Start here. The vision, how you get in, why the network runs on coins, how everything connects — explained in plain language with flowcharts.
Almost every "free speech" platform has the same hidden weakness: a company owns it, a domain points to it, and a server hosts it. Pressure any one of those — a court order, a provider, a deplatforming — and the voice goes silent. Web3 promised to fix this, but most "decentralized" apps still load through a domain name and CDN a single party can seize. The chain is decentralized; the front door isn't.
VoiceBan removes the front door. There's no company to pressure, no server to seize, and no domain that has to resolve. The app finds the network through content-addressing (IPNS/IPFS), and all the social data — posts, profiles, groups, follows — lives on a public blockchain that thousands of independent nodes can carry. Take down any piece and the network is still there.
People use both words, but they mean different things:
The native currency of its own blockchain — like BTC on Bitcoin or ETH on Ethereum. It's what you pay network fees with.
An asset issued on top of someone else's chain via a contract — like USDC living on Ethereum.
VBAN is the native coin of the VoiceBan chain. So technically it's a coin. "Token" gets used loosely — we'll say coins here.
A blockchain has no company paying the bills. Instead, every action costs a tiny amount of the network's coin — that's what pays the nodes to process and store it, and what stops spam. No coins, no actions. VBAN is the fuel.
Post, follow, join a group, send, stake
The network "gas" fee
To process + store it forever
Actions cost something, so bots can't flood it
The app is a wallet — creating your account and giving you starter coins happens in one flow. You never buy anything to begin.
Go to voiceban.com (the app) — reached via voiceban.io, the info site.
The app generates your account: a secret recovery phrase → your private key → your 0x address. Write the phrase down offline — it's the only way to recover your account, and no one can reset it for you.
Early accounts receive a 10,000 VBAN welcome grant so you can act immediately. (Limited early-adopter program — see "Get VBAN" for what happens after, and how to top up.)
Post, follow people, join groups, and help secure the network by staking.
VoiceBan is a social network where the social layer itself lives on-chain — so no company can quietly delete or alter it.
Your posts, comments, reactions and views are recorded on-chain. Content-addressed, so they can't be silently memory-holed.
Your identity and social graph belong to your account, not a platform — they travel with your keys.
Create and join communities that live on the network itself.
Bond VBAN to back validators (the nodes that produce blocks) and earn rewards for helping keep the network honest.
Move VBAN to anyone by their 0x address, peer to peer, no middleman.
Because discovery is content-based, the network keeps working even if a domain gets pulled.
Top to bottom: how you reach the network, and where things actually live. The chain at the bottom is the single source of truth; everything above is a way to reach it.
Holds your private key and signs actions. Never holds coins — it holds the key that authorizes moving them. Accounts are Ethereum-style 0x….
Finds a live node via a deterministic IPNS name over IPFS — not a seizable domain. Kill the domain, the app still finds the network.
Forwards your signed action to a node. Serves both Substrate and Ethereum eth_* RPC, so MetaMask and native wallets both work.
A Substrate runtime holding every balance and all social data. BABE makes a block ~every 6s; GRANDPA finalizes it (irreversible). Native coin VBAN = fuel + staking.
Independent machines keeping identical copies of the ledger. Validators bond VBAN and take turns producing blocks.
When you do anything that changes the ledger, here's the path — about 6 seconds to land, a bit more to become final.
Your wallet signs with your key. Only the signed action leaves your device.
Via the RPC, into the transaction pool.
The authoring validator includes it (~6s, BABE).
GRANDPA makes it irreversible.
Every node updates; explorer & wallet re-read the chain.
The single most important idea: the coins live on the chain. The wallet holds the key; the explorer holds a view. Neither app "contains" the money.
The ledger — where the money is. Delete every app and your balance is still here.
Your keys — the only thing that can authorize moving your entry. Lose the phrase → coins are visible but frozen forever.
A public view — can see any balance, can move nothing (no keys).
Sending coins to a wallet doesn't put coins "inside" an app — it changes the ledger entry to your address, which only your key controls. MetaMask and the explorer aren't synced to each other; they independently read the one ledger.
Both feel like "setup," but they're totally different. This is why people get confused connecting MetaMask to VBAN.
| Create a wallet / account | Add a network | |
|---|---|---|
| What it makes | A new identity: recovery phrase → private key → 0x address | Nothing new — it teaches your existing wallet how to talk to a chain |
| You provide | A name + password to protect it locally | Network name, RPC URL, chain ID, currency symbol (VBAN) |
| Coins? | No — a fresh account is empty | No — same address, now pointed at VBAN |
| Example | The app's sign-up, or "Add account" in a wallet | MetaMask → Add custom network → save |
VBAN isn't on any exchange yet, so you can't buy it. Today it comes from one of these — free:
A one-time starter grant when you create your account. Limited early-adopter program — after 1,000 accounts it's used up.
Top up anytime at explorer.voiceban.com/faucet — 100 per address/IP per day.
Anyone who has VBAN can send you some, peer to peer, to your 0x address.
Once you hold some, bond it to earn more for helping secure the network.
No exchange or fiat on-ramp exists yet, so there's no price and nothing to buy. On the roadmap.
Scaling note: the grant + faucet are early-stage onboarding. For millions of users, launch will introduce sustainable distribution — a treasury-funded onboarding pool, possibly sponsored (gasless) first actions, and eventually buying VBAN once it's listed.
A three-way audit of the runtime, the custom pallets, and the genesis/keys found no covert backdoor — no hidden control, no privileged call that can move an ordinary account's funds. Coins in a wallet are movable only by that wallet's key.
Bottom line: the network is "early-stage" only in that the genesis account + consensus ride on a team-held key — resolved by launch. It never gave anyone a path into an ordinary wallet.