SOV NETWORKNo app store. No company. No mining. Here is why.
People often ask three things about SOV Network (Self-Owned Value): why it isn't on Google Play or the App Store, who is behind it, and what keeps the money safe if it isn't a blockchain. The answers are the reason SOV exists.
Why SOV is not on Google Play or the App Store
Because no single company should be able to switch off a network that belongs to its users. An app store is one gate, owned by one company. That company decides who may install an app, and it can remove an app for everyone, overnight. Stores already pull privacy and money apps. A network for free people cannot hang on that thread.
So SOV is delivered from places no single company controls:
- this website, and its mirrors,
- GitHub releases,
- IPFS, the peer-to-peer file network,
- BitTorrent.
Every release is signed, so you can check that you hold the genuine file before you install it. And once SOV is installed, the nodes find each other by themselves: no website, no store and no server list is needed to keep the network running.
A store listing is not what makes an app safe. Open code is. All of SOV is open source (Apache-2.0), and every node publishes the fingerprint of the exact code it runs, so anyone can check it. On Android, your phone asks you to allow installs from this source once: that is the normal step for any app that comes straight from its makers.
Why there is no company or famous face behind SOV
SOV has no company, no chief executive and no owner, by design. A company can be pressured, bought, sued or shut down, and a famous founder can be leaned on. A network with no owner can't be. Bitcoin works the same way.
The network is run by its citizens. People run the nodes, and the rules are decided by citizen votes: one real person, one vote, never one vote per coin.
You don't have to trust a face. You can check the code.
How SOV keeps money safe without a blockchain or mining
Bitcoin is secure for two reasons. First, every node checks every rule itself: every signature, that no coin is created from nothing, and that nothing is spent twice. Second, mining decides the order of transactions and stops a cheater from inventing thousands of fake voters, because influence is measured in computing power.
SOV keeps the first and replaces mining with something made for people:
- Every node checks every rule. No money moves without its owner's own signature, and every node verifies it. The total is fixed at 50,000,000 SOV, for ever, and every node checks it continuously.
- A majority approves every spend. Before money leaves an account, a majority of the validating nodes must grant that exact payment, and only one payment can ever get it. Proven on the live network: the same 600 SOV was sent twice, through two different nodes, at the same moment. One payment went through. The other was refused.
- One real person, one account. Joining takes a palm scan and a live face check on your own phone, so nobody can invent a crowd of fake accounts. That is why SOV needs no mining, no energy-hungry hardware and no race for computing power.
- Everything travels encrypted. Messages are end-to-end encrypted, and the nodes talk to each other over encrypted links.
| Bitcoin | SOV Network | |
|---|---|---|
| Every node checks every rule | Yes | Yes |
| Stops spending twice | Mining orders the transactions | A majority of nodes approves each spend |
| Stops fake accounts | Computing power | One real person, one account |
| Fixed supply | 21 million BTC | 50 million SOV |
| Energy | Huge mining farms | Ordinary computers |
| Lose your key | Money gone for ever | Recover with your 12 words, a backup file, or guardians |
Try it yourself
Download SOV Network: Android, Windows, macOS and Linux. Free, open source, nothing to buy. Questions are welcome in public, where anyone can read the answer: SOV Network Q&A. The full technical design is in the whitepaper.