HOPR’s Role in the Web3 Future
Decentralization brings with it a whole new way of working and making decisions. In the absence of traditional hierarchies and power structures, people still need a way to plan and reach decisions. The mechanics of decision-making are covered by governance, but at a higher level it is essential to have clear shared values. Strong and clear values let people decide whether they want to join or collaborate with a project and help guide participants towards effective and consistent decisions.
HOPR’s values closely align with those of the Web3 movement, in both its technological design and its broader outlook. In particular, HOPR is committed to creating technology and a broader ecosystem which is trustworthy, open to everyone, and privacy preserving.
The Promise of Web3
The Web3 movement is a response to the state of our current Internet, known as Web 2.0. In Web3, users will retain full control of their data where possible, and huge platforms will be replaced by an ecosystem made up of many smaller services which all work easily together thanks to open infrastructure and standards. Web3 will be built on distributed peer-to-peer technologies such as blockchain and HOPR.
If you’re dissatisfied with your social media platform, you’ll be able to migrate your profile and data to a new one, because it never left your control. If you want to use an app or service, you’ll be free to choose from everything available, without constraints. Crucially, if you DON’T want to use a service, you won’t be forced to because your only choice is to do what the platform says or start your whole online life over again from scratch. If you want to build an app or a service, there will be a range of technologies available for you to plug right into, without being locked in or requiring your control or that of your users.
All of this wonderful dream of a free and open Web3 requires secure and reliable transmission of data between these interoperable services. Surprisingly, this is something we don’t really have great solutions for, especially once you bring privacy into the mix. In fact, decentralization introduces a whole new layer of privacy concerns, because now your data is being passed between a lot more services, each provided by anonymous peers that you have no prior or ongoing contractual relationship with. To add to the complexity, at each step you’re generating valuable and potentially revealing metadata. We must ensure all this new data exchange is secure and private. This is what HOPR provides.
Web 2.0 is fundamentally broken. Today’s business models based on insatiable data-harvesting are a result of unchecked centralization with no underpinning code of ethics. This shouldn’t come as a surprise: historians will look back in incredulity at the collective ability to idolize Facebook’s “Move fast and break things” mantra and to then sincerely wonder, ten years later, “Wow! How did things get so broken, so fast?”
Platforms are making vague moves to “fix” these issues, but you can’t just spackle privacy and user freedoms on top of a system optimized to do the opposite. You have to bake these values in at the very beginning, otherwise it’s already too late.
That’s why it’s so important that HOPR isn’t just producing technology which supports our values, but that these values suffuse every aspect of our project, from our legal setup to our tokenomics to our outreach to our community and industry partners.
Trustless and Trustworthy
HOPR technology is built to be trustless, meaning users don’t have to cede control of their data or place trust in a centralized entity or black box system design. This is achieved at the protocol level through strong decentralization, but we need to go further. Governance of the HOPR Association is also decentralized, and thanks to our DecenGov initiative ultimately every token holder will have a say in the running of the HOPR network. The HOPR network is a public good, so it should belong to everyone who uses it. Baking in good governance design from day one will ensure that HOPR remains independent, incorruptible, and indestructible — forever.
More broadly — and because “trustless” is often a confusing and rather negative-sounding term to people outside of blockchain — we’re dedicated to being trustworthy. So in addition to trustless technologies and decentralized governance, the HOPR project is committed to transparency in our collaborations with the rest of the cryptosphere, wider industry, and the HOPR community. We also pledge to be transparent in how our technology is presented, with Open Source code which is readable, understandable, and available for anyone to scrutinize.
Permissionless and Free
A permissionless protocol is one that anyone can use, without requiring authorization from any gatekeeper. Anyone can use HOPR, and there’s no way to stop anyone from using HOPR or to block them from the network. This level of freedom is essential to prevent Web3 from falling prey to the same feedback loops which led to the dominance of the Web 2.0 platforms.
At a broader level, HOPR is fully Open Source. Everyone is free to use, study, distribute, modify and build on our code, in whatever way they choose. Of course we welcome direct and indirect collaboration, but you’re also free to use HOPR technology without our input or even telling us that you’re doing it.
When we pull down these barriers, innovation can thrive and everyone benefits.
Privacy Preserving and User Controlled
Everyone agrees Web 2.0 privacy standards are broken. Regulators around the globe are stumbling towards solutions enforced through blunt legislation. But our increasingly digitalized world relies on frictionless data exchange, which heavy-handed legislation will only hamper. Privacy isn’t just an add-on, something to be spackled on top of our broken Internet to magically fix it. It has to be the cornerstone of a whole new approach, one which reinvents the way data is exchanged.
The key to achieving this is maximizing privacy at every chance we get. On a technological front, HOPR’s data transmission protocol is a vital part of providing much-needed metadata privacy to the Web3 ecosystem. More broadly, HOPR is committed to minimizing data collection, being transparent about how and why we use data across our website, marketing, and other community activities, and advocating for stronger digital privacy standards everywhere online.
Join Us
We’re committed to making sure every part of our project, from the protocol design to the tokenomics to the marketing, is conducted according to our values and is meeting an actual real-world need. This starts with our code, which naturally is Open Source. You can check it out here, get started with our docs here, and we’re running regular testing, gaming, and support sessions to get everyone’s feedback and letting everyone see how HOPR works under the hood. Join our Telegram to find out more and get to know the community. If this sounds like a network you’d like to be a part of, you can join our Guardians of Privacy movement and get early access to our specially designed HOPR Mini PCs which come with a HOPR node pre-installed and the ability to run a full Ethereum node.
By embracing these values, and thinking clearly and practically about how to implement and scale them, we believe we can build a vibrant and unstoppable ecosystem of like-minded people and companies, all dedicated to changing data privacy for good. “Move at a sensible pace and build things collaboratively” may be a far less pithy slogan than Facebook’s, but it’s a philosophy that will make the world a far better place.
Sincerely,
Dr. Sebastian Bürgel
HOPR Founder
