Meet the Ecosystem: Valt Data & Zac Wickstrom
A team of Silicon Valley veterans have delivered the Sentinel Ecosystem's most versatile app yet.
• Valt is a decentralized VPN (dVPN) and personal data manager app created by U.S.-based Valt Data.
• In addition to protecting browser traffic with Sentinel's blockchain architecture, it offers an entire toolbox of next-level features that allow users to interface with and reign in their online footprint.
• Those features currently include an in-app AI assistant and automatically sending takedown requests to brokers hoarding personal information.
• The app's marquee feature will be a personal data marketplace, where users can securely sell their own data at their own discretion.
• Personal data within the app is encrypted and self-custodial—unlockable only by the user with a private key, much like a crypto wallet.
• CEO Zac Wickstrom and the Valt Data team are Silicon Valley veterans with a keen grasp on tech sector business fundamentals as well as an ironclad ideological dedication to digital privacy.
For more details, continue to the full article below.
Authors
This is the third installment of our special Meet the Ecosystem series. Our previous two features, profiles of MathNodes and NORSE Labs, are available above.
Introduction
"We think the $400 billion that data brokers will make this year belongs to you—not to the companies that steal your data for a living."
Though Sentinel's application ecosystem is diverse, ultimately all of these applications have the same end goal—getting you connected to the internet securely. There is an entire arsenal of fully-launched apps targeting a variety of platforms, niches, payment methods, and geographic markets.
However, in this installment of the Meet the Ecosystem series we'll be looking at Valt, a third-party app which will surprise even the most diehard Sentinel community members and keen followers of the dVPN industry with its capabilities.
Valt isn't just dVPN; it's also a personal data manager and comprehensive guardian for your entire online life.
The app's California-based developers, Valt Data, project that global trade in digital personal data will surpass $600 billion (USD) in value by 2028. With their groundbreaking platform, they seek to protect everyday people from that industry; as well as give them the tools they need to reap benefits from it themselves, instead of allowing big data to have it at their expense.
Valt first entered development in 2020, and became affiliated with Sentinel in late 2022. After a quiet, behind-the-scenes development phase, their app was launched under the name Breadcrumbs in mid-2024. The rebrand which gave the app its current moniker took place just two months ago, and was accompanied by a total overhaul of their website and branding; as well as all-new features for their users.
After its rather stealthy start, Valt has become one of the marquee products of the Sentinel application network. Its lead developer, Silicon Valley rebel Zac Wickstrom, received much coverage here on dVPN News last year due to his service as Sentinel's lead representative at Cosmoverse 2024, and has also become one of the most prominent public advocates for the project.
https://docs.sentinel.co/getting-started/apps
The Valt App
Download Valt (Android/iOS/MacOS/Chrome)"The Killer App for AI will be... A super-competent colleague who knows absolutely everything about my whole life, every email, every conversation..."
- Sam Altman (CEO, OpenAI)
The Valt application utilizes Sentinel's peer-to-peer distributed node network and trustless architecture to protect its dVPN users from hazardous centralized chokepoints, which are vulnerable to data breaches by hackers and interference by governments.
Since launch, Valt has consistently given the Sentinel Ecosystem some of its most visually enticing user interfaces and smooth experiences, a testament to their years of work and professional aptitude. However, what the app brings to the table is far more than superficial sheen and safer blockchain-based VPN connections.
Promotional images for Valt from the Google Play Store. [Credit: Valt Data]
Among Sentinel's ever-expanding stable of increasingly polished dVPN clients what truly sets Valt apart is its proprietary personal data manager features, which are just as much a pillar of the app as the dVPN functionality is.
These are accompanied by an interactive AI assistant, automatic takedown requests to data brokers to wipe your data from their servers, and an upcoming personal data marketplace which will even allow you to monetize your personal data at your own discretion.
Their innovative approach allows subscribers to control and interface with their personal data through a transparent, user-controlled platform while simultaneously protecting their web traffic, all from one convenient access point.
Potential data sources are limited to those manually added by the Valt team, but the options are constantly expanding as they continue to create integrations and forge partnerships.
Platforms
At the moment, Valt is available on Android and iOS via Google Play and the Apple App Store. On the desktop front, a version for MacOS is also already available. A Windows version is also in the works.
In addition, Valt is the first Sentinel-powered application to offer a Chrome extension. This add-on allows you to sync your browser data on other devices with the app.
⬆ Downloads for all current platforms are available via the button at the start of the section.
A glance at the in-app connection process.
User Guide & Features
Upon opening the application for the first time, users will be prompted to enter their email to sign up. For ease of access to the broader online population, login through third-party services such as Google is also enabled.
Upon signup, a chat window with Atlas will open and offer to scan the web for data breaches associated with your personal information. The app will also suggest a random dVPN node for you to quickly connect to.
Valt is a freemium app: To unlock dVPN access for multiple devices and use the personal data manager features of the app, a paid subscription to Valt+ is required.
| Pay Period | Price (USD) |
|---|---|
| Two-Year | $197.76 |
| Annual | $119.88 |
| Monthly | $24.99 |
As is the case with most digital services, signing up to a longer-term plan will yield immense savings. Choosing the two-year or annual plan bring the net per-month cost down to $8.24/mo and $9.99/mo, respectively.
In the next few subsections, we'll take a more thorough look at Valt's capabilities, such as data management features and Atlas.
Valt dVPN
Through its sleek Sentinel dVPN integration, Valt provides the same protection for your browsing and resilience against censorship and georestrictions as the network's other applications.
Being a data-focused app, dVPN was a natural choice for Valt. Their business model relies heavily on trustlessness and transparency, something which traditional (centralized) VPN infrastructures are incapable of providing.
Sentinel's dVPN protocol is open source and provably cannot maintain logs of user browsing activity. Every step of the VPN connection process is on-chain and auditable by the user, from creating a subscription to connecting or disconnecting from a node. You don't have to take anybody's word that your data is safe, you can see for yourself.
As mentioned before, the dVPN features of Valt are free to use. All that's required is signing up for an account, and the process of getting connected is no different from that of existing VPN apps. Simply select a server location and tap to connect.
Connecting to a node in Hong Kong with Valt's dVPN on Android.
One final thing about the Valt dVPN experience which must be mentioned is its node browser: A stylish and fully interactive on-screen globe which you can smoothly spin and magnify to peruse connection locations. This is by far the best map interface that a dVPN has ever had for server selection, and that statement could be expanded to include all VPNs period.
AI Assistant
As mentioned, Valt features a built-in AI assistant named Atlas which you can converse with and give prompts to in order to interface with your data in fascinating new ways.
You can ask it specific questions about everything from your spending habits to your heart rate during sleep; and as we stated at the beginning of the section, you can even inquire whether your personal data has been part of known breaches.
There is no other service in existence which provides this level of interactivity with your own online information. What it's allowed to know is entirely up to you, and what it does know is entirely under your control.
It places data which was once in the hands only of the third-party platforms you interact with back in your hands, where it belongs. As Valt themselves put it: "Google knows exactly what you were doing 54 hours ago—now you can too."
On the subject of online platforms harvesting your data...
Data Brokers
One of Valt's unique features is its ability to contact common third-party data brokers and demand they delete any personal data they've accumulated about you. This can even be automated to be done on a recurring basis.
Data brokers, who acquire personal data from online platforms which sell it, are legally obligated to delete it when requested in most cases. This is not an easy thing to undertake yourself, however; as data brokerage companies are numerous, aren't generally household names, and exist in varying locales with different takedown laws.
On top of that, once your data is purged from their systems, there isn't anything stopping them from just re-acquiring this data again from the very same platforms.
Valt can be your persistent virtual advocate in that shadowy world, and ensure that this data (which you probably never knowingly consented to be collected or sold in the first place) stays out of their hands.
There are existing services which offer this, such as Incogni and DeleteMe; but Valt is the first dVPN or VPN to include such a feature and allow users to take the battle for their privacy to a whole new level.
Demonstrations of the built-in AI assistant and data broker redaction features. [Credit: Valt Data]
Data Marketplace
In the future, Valt will introduce a proprietary data marketplace for their premium users, where they can actually sell their accumulated personal data to vendors at their own discretion. Valt has made it clear that this will be one of the app's marquee features, and it can't be understated how revolutionary it could be.
As things stand right now, sale of personal data is a shady, behind-the-scenes process. The only parties involved in these transactions are data brokers and the online platforms collecting that data. The user whose information is being sold has no part in this, and more often than not, has absolutely no knowledge that this process is even taking place. It might be more appropriate to describe them as victims than participants.
The Valt Data Marketplace could be a total paradigm shift. It would make personal data sales a straightforward, transparent deal between you and the buyer—no middlemen.
Browse-to-earn browsers, such as Decentr and Brave, offer a rudimentary version of this, but Valt's take on the model would provide new levels of control and encompass all personal data; not just history and ad views within a single piece of software.
🕙 Though not available yet to the general userbase, the marketplace is in a semi-finished state and is currently in a closed beta testing phase—meaning it's well on the way to launch. Valt projects that the feature will be available in late 2025.
"At some point, we [the blockchain industry] gotta be born... We need to take all this incredible work that we've done to build tools for builders, and reach the end of the food chain where we're building something for consumers."
- Zac Wickstrom, 2024
The origins of Valt lie in the experiences of founder Zac Wickstrom during his earlier career as a data engineer in Silicon Valley. He worked in that space for over a decade, including stints as a software engineer with Wayfair, the world's largest online furniture retailer; and Trunk, a company which has built enterprise tools for entities such as NASA and Google.
During that period, he was shocked by the degree of access that businesses and workers within the tech sector had to the sensitive personal data of customers. He established his own company in June of 2020, aiming to tackle these issues on behalf of everyday people and capitalize on a conspicuous opportunity to monetize the multi-billion personal data trade in an ethical way.
In December 2022, after a period of tinkering with Sentinel's open source developer tools, he reached out to the project on behalf of his company via the project's primary community hub on Telegram. After establishing contact with the Sentinel Foundation and receiving the backend support they needed, work began on bringing dVPN to Valt.
Valt is a testament to the strength of Sentinel's open source ethos. Unlike most other third-party development teams, which are primarily established members of the community or outsiders recruited by the Foundation, Wickstrom and his partners were brought to the fold purely through the openness and strength of Sentinel's dVPN architecture.
What most distinguishes Wickstrom and the Valt team among the ecosystem's many development teams is their desire to see blockchain technology be "born," by which they mean elevating it to the same degree of mainstream popularity that Web 2.0 has enjoyed since the late 2000s.
As Silicon Valley veterans, Valt's team has a well-crafted frontend image and business plan which is calibrated to court consumer markets, the business establishment and venture capital alike. But behind that conventional tech insider veneer is a deeply-rooted philosophical commitment to privacy and love for the world of blockchain and peer-to-peer technology.
In his many media appearances on behalf of Sentinel (the latest of which was a joint appearance on an X Space with fellow dVPN developer Aleksandr Litreev earlier this month), he has discussed topics ranging from blockchain's potential for data provenance to digital privacy legislation across the globe.
He has also been the most vocal critic of the traditional VPN industry among the project's leading figures, openly taking titans of the space such as NordVPN to task for what he deems to be unsafe business practices. He has also criticized the current crop of data management and deletion services like DeleteMe.
Even Valt's messaging in material for investors pulls absolutely no punches about what they see as predatory nature of big data, and the hazardous central chokepoints which lie latent beneath the skin of corporate VPNs. Their synthesis of professional wisdom and ideological fire has endowed them with the potential to become a colossal force within the Sentinel Ecosystem, blockchain-based dApps, and the world of consumer tech at large.
Cosmoverse 2024
Authors
Click the box above to see all of our special coverage published during the three-day event, including Wickstrom's many on-stage appearances.
After being tapped by the Sentinel Growth DAO, Zac Wickstrom and his app made their grand public debut last October in the spotlight of Cosmoverse 2024 in Dubai, where he served as Sentinel's main representative and also participated in the conference's pitching competition.
Wickstrom was one of the competition's four finalists, and made one final pitch to conferencegoers on the main stage as the three-day Cosmos bonanza drew to a close. Though he was not the winner in the end, his contributions throughout the event received great acclaim among the Sentinel community for his professional demeanor, public speaking skill, and capacity for explaining dVPN clearly to audiences who are unfamiliar with it.
While in Dubai, he also participated in an AI panel hosted by Akash Network founder Greg Osuri and a post-competition panel on the future of the Cosmos Ecosystem.
Wickstrom at the AI Track panel discussion on the conference's first day.
Wickstrom making his final pitch as the conference drew to a close on day three.
Wickstrom participating in the "Iz Cosmos Ded" closing panel following the pitch competition.
Future Plans
Even with its current astounding capabilities, Valt is still in its very early stages of development, and Valt Data itself is in the initial phase of meticulously-planned long-term business strategy which looks forward years into the future.
In addition to expanding their app to even more platforms and launching its aforementioned personal data marketplace:
- Valt is seeking strategic partnerships within the established tech sector and investments from venture capitalists.
- They plan to launch their own coin ($VALT) at Cosmoverse 2025 later this year.
The Valt Community
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