We have reached an important point for Holo as we progress towards the release of the hosting platform. The Pre-Release test of Hosted Elemental Chat continues successfully with more than 200 peers chatting across the world. Messages arrive quickly and participants report a real-time chat experience using the app. Elemental Chat is testing the end-to-end infrastructure of a peer-to-peer Holochain application being hosted by the peer-to-peer Holo hosting network. This demonstrates potentially massive new possibilities on the web. Why do we say that?
What this means is that each user, when they create their credentials, are creating the cryptographic keys for their instance of the application. Holo cannot write chats on their behalf — ever. Holo cannot remove an entry for a user — ever. The only thing Holo can do, as the infrastructure provider that bridges the connection to the centralised Internet, is prevent an application from being hosted on the platform. Applications of course have their own sets of rules and the creators and developers of those applications will design those.
I’ve asked a few team members to share about what this means — just to give everyone a sense of how important these results really are.
“When I use elemental chat knowing my friends and all of humanity is hosting the service I’m using, the internet feels human and fresh all over again.” — David Atkinson
“We’ve proven that the Holo hosting product, which is a complex system of distributed hApps and centralised infrastructure and which underpins the Holo ecosystem and HoloFuel, works.” — Alastair Ong
“This release is the first release where we’re delivering value to individual web users. Now, ANYONE can participate in Hosted Elemental Chat, you don’t have to be a host.” — Rob Lyon
“Hosted EC is a seed of digital agency using a browser and a basic internet connection.” — Lisa Jetton
Each of us on the Holo team have different personal reasons, drives, and perspectives as to what Holochain and Holo enable in the world and why it matters. Arthur has shared much about this in his blog series on unclosable carriers and the future of communication. Many on the team see Holochain as a distributed infrastructure that can digitally support the distributed coordination required to face and overcome the most pressing global and local challenges of governance and collaboration that lie ahead.
Some of us are excited to enable, at a structural level, the choice about how and where data is stored and who has access to it. Others in our team are concerned about the lack of transparency and the coercive tendencies associated with providers of mainstream Internet services, and are delighted that developers can now replace those apps on Holochain.
We see the positive test results from Hosted Elemental Chat as a beacon of what is to come.
So What’s Next
- We launched an update to the Holo.Host website. Surprise!
- We are ready for people to pre-register to try Elemental Chat in a web browser.
- We are continuing the pre-release test and plan to add even more users in the coming week.
- We are releasing a new version of Holochain for developers this week.
- We are testing read-only functionality on Holo so that folks who do not want to login to chat can have visibility to the prototype.
- We are working to get the HoloPort Alpha Program ready for hosts to register so that we have enough ports online to support the open release of Hosted Elemental Chat and so that they can begin accruing HoloFuel.
- We are continuing to work on sharding in Holochain — moving this week to integration testing of this key scalability feature.
- We are working on the new HoloFuel hApp.
- We are testing Elemental Chess on Holo.
This is a busy summer for Holo and Holochain. More soon.
– Mary
