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Small world hehehe 
Just thought it’d be interesting to hear how everybody found out about the project and it might generate info on ways the community can help get the word out. I’m guessing a lot like me, found out about this by finding Maidsafe Coin on the exchange Poloniex.
Thanks to all that reply!
Safe Crossroads. Thank you John Ferguson!!
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Off the back of watching Mastercoin and more widely cryptocurrencies… then recognising that it was above and beyond just the ambitions of currency. It was quite a surprise, given that all talk around then was focused on ‘Bitcoin2.0’ platforms for supporting activity beyond currency and into trade. It was the first substantial project I was aware of where the cryptocurrency was not the main focus.
I wonder a lot of the reason that community is tech savvy and appreciates SAFE, follows in large part from where the investors and other opportunists were drawn from. It’s very timely for many of the interests that fuel bitcoin interest and in many ways looks that it will be more effective in addressing those.
I expect there is great opportunity to tap interest in farming from those who mine cryptocurrency… as a lot of the same skill set applies - cloud + basic linux + perhaps interest in freedom and empowering people as individuals.
Some thought will need to be given as to how to appeal beyond the usual crowd, if that has strongly been the case. Making vaults trivial for those who are interested and not necessarily tech savvy - single point and click, will be impt.
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First I read this article which I found interesting. “A Future Internet Might Not Use Servers”
I watched this video
A few years later I heard about Mastercoin, a decentralized exchange and Maidsafe.
The first time I heard about Maidsafe, I thought it was just fun and laughter, but stored it in my memory that I have to revisite it when there is a crowdsale.
The second time I heard about Maidsafe, it was at the time of the crowdsale and I knew this was the love I was waiting for all my life.
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Saw it mentioned on /g/ a couple of times, and then a guy on the tox public groupchat linked me an explanation of how the network works, during a discussion about decentralized stuff.
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I don’t remember how I heard of SAFEnet, but I too was primed by prior interests: the cypherpunks mailing list from the 90’s and 00’s, and crypto-anarchist fiction.
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This video led me to the rabbit hole. Jamie talks to David Irvine of MaidSafe about the Patent Monopoly Article - YouTube
And I still can’t find my way out.
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When investigating about Freenet. Initially suspicious because of MaidSafe patent, finally enthusiastic because Safecoin aspect of Safenet can solve problems that Freenet has.
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Yeah, same here. During the weeks/months before the crowdsale there were a few articles on Coindesk about MaidSafe, and I will never forget how impressed I was seeing David Irvine taking the time and effort to answer questions, including mine. That moment got me hooked. I realized back then this is by far the most ambitious crypto project that should get my support. I also thought back then that the success-failure ratio might be in the 1 to 20 order, but that number has slowly become more positive since then.
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I don’t remember when I heard about Maidsafe but it was before the crowdsale. It was probably while browsing topics on bitcointalk.
I remember reading as much as I could and waiting for it so it was pretty close to when I heard about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency projects as I was reading about everything that I could.
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Decentralist politics led me to BITNATION in mid 2015, from there to bitcoin (perfect timing Oct 2015, $250, tyvm ;)), from there to Ethereum towards the end of 2015, which meant getting on polo as it was post crowdsale. Bought my first MAID back in November that year thinking I was just trading an underpriced storage solution coin 
. Made some btc on the jump back from 4ksats to 6ksats range, then decided to do some proper due diligence to see what the potential really was in case it was something I ought to be more seriously invested in. I followed a poloniex troll box link to this forum and I never looked back. I immediately broke the cardinal rule of trading… ‘never fall in love with a coin’. 
I even sent the guys in Troon a box of posh chocs because I was so impressed with what they were trying to do and the way they were going about it… not ashamed to say that I have a bit of a mancrush on David 
bagholder4life
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Derailing now, but I think part of what binds this community is the gravitational effect of shared values that we see epitomised by the direction and leadership of the project.
Cor, that’s more than enough brown nosing for one day, I feel dirty. Going for a shower
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Came across this transcript of a TED-talk by Jamie Bartlett:
How the mysterious dark net is going mainstream - Sep 2015
Since the revelations from Edward Snowden, there’s been a huge increase in the number of people using various privacy-enhancing tools. There are now between two and three million daily users of the Tor browser, the majority of which use is perfectly legitimate, sometimes even mundane. And there are hundreds of activists around the world working on techniques and tools to keep you private online – default encrypted messaging services. Ethereum, which is a project which tries to link up the connected but unused hard drives of millions of computers around the world, to create a sort of distributed Internet that no one really controls. Now, we’ve had distributed computing before, of course. We use it for everything from Skype to the search for extraterrestrial life. But you add distributed computing and powerful encryption – that’s very, very hard to censor and control. Another called MaidSafe works on similar principles. Another called Twister, and so on and so on.
Then on to an at the time still available description in Wikipedia:
MaidSafe
MaidSafe (Massive Array of Internet Disks - Secure Access For Everyone) is an open-source program that enables a decentralized internet platform. Instead of specialized servers, data is stored and distributed by a network of internet-connected computers supplied by network users. MaidSafe handles the allocation of hard disk space and communication between the computers (ensuring redundancy in case a computer goes offline). Data stored on the network is either encrypted or cryptographically signed by MaidSafe-connected applications (clients); the network itself cannot decrypt any of the data.
Users providing storage space, cpu power and bandwidth to the network earn Safecoin, a digital currency that can be used to store information on the network.
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From Ernest Hancock at freedomsphoenix.com - he has done a lot to get the word out about the project.
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I heard about it through the Ethereum reddit. I had a distant interest in bitcoin from the very early days but didn’t manage to “get involved” until MaidSafe came along.
I was originally wondering about investing in the Ethereum crowdsale but didn’t like the terms and instead invested in MaidSafe.
What convinced me MaidSafe was different was:
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Reading David Irvine’s metaquestions blog which gave me a sense if the man and the values he is trying to realise through this project.
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The relentless stream of “W.T.F., this is awesome” moments as I delved into the what and the how and began to understand the technology David and his team have been creating.
I’m a technical guy who is also values driven, and David and MaidSafe have no rival in this respect as far as I can see. I’m also financially driven and so hope it will hit all three of my targets, but even if all we achieve is a better world 
my money and other contributions will have made a difference and (also having an ego) … I have the T-shirt and wear it proudly!
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