I used to think I understood data. I mean, I work in tech. I know what APIs are, how databases work, what encryption means. But understanding data technically and understanding what it means in your life are two different things.
A few months ago, I tried something. I spent a weekend trying to figure out exactly where all my data lives. Not just the obvious stuff like my Google account or iCloud. Everything. Every service I've signed up for, every app that's tracking me, every company that has a piece of information about me.
It was depressing. I found accounts I'd forgotten about. Services that had been sold to other companies. Data sitting on servers in countries I've never been to. And the worst part? For most of it, I couldn't even delete it if I wanted to.
That's when Project Voyager 03 started making sense to me. It's not about being paranoid. It's about the simple fact that data should belong to the people who create it.
Why I'm even thinking about this
Look, most people don't care about data ownership until something goes wrong. Your account gets hacked. A company sells your info. Your photos disappear because a service shut down.
But I think we should care before that happens.
Every photo you take, every message you send, every website you visit — that's data. And right now, almost none of it is actually yours. You have access to it, sure. But you don't control it.
Google can change their terms tomorrow. Apple can decide what you're allowed to do with your health data. Instagram can use your photos however they want. And you? You just have to accept it.
The internet was supposed to give us more freedom. Instead, we got convenience in exchange for control.
What I'm building
At v03, I'm focused on protocols that flip this around. Not apps that promise to be nicer about your data. Protocols that make it impossible for anyone but you to control it.
I'm spending time on Farcaster because it lets you own your social graph. If you don't like one app, you can use another without losing your followers or your history. That's not something you can do on Twitter or Instagram.
I'm exploring Carbide Network because it's about building decentralized storage where you actually own the infrastructure. Your files aren't sitting on AWS or Google Cloud at the mercy of some corporation's pricing changes.
I'm looking at HashHeal because health data is the most personal data we create, and it should never be controlled by anyone but us.
I'm working with Celluloid Protocol because creative work needs protection in the age of AI scraping everything.
And I'm using Inscribe to think about long-term preservation — storing things in a way that doesn't depend on whether a company is still in business in ten years.
None of this is perfect. All of it is early. But at least it starts from the right premise: you should own what you create.
The bigger point
I don't think decentralization is about ideology or politics. Well, actually, that's not true. It is political. But not in the way people usually mean.
It's about whether you think power should be distributed or concentrated. Whether you trust a handful of companies to do the right thing, or whether you'd rather have systems where the rules are transparent and you can verify them yourself.
In 2019, I was deep into AI. I thought that was the future. But the more I worked on it, the more I realized that AI in its current form is mostly about centralizing power. Extracting data. Optimizing for engagement and profit.
That's when I shifted to blockchain. Not because I think crypto is going to make everyone rich. But because it's one of the few technologies that's fundamentally about distributing control instead of concentrating it.
v03 is about building on that premise. Making tools where ownership isn't a feature you have to ask for. It's the default.
What this means practically
I'm not saying everyone needs to become a protocol nerd or run their own servers. But I do think we need alternatives.
Right now, if you want to be online, you basically have to give up control of your data. There's no real option. The "privacy-focused" products are still centralized. You're still trusting someone else.
What I want to build — what v03 is about — is creating actual options. Where you can choose to own your data, and it doesn't require a PhD in cryptography to do it.
Because the internet gave us the ability to create and share more than any generation in history. It would be a shame if we didn't actually get to keep any of it.