Envelop
Share files easily
Plan
Privacy is an increasing concern regarding the apps we use nowadays. Decentralized apps (dapps) provide an alternative way of building apps that store data, but don't rely on a single server or entity. They're built with peer-to-peer mechanisms, to be able to save and send data, while ensuring trust between the peers.
Trust has the utmost importance for us, especially in the current scenario, where confidence in institutions has reached incredible lows and corporate giants are having their share of controversies in international headlines.
We decided it was time to learn more and build our first decentralized app. We also appreciate useful productivity apps. Our plan was to design a simple application that could showcase the potential of the technology, while being something we could use daily.
Client
Internal project
Duration
4 weeks
Year
2019
Services
Our approach
File-sharing is something we do all the time. But most solutions rely on us having to upload our files somewhere we're not entirely sure we can trust or even control. So we decided to build a decentralized app to give developers, designers, creatives, photographers, and students the oportunity to share their files, without losing their ownership.
When designing Envelop we kept in mind key aspects that guided us through this journey: simplicity, decentralization and trustworthiness. With them in mind, it became natural to build on top of Blockstack, a decentralized app platform. Blockstack lets the user decide where their files are going to be stored, in a secure manner.
The project came with its own challenges. Decentralized apps need different data architectures. Working with emerging technologies bring unexpected issues. We even wrote about the gotchas we found with Blockstack.
From the design point of view, conveying the specificities of a decentralized app was the most important challenge. Making sure users know their own their data and can trust the app is a never-ending job.
Result
In July of 2019 we released Envelop. We partnered with João Diogo Costa and built both an Android app and a Web app. Since then, Envelop become one of the most popular Blockstack apps. The Android version has had over 32,000 installs.
In September of the same year we launched the browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Microsoft Edge. Again, easy to use, enabling to quickly upload a file to share by email or chat. Now about 1,000 people have the Envelop extension installed in their browser.
And to double-down on trust commitment, we've made all apps open source.
