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Matrix
Matrix is a protocol for replicating a signed history of JSON objects in realtime across a set of nodes with (optional) end-to-end encryption.
It's designed to support multiple communication cases - Chat, VoIP, IoT, VR/AR, Social etc, but so far effort has been concentrated on providing a federated chat experience with good UX at scale. The public network currently (Feb 2020) has 14.7M known addressable users, with many others in private federations or on servers which don't report stats. Matrix supports multiple clients (most notably Riot, the flagship app from the core team), and has bridges to many other chat systems (IRC, Slack, Discord, Telegram etc).
Note: In particular, we may be interested in the Proposal for Aggregation via Relations
Identity
Matrix has a more flexible identity solution than most decentralised protocols - users have a Matrix user ID, but can also use 3rd party IDs. A Matrix account can link to ids such as email addresses, social accounts, and phone numbers. A globally federated cluster of trusted identity servers verify and replicate the mappings, although this is a stopgap solution until a fully decentralised identity solution is adopted.
Data Storage/Message Persistance
JSON objects representing pieces of the conversation are replicated across nodes.
Moderation/Reputation
The Matrix team has also been working intensively on tools for moderation, detailed here, and is in the final stages of releasing a P2P variant of the protocol.
Social/Discovery
User experience
Currently the primary user experience is in Riot, a slack-like chat app
Privacy and Access Control
Monetization and Governance
Matrix is governed by The Matrix.org Foundation CIC (a UK non-profit foundation), with the largest contributor being New Vector, a startup formed by the original Matrix dev team, which raised $8.5M series A in October 2019.
? Income is primarily from contracts with governments and large clients ?
Interop with other systems
Bridges that allow communication with IRC, Slack, Discord, Telegram and others