In this week’s community spotlight, we meet chemical engineering student Almaz — creator of WeaveWatcher and Arweave.Design. When Almaz isn’t busy being an avid blockchain and decentralisation enthusiast, he enjoys programming, studying, and exploring new ideas. Jump in and get to know more about our all-round creative perma-pal:

Name:

Almaz

Country of residence:

Australia

Occupation:

Chemical Engineering Student

What do you like to do with your spare time?

I feel most fulfilled when I spend my spare time actualising and working on ideas that pop up from time to time. My main interests are programming, 3D printing and crypto, but I like exploring completely different things too if a good idea comes along. Right now I’m learning how to sew and design T-shirts that are unique and appealing.

How did you find out about the Arweave permaweb?

I stumbled upon a thread on 4chan’s business and finance board near the end of 2018. I fell in love with the concept of the permaweb and started following the project.

What piqued your interest in decentralisation and the blockchain space and when?

I was always looking for ways to make money in adolescence and eventually I stumbled into the blockchain space in 2015. I started mining Feathercoin with my CPU as I read that mining bitcoin was unprofitable on a forum. I think the concept of essentially “printing your own money” by mining with just a computer really made me interested in blockchain and made me question the whole idea of what gives currency value and what defines money.

Why did you choose to build WeaveWatcher and Arweave.Design?

I built WeaveWatcher because I was really interested in what people were archiving but accessing it was really annoying through the Viewblock block explorer. I felt that there was a better way to see all the amazing things that people are archiving, so I built WeaveWatcher.

Arweave.Design was made because I felt that creating websites and putting content up onto the permaweb was not as effortless and user-friendly as it could be. I got my inspiration from website creation tools such as Wix and Squarespace where I thought why not have similar web building tools and the ability to instantly store it to the weave for almost free, but without ads and limitations that “free” web builders usually have.

Do you plan to continue developing Arweave.Design for everyday use?

I think that Arweave.Design could be a very useful tool for everyday use if it was polished up and made more user-friendly. I feel Arweave is an ideal platform for hosting/storing personal and small business websites. If there was an easy way to create and store a website to the permaweb I believe many more people would use Arweave over traditional website hosting. I would love to continue developing Arweave.Design for everyday use, however a lack of time and skill is a big obstacle in the way of creating the best version of Arweave.Design possible.

What other communities are you a part of?

I’m interested in the decentralised VPN community as I think decentralisation would be particularly beneficial to services such as VPNs. I also keep track of the developments of Ethereum and other projects like Nano, Enigma and Loki.

If you could build any dApp, what would it be and why?

I think a social media dApp that is ethical, easy to use and personalisable would be great. Like all the best features of Facebook, Myspace and Reddit all condensed into a perfect adfree decentralised package. Social media websites collect an enormous amount of data from people and I believe letting people get back in control of their information is essential for the future of social media.

What does a decentralised future look like to you?

Not all that different from the current centralised present, but without the bad parts. A decentralised future should be as smooth and seamless that it is almost unnoticeable that an application is decentralised. Complete transparency of where dApp data is stored and who can access it will be accessible to the user. The middleman in transactions will be completely replaced by the blockchain where individuals can directly interact with service providers. Centralised services will only be used in applications where they are essential as decentralised methods are better supported, easier and faster. Oh, and AR will be in the top 10 cryptocurrencies as permanent storage becomes mainstream and invaluable. That’s what I hope for anyway 😊

Where can people follow your work?

Check out my GitHub if you want to see my code or follow me on Instagram if you want to see my other cool stuff 😁

Discord: @Mazzz#1871

Github: Mazzz-zzz

Instagram: mazzz_zzz