Manna-hata, 1609
Henry Hudson was an Englishman working for the Dutch West India Company. He was looking for a new route to Asia when he first sailed down the river that would one day bear his name.
The Lenape people native to the area called the island Manna-hata - ‘a thicket where wood can be found to make bows’ and welcomed the first Europeans to their home. They shared the land, trading guns, beads and wool.
Within a few years, the Dutch built a town at the southern tip of the island and called it New Amsterdam. Then they built a wall 12 feet tall at the northern tip to keep the Lenape and the British out.
Manna-hata, 1626
A Dutchman named Peter Minuit sailed into Manna-hata in 1626. Minuit bought the entire island for 60 guilders - in today’s money, about the cost of an iPhone.
Manna-hata became Manhattan and, after the Brits seized the island in 1864, New Amsterdam became New York (named after the grand old Duke of York).
The road north became Broadway, the 12 feet tall wall became Wall Street.
The British removed the wall in 1699, but the name remained. In 1792, Wall Street opened its first stock exchange…
Looking back, Manna-hata was perhaps the worst trade in history (or the best - depends, doesn’t it?).
Social media Manna-hata
History rhymes.
Today’s social media giants are centralized, hoarding petabytes of our personal data. This fuels data breaches, bias and billions in ad revenue at our expense.
Check out your social media app’s privacy settings - by clicking that box, you allow the app to collect personal info such as:
- What devices you use.
- Your device IP and MAC addresses.
- The personal info you hand over when signing up - name, DOB, email and home address.
- Your location - constantly tracked and updated.
- The app content you consume and the ads you click.
- Other apps and websites you visit.
- Info shared with ad vendors and analyzed by analytics companies.
It’s free because you’re the product, you’re the merch.
That’s why Meta - the company operating Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp - is worth almost $1.5 trillion, 98% of its profits from ads leveraging the data of 7 billion monthly users.
Centralized social media makes us all mini-Manna-hatas.
It’s a bad trade.
Decentralization flips the script
In a world where 5.5 billion people use social media for over 2 hours a day, trust matters more than ever. 83% of consumers wonder whether they trust companies to keep their data safe, with 63% opting out of working with a business due to privacy concerns.
Trust has become a commodity of its own.
Trust: The $140 billion trade
Imagine a social media landscape where people aren’t products, but creators in command of their data, their content and their cash.
That’s the world allgram’s building - a decentralized social network etched into the blockchain:
- Our peer-to-peer architecture revolutionizes social connectivity.
- Our agentic AI curates personalized, intelligent interactions without invasive tracking.
- Our decentralized blockchain delivers data sovereignty to every user.
- Our built-in encryption ensures end-to-end privacy.
Decentralization empowers billions to connect without compromise. No more data silos, no surveillance capitalism - just pure, user-owned expression.
It’s not just tech - it’s a movement toward trust, equity and innovation.
That’s the reason we’re aiming to capture the $140 billion decentralized social media market and redefine Web3.
We’re building a world empowering people to connect without compromise - and that’s why we created and adhere to the Three Laws of Data.
At allgram, your data is yours.
It’s a good trade.
Postscript: Manna-hata redux
In 1926, the Dutch government gifted a monument to New York city. It depicts a Dutchman and a Lenape standing together. The Lenape’s clothes are wrong - they’re Plains Native American, not Lenape.
Today, the monument sits in Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, ferries docked nearby to take tourists to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.
Further north, a bronze plaque sits in Inwood Hill Park. It says:
“According to legend, on this site of the principal Manhattan Indian village, Peter Minuit in 1626 purchased Manhattan island for trinkets and beads then worth about 60 guilders.”
Historians now wonder whether the Lenape actually meant to sell Manna-hata at all - cultural differences on ownership and property rights may have confused the trade.
The Lenape likely intended to rent or lease Manhattan to the Dutch - similar to Britain’s 99-year lease on Hong Kong.
