Let’s Take Back the Internet Together with Holo and Holochain
FYI — This piece is an adapted and updated version of Holo’s “Take Back the Internet” Indiegogo campaign page where the HoloPorts where first made available as part of our crowdfunding campaign. Now production of HoloPorts has begun and our store is now open!
If you would like to buy a HoloPort you should know there is a limited supply for this first run and a good portion of them have already been claimed by our Indiegogo backers. Get a HoloPort while you can and take part in creating a truly distributed internet!
“We are so used to these systems being manipulated that people just think that’s how the Internet works. We need to think about what it should be like.”
— Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, 2017
The Internet was envisioned as an open platform to allow anyone to share information, access opportunities, and collaborate across geographical boundaries. But over the past twenty years, the web has concentrated power in the hands of a few giants.
Google now controls 88% of search advertising online. Nearly 80% of mobile operating systems installed are Android. More than half of all online purchases happen on Amazon. Facebook controls 77% of mobile social media.
Because of that increasing centralization, the Internet is failing us in many ways.
Today our online movements are tracked, logged, analyzed, and sold. We’re manipulated by platforms seeking to addict and distract us; they want us to spend more time on their sites and buy more products from their advertisers. This is not an Internet that serves us, it’s an Internet that serves the interests of others.
A centralized Internet makes us more vulnerable to hacking, censorship, tracking, and numerous other abuses. And because we have little say in how these systems we rely upon operate, we aren’t able to improve how they work for us. The centralized nature of today’s Internet makes us less able to adapt to change, and less capable of confronting the complex challenges that we face.
Today, most web traffic passes through centralized web servers, putting big companies in the middle of our interactions. But by replacing the function of corporate servers with our own computers we cut out the middlemen and take back control. Our voices can be heard again.
User-run apps are more agile and responsive than their centralized counterparts since users can set the rules and change them as desired. Plus, when we are in control of our own data, we can use it in new ways.
- Imagine a rideshare app run by the riders and drivers without a monopoly in the middle dictating terms. Holo hosts would get paid for helping host a website where anyone can book a ride.
- Imagine apps that help emergency responders coordinate with one another in the aftermath of a fire or hurricane, without needing to have a connection all the way back to some Silicon Valley data center. Unlike today’s centralized applications, apps on Holo run just fine on a local network.
- Imagine a community of rural homeowners who generate, store, and share electricity using solar panels, windmills, small water turbines, and backup batteries. Holo fuel is custom-designed to handle exactly these sorts of micro-transactions.
Holo includes a secure micropayment cryptocurrency engine which web app creators can use to pay you when you host their apps. With Holo you’ll be able to share the capacity of your computer just like you might rent out a spare room on Airbnb. Holo makes this world available to anyone with a computer and Internet connection, not just an elite class of miners and developers.
Taking Back the Internet Together
Holo is a community committed to growing a truly peer-to-peer Internet. Holo helps accomplish this by allowing anyone to access distributed applications simply by typing a URL into a web browser. We believe that when everyone can explore the distributed Internet, the Internet will shift, and change the world in powerful ways by empowering individuals, fostering trust, and helping build thriving communities.
However, Holo isn’t just good for the world. It’s good for you too. Holo incentivizes you to share your computer’s spare capacity by rewarding you with our secure cryptocurrency — Holo fuel. When people use your hosting capacity the companies providing the app you host can reward you in cryptocurrency.
By pooling together our computing resources we make possible an entire network of distributed apps that are free from centralized, corporate control. By putting that scale of control back into the hands of users, we enable humanity to access entirely new possibilities for how we do economics, governance, medicine, and community.
Holo is human-centred. It leverages solid cryptography and combines proven platforms for managing shared data integrity to bring people together in more powerful and effective ways. Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies run on an architecture called blockchain. Blockchain has inspired many to imagine new decentralized ways to organize ourselves and our data. However, these approaches have limited performance and burn massive amounts of computing and electricity. Holo runs on Holochain — a next-generation platform that is more scalable, exponentially faster, far more energy efficient, and 10,000x cheaper than blockchain. By backing this project now, you not only help us launch the Holo network but also lay a foundational piece of Holo’s network infrastructure by purchasing one of our HoloPorts, a preconfigured hosting node.
The HoloPort is an easy and direct way to support the distributed Internet. Holo will use HoloPorts to provide a stable foundation for both distributed applications and personal data in the network to be hosted by the community, rather than by a corporation.
We have raised funds through an Initial Community Offering to launch the Holo network. The Holo software is not complete yet. Holo fuel will not function until Holo is built and launched. So the ability to earn Holo fuel depends on the success of this crowdfunding, the ICO, and the software launch.
UPDATE:
Holo completed a successful ethical ICO (Initial Community Offering) raising 30,202 ETH.
The ICO catalyzed the ecosystem of Holo. We offered a pre-sale of cloud-hosting services in the form of transferable ERC20 tokens called HoloTokens (HOT) on the Ethereum public blockchain. As an asset-backed currency, the supply of HoloTokens was linked to the amount of distributed computing that the network is able to provide (the number of HoloPorts and developer events sold through the crowdfunding campaign).
We intended to run a sale that was as inclusive as possible, meaning future Holo hosts and users were not pushed out from participating by a few people buying all available tokens within minutes. We also wanted to act responsibly by having a meaningful cap on the amount of tokens we allowed ourselves to sell, instead of just raising as much money as possible.
What is Holo fuel?
- A completely peer-to-peer cryptocurrency.
- Optimized for high speed and minimal fees.
- The currency that you earn for hosting on Holo, and can redeem to pay your bills.
- Completely accountable and transparent crypto-accounting, operating by known and shared rules running on every host machine.
How is Holo fuel different?
- Mutual Credit: Unlike other cryptocurrencies, Holo fuel is not just tokens created from nothing, used primarily for speculation. It is a double-entry crypto-accounting framework that provides scalability, transparency, and accountability.
- Asset-Backed: Holo fuel is backed by the computing power of hosts like you across the globe.
- Value-Stable: The value of Holo fuel is connected to the computing capacity of the network of hosts. This capacity evolves and changes slowly and isn’t subject to huge spikes and crashes in the way that other speculative tokens are.
How can I use Holo fuel?
- Spend it through a variety of apps and online marketplaces
- Redeem fuel earned by hosting for other currencies to pay your bills
- Borrow it to pay for things, based on your proven hosting track record
Nervous about digital currencies? Don’t worry, you’ve probably been using digital money via bank accounts and credit cards for a long time. The main difference here is that the group making the software is 100% accountable to the community using it. Your system can check the validity of any transaction or transaction history to ensure you are only dealing with trustworthy parties.
Holo fuel marks the beginning of a new era of cryptocurrencies backed by the capacity provided by people. All of the currency supply is correlated to building and providing the computing power of the Holo network. We always create that value together.
We believe a distributed Internet must be funded by a wide spectrum of backers for it to best serve the diverse needs of our world. That is why we’ve chosen to not accept venture capital.
Our dedicated team has been working for more than a decade (primarily as volunteers) to create a more resilient Internet that will work better for all of its citizens.
But we need your help to take it to the world! Your backing now enables the launch of a broad, secure, and user-ready network.
Buying a HoloPort will help create a stable, secure hosting foundation necessary for a distributed Internet in this new world.
Stand up, and support the Internet we all need!
UPDATE:
The Indiegogo campaign for HoloPorts was completed earlier this year.
262% funded on February 4, 2018
$1,037,735 USD total funds raised directly for HoloPorts
HoloPorts are currently being manufactured. The store for buying HoloPorts directly off our website is now live. You can sign up for updates on all aspects of our development now on our homepage at Holo.host
The easiest way to support the distributed network and earn Holo fuel is by purchasing a HoloPort. Since our objective is the dissemination of devices dedicated to running the network, we’re offering this personal server nearly at cost. HoloPorts are “plug and play,” meaning they come with the software already installed and are optimized to run Holo. Just plug it in, follow the instructions, and start hosting the network to earn Holo fuel.
Beyond HoloPorts, we’re also offering tools for anyone interested in building or operating distributed applications. The distributed Internet is not limited to the tech savvy only, which is why we offer Training Camps and App Design Consultations tailored to your needs.
So what kind of apps run on Holo? Imagine running Wikipedia without centralized servers and the annual fundraisers needed to maintain those servers. Twitter fans have looked into buying Twitter to keep it from being purchased by outside companies that will ruin it. What if we could just run it ourselves, for cheap?
Holochain was only just released in Alpha (UPDATE: The Holochain core team decided to switch from building Holochain in GO and began the process of a Rust refactor in March. In October of 2018 the developers pre-release of Holochain-Rust was announced).
Despite the large number of ideas people have, apps in this space are just beginning to be built. We’re in need of developers with great ideas to come build the distributed apps of their dreams with Holo.
Current prototype applications include (at the time of our crowdfunding campaign in June):
- Clutter: a P2P Twitter clone
- Fractal Wiki: a serverless Wiki of cards within cards within cards
- HoloChat: a Slack-like multi-channel chat room for teams
- DPKI: a secure, decentralized cryptographic key management tool
UPDATE:
The Holochain Apps (hApps) team at Holo has been showcasing some new applications, tools and features recently. See these videos for more details.
If you’re interested in learning more about building apps with Holo, visit Developer.Holochain.org and join our online chat room to discuss details, ask questions and explore big ideas with Holochain team members other developers and the community at large.
If you want to jump in head first you can take part in an upcoming DevCamp.
Co-founders Eric Harris-Braun and Art Brock met in the summer of 2004 at a conference about local currencies. At the time, both were searching for alternatives to the dysfunction and bureaucracy that accompany working within traditional hierarchical organizations, and suspected that currencies — or the way we signal each other — might provide some answers. Art had run a successful software company that operated as a “boss-less environment,” and he would soon go on to found a network of student-directed schools, called Agile Learning Centers, of which there are now over thirty locations worldwide. Eric had been designing peer-to-peer networks and software since 1991 and had run several successful software companies.
In 2007, Eric and Art formed the MetaCurrency Project. Their aim: to apply insights from nature to the design of software and social patterns, so that we can enable the next economy — one that is distributed, equitable, and regenerative.
Though our motivation and designs differ from those underlying Bitcoin and blockchain, we’re grateful for the way in which that movement has inspired people to experiment with new tools and new patterns of coordination. You can probably imagine how difficult it was explaining these possibilities to people before blockchain (not to mention before Airbnb and Uber).
Over the past decade, there have been many brilliant minds that have contributed their insights and efforts. However, over the past year, we have grown from a half-dozen volunteers to a 28 person distributed team hailing from around the world. Some of us moved across the country, or even across the globe to volunteer, and more recent work, on this project. Many of us have shared housing for months at a time, in locations ranging from California to Portugal to Germany to Scotland, some stepping away from jobs and others from PhD programs because this project feels so important.
We come from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences but are united by our passion for this project and our vision of a more regenerative and thriving world.
We’re proud of what Holo has become and we’re very excited to share it with you!
FYI — This piece was an adapted and updated version of Holo’s “Take Back the Internet” Indiegogo campaign page.
If you want to check out the HoloPorts visit Store.Holo.Host
