In a world where access to the internet is increasingly mediated by tech giants, ThreeFold is delivering on what Web3 promised but has not delivered: a truly user-owned, peer-to-peer internet. Instead of building on someone else’s servers, ThreeFold started from the ground up with infrastructure, compute, storage, and network – to make the internet what it was supposed to be. Open. Resilient. Owned by the people.

🔗The Problem: Centralized Internet, Fragile Foundations

Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure collectively control over 65% of the global cloud market. This centralization funnels critical infrastructure into the hands of a few corporations, creating systemic fragility and profound asymmetries in power.

A single outage at one of these providers can cripple major portions of the web (even Web3), as seen in the April 2025 AWS crash which shut down major exchanges like Binance and KuCoin.

Even more concerning is the extractive model underlying this control: users become data sources, not stakeholders, feeding surveillance capitalism that commodifies identity, attention, and behavior at scale.

The core issue, however, is cultural.

The current internet architecture is not neutral. Most countries do not own their infrastructure. Over 80 percent of internet content today is generated by machines and routed through infrastructure controlled by a small number of corporations in a few dominant regions.

A video call between two people in East Africa might still be routed through a server in Europe or the United States. That is the scale of the imbalance. The world is already losing control of its data. Losing control of its intelligence would be the next step in the wrong direction.

Kristof De Spiegeleer, ThreeFold co-founder, calls this a betrayal of the internet’s roots.

“It was peer-to-peer. It was about giving. It had magic. Somewhere that started shifting when the web became commercial. Now, we are the product. We lost its original intent.”

The truly sad part is that Web3 was supposed to be the solution. It was supposed to fix the problems inherent in the centralized infrastructure. However, many in the Web3 industry took the easy way out. Instead of challenging the centralization of infrastructure, they recreated financialization on top of it. Power was not redistributed; it was just repackaged.

🔗The ThreeFold Solution: The Infrastructure Web3 Forgot to Build

ThreeFold flips the script. It proposes a peer-to-peer, autonomous, and privacy-first network built on the idea that internet infrastructure should be as decentralized as the ideals it was founded on. At the heart of ThreeFold’s vision lies the ThreeFold Grid, a decentralized, energy-efficient network of compute, storage, and bandwidth contributed by people and communities around the world.

Unlike traditional cloud models, where resources are provisioned by centralized data centers, the TF Grid is built from the ground up by individuals who plug in hardware and earn tokens for providing capacity. Spanning over 50 countries and thousands of nodes, the Grid demonstrates that a globally distributed alternative to hyperscaler dominance is not only possible, but already taking shape.

The ThreeFold Grid runs on Zero-OS, a stateless and tamper-proof operating system that eliminates root access, significantly reducing the attack surface. Workloads are deployed in isolated, self-healing containers called ZMachines, ensuring high performance without compromising privacy or sovereignty.

Here’s how ThreeFold stands apart:

• No root access: Even ThreeFold can’t access users’ data or systems.
• No surveillance: Your activity isn’t harvested for ads or analytics.
• No intermediaries: You host and run services independently, without reliance on Big Tech.
• No rent-seeking: You pay for resources, not for gatekeeping.

🔗Infrastructure as a Public Good

ThreeFold’s model reclaims the internet as a public utility, akin to electricity or clean water. This isn’t decentralization for decentralization’s sake. This is sovereign computing. Now, communities, developers, and organizations can build, share, and interact without surrendering control.

Instead of being extracted for profit, compute and storage become commons that anyone can contribute to and benefit from. Anyone, anywhere, can run a node in the grid (provided they clear our KYC process, a move made earlier this year to protect ThreeFold node operators). Each of these nodes operates independently, yet seamlessly integrates into a unified network.

Also, being considered a “public good” comes with its own set of sustainability and environmental responsibilities. Centralized data centers are energy guzzlers, since they require a huge amount of electricity and other resources to function efficiently. This high energy demand leads to increased greenhouse gas emissions and contributes to climate change. Plus, let’s not forget the e-waste and its contribution to localized pollution through cooling systems and inefficient water usage.

The Threefold Grid, by its very design, uses the highest possible levels of energy efficiency. After all, a decentralized network that doesn’t depend on a centralized power source can fulfill its energy requirements far more optimally with minimal wastage.

🔗The Path Forward

Despite its promise, Web3 has largely inherited the same centralized assumptions it aimed to replace. Rather than challenging the infrastructure layer, most projects replicated existing systems with new financial incentives. Protocols were built, but the physical foundation remained untouched.

What is needed now is a deeper rebuild. One that starts at the root. Compute and storage must be redefined as communal, not speculative. AI must run locally, not on leased hardware in California. Communities must be able to build and host their own trees of knowledge, anchored in their own culture, not someone else’s data center.

Web3 must move beyond the superficial and return to intent. It is time to replace abstraction with ownership, speculation with participation, and complexity with clarity.

The internet must be reclaimed. That work has already begun. What once seemed improbable is now inevitable. Web3 must grow up and build what it skipped. The future will not be leased. It will be co-owned.

ThreeFold invites everyone to imagine, and participate in, a world where internet access is co-created, not bought. Owned, not rented. In reclaiming the internet as a public good, ThreeFold offers a roadmap to a freer, more resilient digital future. One where we own the infrastructure, the data, and the destiny of our digital lives.