They will also verify resource nodes and ensure that they do their job correctly (and decide which operators should be paid).

Resource nodes will only exist to provide operational services such as database, file storage and computing services. These nodes will not have to stake any tokens and will be rewarded solely on their operational contribution. 

Note that in 3Q20, PikcioAG - the founders of PikcioChain fell victim to a confidence trick which saw them lose the majority of their funds rendering them unable to operate. PikcioChain created a browser that combines privacy surfing, secure P2P chat, cryptocurrency wallet and digital identity management. As part of their winding up operations, PikcioAG held conversations with Aleph.im and noted that Aleph.im would be the most appropriate place for the technology to continue in. This saw an airdrop of ALEPH tokens for holders of PikcioChain’s native token.

Note that running a node on Aleph.im is quite lucrative at the moment. As per https://account.aleph.im/#/, with a current 46 active nodes, nodes receive c.326 ALEPH per day and c.9,783 ALEPH per month on average. Even if an individual was to utilise Node Forge (who Aleph.im have partnered with to), a platform that offers node managing services (and charges c.$300), they could still see a 10.7x return on their monthly expense. Running a node requires a minimum of 200,000 ALEPH. Please also note that there are no guarantees on how long the ALEPH yield will persist for as well as what may happen in terms of price movement which will both impact the return for running a node.

Who is in Aleph.im’s team?

Jonathan Schemoul is the founder and CEO at Aleph.im which he founded after leaving his role as community developer at Nuls - a smart contract platform. During his time at Nuls he created a block explorer, multiple dApps and SDKs for both Python and JavaScript. Jonathan also spent more than a decade at JMSI as a consultant. His prolonged stint at JMSI saw him utilise a number of coding languages and working on projects including sensor network management and creating an indoor geolocation platform.

Claudio Pascariello is the co-founder of Aleph.im and the head of design. He has held roles as a senior designer since 2017 including those at Springbok Agency (a top ten digital agency in the Benelux region), Essentiel Antwerp (Belgian fashion brand) and Nuls demonstrating his depth and breadth within design.

Ashley Richardson is the head of strategy at Aleph.im. She is a qualified attorney with a law degree from American University Washington College of Law. Ashley is the Managing Director at MDUBB Financial LLC - a consulting firm that supports clients working in fields impacting the United States DoD. She also found her own business for legal and strategic business consulting for blockchain.

What is the ALEPH token required for and how is it distributed?

The ALEPH token is required for the payment of services on Aleph.im. Although storage nodes can request their services paid in any cryptocurrency of their choice, payments will be taken in ALEPH and converted thereafter.

Aleph.im conducted a token supply reduction which halved the total supply of ALEPH tokens to 500m. 70% of these burned tokens were originally allocated for a token sale to support funding that was no longer required, the remainder of the burned tokens were from various different pools.

Note that Aleph.im currently has a circulating supply of 17% according to CoinMarketCap. This is notably lower than other cryptocurrencies but the significant amount of tokens are locked up and detailed as follows:

• Company Pool (150m ALEPH) - not explicitly stated but assume this is for the team. From September 2020, 2.5m ALEPH are unlocked each month, any unused tokens will remain available;
• Business Dev. Pool (120m ALEPH) - completely unlocked pool available for use based on the development roadmap;
• Incentive Pool (100m ALEPH) - approximately 55m still available to incentivise node operators, liquidity pool providers and staking;
• Marketing Pool (60m ALEPH) - used for marketing and branding. From January 2021, 1.0m ALEPH are unlocked each month, half of any unused tokens will be moved to the Innovation Pool (with the other half remaining in the Marketing Pool);
• Innovation Pool (50m ALEPH) - fund projects and provide grants for future projects. From July 2021, 0.9m ALEPH will be unlocked each month, any unused tokens will remain unlocked; and
• NULS Foundation Pool (20m ALEPH) - ensure future collaboration between the NULS Foundation and Aleph.im. The vesting schedule for these tokens are yet to be confirmed.

ALEPH is currently hosted on Ethereum (ERC-20), NEO (NEP-5), Binance Smart Chain (BEP-20) and Nuls (NRC-20). This is a temporary measure and it shall eventually be hosted on Aleph.im itself with bridges towards the underlying chain assets.

Who is Aleph.im working with?

Subsequent to the integrations with a number of market leading smart contract platforms, Aleph.im have made a number of breakthroughs making partnerships with platforms including:

• Starname: The partnership allows Starname to use Aleph.im’s decentralised database feature to store user profile metadata;
• Exeedme: The partnership allows Exeedme to use Aleph.im’s decentralised database and file storage features to decentralise its NFTs;
• Decentr: The partnership allows Decentr to use Aleph.im’s decentralised database and file storage features to store posts, images and links preventing bloating on Decentr’s blockchain;
• Orion Protocol: The partnership will optimise Orion Protocol’s off-chain centralised order books to be completely trustless and decentralised. Orion Protocol will also use aleph.im’s decentralised database and file storage features; and
• Synaps: The partnership allows Synaps to use Aleph.im’s decentralised identity solution to support Synaps in providing self-sovereign identities with their partners.

What does Aleph.im have in plan for the future?

Aleph.im has a sizeable agenda for 2021 and some of their notable targets for the year include:

• GDPR compliance: Implementing a right to be forgotten feature;
• Channel sharding: Sharding allows projects to create their own dedicated cloud clusters allowing channel’s to have accurate control over their scaling capacity. This will prevent performance from being affected by other projects running on Aleph.im; and
• Wallet integrations: Integration of wallets across the Polkadot, Cosmos & Binance Smart Chain ecosystem.

Who are Aleph.im’s competitors?

As a decentralised cloud storage provider, Aleph.im is discussed as competing with Filecoin. However, it should be noted that Filecoin is useful for those wanting to store large files, contrasting to Aleph.im who focuses on supercharging the DeFi ecosystem by allowing its dApps and protocols to migrate the centralised parts of their stack from cloud to decentralised computation and database services. Therefore, it could be explored that they are complementary as opposed to competing. Quoting the developers of Aleph.im: 

“A team could decide to build a dApp with the following stack:

• Smart contracts on Ethereum;
• Database, computing and DID on Aleph.im; and
• Large files such as videos and pdf’s on Filecoin.”

As a decentralised cloud computing provider, Aleph.im finds competition in the form of Akash Network. Akash Network is solely cloud computing and is restricted to the Cosmos ecosystem, where Aleph.im is also integrated into. Moreover, it is a Layer-2 solution which can be overlaid on the multitude of smart contract platforms it is integrated with.

Aleph.im’s comprehensive cloud network has a number of features that other platforms operate independently.

Where can you buy ALEPH tokens?

ALEPH tokens are available on a number of exchanges. The majority of the tokens volume goes through KuCoin (ALEPH/USDT), Uniswap (ALEPH/WETH) and MXC.COM (ALEPH/USDT).

As you may be aware, the KuCoin hack that occurred in September 2020 saw the majority of affected projects upgrade their tokens and roll-back these transactions to ensure that token-holders were not impacted. Like many other projects, Aleph.im did the same with their ALEPH token and with the support of the partner exchanges, v1 tokens were swapped out in place of v2 tokens. However, Hotbit did not forward the migrated ALEPH v2 tokens to its customers and continued to allow deposits and trading for the deprecated ALEPH v1 token. Therefore, if you are interested in ALEPH, please ensure that you do not purchase them from Hotbit.

Conclusions

Aleph.im appears to look to compete with a number of existing platforms but looks to offer a more comprehensive service where others focus on only one specific. Being easily compatible with a majority of the large smart contract platforms will be a strong addition compared to platforms that are restricted to their existing platform.

There are fair criticisms of the platform's current circulating supply but even at its fully diluted market cap there is significant scope for growth which is always beneficial from an investors point of view.

By way of disclosure, ALEPH comprises 0.5% of my portfolio and therefore I hope you can appreciate that I am pretty impartial to it as its growth will not materially impact me.

Whitepaper: https://github.com/moshemalawach/aleph-whitepaper/raw/master/aleph-whitepaper.pdf