Block.one’s social media platform, Voice, public beta launch set for July 4

Voice, the "decentralized" social media platform financed by Block.one, will open to registered users on July 4, according to Voice CEO Salah Zalatimo. The announcement comes almost a year to the day Block.one, the development firm that built the EOS blockchain, revealed its plans to build Voice. July's launch will introduce the project's iOS app, which aims to verify users' identities without resorting to government-issued IDs. Voice's public beta will remain accessible only by request (i.e., registration through its website) until August 15, at which point active users can start inviting their friends to join.

Why it matters:

• Voice is proposing a potential solution to a very real problem. Centralized social media platforms rely on the companies behind them to be the arbiters of truth as well as the gatekeepers to each user's data. Decentralized alternatives aim to remove the influence of a single entity over these responsibilities. The question that remains, however, is how decentralized Voice will be? Its app currently runs on a "purpose-built" (possibly not public) chain. The team states that they would like to eventually migrate Voice to the EOS blockchain, as initially intended. But the process for that transition lacks clarity, and it assumes EOS can meet the scalability and decentralization (which run at odds to each other) requirements to make Voice a viable alternative to the status quo.
• Block.one has spent at least $300 million on the development of Voice. This total includes the $150 million Block.one invested in its social media app in March. Confidence must be high that Voice can either generate revenue through its own token-based model or that once integrated with the EOS blockchain, it can drive value to EOS's native cryptocurrency. Block.one remains the single largest owner of EOS, as it holds the rights to roughly 97 million EOS (~20 million of which has vested).

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