Similar to the enterprise blockchain hype that happened a few years ago, Web3 seems to be repeating the same story, with lots of chatter but lagging adoption. Millions have rushed to trade crypto and NFTs attached to Web3 – with a lot of this activity based on speculation and hype – but that doesn’t mean they will replace legacy platforms anytime soon. New approaches such as DeFi (decentralized finance) don’t have the same problem of the legacy firms, but they face the challenge of scaling and mass adoption. However, many so-called ‘Web3’ solutions are not as decentralized as they seem, and still have to show they are scalable, secure and accessible enough for the mass market. This all may change, but there are clear limitations that will need to be overcome.

Whether Web3 is a marketing slogan or a true technological trend, there is a lot of money and technology behind it. Financial institutions are embracing blockchain technology and we are seeing a rising adoption of digital assets across industries. While the idea of utilizing digital currencies to exchange different forms of value in an increasingly digital world certainly makes sense, it’s a bigger leap to say that blockchain alone can support a broad set of use cases, including replacing the current Internet infrastructure.

The Internet’s client-server infrastructure replicates data and workloads across many computers, and uses tons of computing resources and energy while limiting the scalability of our applications. However, the clear inefficiencies and gaps in security in today’s centralized infrastructures are being challenged by simpler means of building, storing and exchanging data.

Blockchain is a clear evolution to the centralized client-server model, but there are severe challenges sourced from the blockchain trilemma between decentralization, scalability and security. Peer-to-peer systems transcend those challenges as they don’t require any valid2ation or verification from a third party, and enable end-to-end connections that can scale limitlessly without the potential of being altered or corrupted by intermediaries. In peer-to-peer systems, all participants are equally privileged, presenting a fairer model. Peer-to-peer represents an incredibly simple and efficient paradigm for organizing our digital world, and has already proven to be the most efficient alternative to centralized information systems.

Simply put, there is no reason to replicate full sets of data and workloads across many computers, and use tons of computing resources and energy while limiting the scalability of our applications. While there is an increasing reliance on blockchain principles to organize our Internet systems, blockchain also makes things redundant, slow, complex and energy intensive. To be clear, blockchain isn’t the problem, as it is a great technology to store and exchange value in a decentralized way, but it is only one piece of the puzzle.

By inter-connecting the computing processing power and storage capacity of billions of computers worldwide in a peer-to-peer way, data transfers could happen end-to-end between people and machines without the need to be verified. Peer-to-peer is also the only way to achieve a truly self-sovereign Internet – creating a ‘trustful’ environment that allows users and developers to have real data ownership.

Peer-to-peer systems aren’t meant to replace blockchains – they represent a way to decentralize models that blockchain cannot, such as Internet infrastructures. Peer-to-peer systems and blockchains, side by side. The best of both worlds. Peer-to-peer as the most efficient and decentralized alternative for us to exchange data and Internet resources. And blockchain for establishing trust through an irrefutable record of transactions.

With the rise of emerging technologies, a new technological foundation is needed to protect our sovereignty and freedom. The rise of blockchains, while well intended, ultimately has made the technological space more complex than ever before, and still benefits a plutocratic few (relative to its promise). More than just technology, peer-to-peer opens a world of new possibilities for humanity to co-initiate new paradigms and experiences.

By applying blockchain and peer-to-peer technology to the cloud, ThreeFold solves the security and autonomy issues of the Internet and realizes the initial promise of the Internet as an open-source, peer-to-peer, planetary mesh network of nodes owned by the people.

Support the realization of a peer-to-peer Internet owned by the people today:

• Get TFT, the currency of the peer-to-peer Internet.
• Connect a computer to the peer-to-peer Internet and earn monthly rewards.
• Build applications on the peer-to-peer Internet.

Cyber warfare is nothing new, especially in Russia and Eastern Europe. “In the relatively short and rapidly evolving history of cyber conflict, perhaps nothing has been established with greater certainty and more widely accepted than the idea that Russia has significant cyber capabilities and isn’t afraid to use them,” writes Josephine Wolff, associate professor of cybersecurity policy at Tufts University. “Especially on Ukraine.”

Leading up to the invasion, Ukraine experienced a series of cyberattacks on its critical infrastructures, including banks and government agencies. On February 23 2022, just a day before the launch of Russia’s military attack, websites of the Ukrainian parliament and multiple government agencies were put out of work. Similar cyber attacks had also been seen in early February and were attributed to GRU, Russia’s military-intelligence agency. And Ukrainian cities continue to suffer from internet blackouts. On Sunday, Ukraine’s vice president even called for tech specialists and hackers to join the “cyber front.” While the predictions of a Russian “cyber onslaught” have not necessarily come true yet, both sides have engaged in cyber attacks on visible and invisible levels.

🔗A Rise in State-Sponsored Cyber Attacks Globally

Digital or cyber warfare does not just apply to Russia and Ukraine. Broadly, cybersecurity experts have been raising concerns in recent years amid a sharp rise in ransomware and other types of digital attacks globally.

Adam Meyers, Senior Vice President of Intelligence at the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said: “Just in the last year, I think we’ve seen over 2,700 big-game hunting attacks [cyberattacks that target high-value data]. So they’re far and away that most prevalent actor. Nation-state actors are continuously operating as well, but they tend to operate a little bit more under the radar. They don’t conduct as many widespread and widely known attacks. They try to, obviously, steal information without it being identified that they’ve stolen it.”

Nevertheless, these are just the most current examples – Russia is hardly the only country engaging in cyber warfare at a larger scale. In fact, it is becoming increasingly difficult for governments, corporations and organizations to protect themselves against cyber attacks, especially against state-sponsored attacks. And in the digital space, the best and most dangerous hacks are those that go unnoticed until it’s too late.

🔗Some Governments are Sectioning Off the Internet Through Digital Borders

A set of countries like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran have certain aspirations for the internet. Domestically, these countries want control and think governments should get to decide what information flows across their borders. Globally, they want governments, not companies and NGOs, to be in charge of the internet. While some may say that government-owned internet infrastructures would be the only way to protect a country’s sovereignty, it goes without saying that what once was a neutral space for humanity to connect and exchange information is turning into a political schema.

Taken together, these goals are an attempt to align cyberspace with national borders, so they are sometimes dubbed the “cyber sovereignty” doctrine. The term comes from China, whose internet censorship system, called the Great Firewall, is the vanguard of the global cyber-sovereignty push. China’s cyberspace agency released a much-ridiculed musical ode to cybersecurity under Lu Wei’s leadership, which included the line: “A cyberpower: Where the Internet is, so is the glorious dream.”

The vision of effective cyber-sovereignty is expanding to new horizons. A November report from Freedom House examined 65 countries and found since the previous year that internet freedom declined in 26 of them. Chinese-style “digital authoritarianism,” meanwhile, is growing in influence as China exports both its surveillance known-how and technology.

The problem here is that digital sovereignty is a major concept that not only addresses the issues of communication and connection but also the impact on societies and culture at large. With cyber sovereignty turning into a non-territorial challenge to sovereignty itself irrespective of the virtual realm of the internet, is there a way out for humanity?

🔗A Free and Sovereign Cyber Space is Needed

It is evident that the current internet is facing some big challenges that have major implications for humanity. Data privacy and self-sovereignty is almost impossible today, raising serious questions towards those that control the Internet. But it also seems that these companies fell into the trap of their own business models and algorithms.

When taking a step back, the world seems just a few years away from the Matrix, as depicted by the Wachowskis.

The Internet is playing an incredibly important role for the most powerful intelligence companies. As depicted by Meyers, we wouldn’t even notice that our information is being stolen all the time to benefit the greed of powerful geo-political actors. The internet is not a public good anymore, and unless humanity reacts fast, it may be that the world will lose all forms of freedom or sovereignty.

“A declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” by John Perry Barlow once attempted to shed light on the applicability of government and institutions on the rapidly growing internet, already in 1996 trying to protect its neutrality. According to research, the world is experiencing innovation at an increasingly rapid pace. With the rise of blockchains and web3 technology, could the dream of John Perry Barlow turn into reality?

🔗So, What is the Solution?

In a world aching for more decentralization and less dependence on governments and corporations, new decentralized and peer-to-peer models are already proving to be more resilient and secure. New Internet infrastructure companies such as ThreeFold have successfully built peer-to-peer internet infrastructures that are more resilient than the current centralized model. On such systems, people and enterprises can store their data and run their applications on a distributed network of computers in such a way that their data cannot be corrupted. ThreeFold even created a so-called “quantum safe” storage that guarantees that even the most powerful computers in the world wouldn’t be able to reconstruct user data.

The escalation of this cyber conflict can lead to unforeseen consequences and casualties. That is why it is especially important that our industry works together to protect customers, partners, employees and citizens. ThreeFold is on a mission to realize the promise of a fully-comprehensive, open-source and peer-to-peer internet infrastructure. ThreeFold is a platform for the creators of tomorrow to build that blueprint of responsibility and ensure that the outcome of future systems is neutrality.

Join ThreeFold in building the new internet.

🔗Why become a ThreeFold Farmer?

Today’s Internet model is highly centralized, owned and operated by the few. It has turned people into products, is too harmful for our planet, cannot scale to meet emerging demands and connect the billions who are being left behind. These alone are powerful reasons to participate in ThreeFold farming and participate in the growth of a new peer-to-peer Internet economy.

Further, the Internet is the second largest and fastest growing industry in the world after the financial markets. With the Internet expected to triple in size by 2025 to meet the data requirements of emerging technologies such as blockchain, Web3 and IoT, we need more capacity and especially in underserved regions of the world.

🔗Basics of ThreeFold Farming

ThreeFold is a peer-to-peer network of computers (known as “3Nodes”), including servers, desktops and laptops, that creates an open-source, decentralized Internet. People who connect computers to the ThreeFold Grid (known as “farmers”) are rewarded with ThreeFold Tokens (TFT) on a monthly basis for meeting the required uptime necessary for users to access their workloads.

The process of connecting decentralized Internet capacity and thereby creating new ThreeFold Tokens is described as farming because it resembles the process of farming in agriculture. With agricultural farming, farmers cultivate the land and earn revenue from their harvests. With ThreeFold, farmers connect decentralized Internet capacity and earn ThreeFold Tokens every month for achieving a certain uptime.

The above model represents the building block for a distributed, edge infrastructure that can scale to anywhere electricity and network exists, to meet emerging data demands while also providing the self-sovereignty, privacy and security features to achieve true net-neutrality.

🔗A Fair Economic Model

ThreeFold was created to realize the promise of an open-source, peer-to-peer Internet. As such, ThreeFold farming rewards all farmers equally according to the amount of Internet capacity they provide to the network.

ThreeFold Tokens are rewarded for the amount of Internet capacity added and kept connected to the network. Farming rewards are calculated according to the compute, storage and network capacity made available by the computers:

• 30 TFT per Compute Unit (2 vCPU and 4 GB memory) per month
• 12.5 TFT per Storage Unit (1 TB of SSD and HDD) per month
• 0.38 TFT per Network Unit (1 GB of data transfer)
• 0.06 TFT per public IP address per hour

The above prices are based on the price of 1 TFT equalling $0.08. The farming rewards are pegged to the U.S Dollar and the price is locked from the time a farmer gets started to incentivize early contributors to the network. When the price of TFT rises, the farming rewards will decrease.

Farming rewards are designed to be “reviewed” by the ThreeFold DAO (a decentralized autonomous organization owned by the ThreeFold community) according to the growth of the ThreeFold Grid and the utilization of its decentralized cloud to ensure a fair distribution of the token economy while also ensuring that farmers will always be justly rewarded for their contribution.

🔗An innovative and sustainable solution

Bitcoin mining and other blockchains became famous for requiring enormous amounts of computers and power to solve complex mathematical equations to win the chance of earning the famous cryptocurrency. Since then, many other projects have been born and carried on the mining concept.

ThreeFold’s model is inclusive and planet-friendly. The decentralized operating system built and used by ThreeFold is extremely lightweight, allowing the peer-to-peer Internet infrastructure to be up-to 10x more energy efficient than the data center model and up-to 100x more energy efficient than Bitcoin mining.

The infrastructure was built in such a way that it removes the need for human intervention or maintenance to eliminate all unnecessary backdoors that open the possibility for ransomware and cyberattacks. Once booted, the decentralized operating system runs forever as the whole infrastructure was designed to be self-driving and self-healing. This 100% autonomous model allows for a completely decentralized system while also enhancing the security and privacy.

While blockchain remains an incredible store of value, it is neither an efficient nor a scalable solution to store data and run applications. Only a peer–to-peer model can scale the Internet infinitely and efficiently.

🔗Considerations before getting started

The following are important factors to consider for ThreeFold farming profitability:

🔗Computer Hardware

Farmers are encouraged to use the latest computers, including servers, desktops, and laptops that come with an AMD and Intel processor. The computer should have at least 1 Terabyte of SSD to optimize the performance of their farming activity. It is recommended to buy a ThreeFold 3Node server from certified partners around the globe that comes pre-configured and ready to run on the Grid.

Used or refurbished computers can be used but it is important to understand that older computers are less efficient and more power-hungry. Computers not older than 4 years are recommended. Please visit the DIY section of our forum for support and feedback on farming setups.

🔗Power Costs

Electrical power is the main operating expense. Electricity is charged per kilowatt-hour (kWh). The cost of farming can float from $0.10 to $0.35 per kWh. It is important for a farmer to verify the expected power usage of a computer before starting the operation to improve profitability.

Note that the price of kWh varies depending on the country. Find a country power cost average comparison here.

🔗ThreeFold Token Price

An incentive to farm ThreeFold Tokens is because of its future potential. What Bitcoin did to money, ThreeFold is doing to the Internet. While Bitcoin and Etheruem have already reached high market caps, ThreeFold is just getting started.

Farmers are rewarded a given amount of TFT monthly based on the amount of Internet capacity they provide to the network.

If the price of TFT is $0.1, the profitability of the farm will be average. If the price of TFT is $0.3 your farming operation may operate with healthy rewards. If the price of TFT is $1 your farming operation will be highly rewarding.

Farming rewards are also locked until 30% utilization for a period of 2 years to incentivize early participants. The earlier you start your farming operation, the greater the rewards along with the growth in the value of TFT.

The right mix of the above elements make farming an attractive venture. If the variables are favorable, farmers can scale up operations and earn more rewards.

🔗Conclusion

Anyone can start farming by hosting a computer at their home or office and take part in the decentralization of our global Internet and Cloud economy. Considering ThreeFold’s market cap alongside the growing demand for a decentralized Internet, there’s no better time than now to get started farming!

Buy or build a 3Node and become a ThreeFold Farmer!

After introducing the ThreeFold Grid in part one and diving deep into storage and compute, we’re back with part 4 to look at the networking aspects of the ThreeFold Grid.

Computer networking is a rather complex phenomenon with a thankfully intuitive outcome: you send messages from one place to another. We all understand that our digital devices become a lot less interesting when they are not connected to the Internet. However, networking is not just Internet, and when it comes to building a new Internet, it’s important to understand what that means.

The existing Internet can be defined as a global set of networks and protocols that enable us to do things like load web pages and use apps that rely on external data. It depends on lots of underlying infrastructure, including fiber optic cables running along the ocean floor, our home routers and their connection to an Internet service provider (ISP), lots of cell service towers, and an increasing number of satellites. All of that makes the Internet possible, and it’s still required for a new Internet to function.

ThreeFold uses and builds new protocols to create a network that is interoperable with the existing Internet. These include private overlay networks, the Planetary Network based on Yggdrasil, and various interfaces to the public Internet. Let’s see how they work.

🔗Private overlay networks

Every deployment on the ThreeFold Grid belongs to a network, which is one of the Grid primitives. These networks allow data to be transmitted between workloads in a private and secure manner. They are called overlay networks because they pass traffic over some underlying network. That could be within a single node or between nodes on infrastructure provided by a farmer. The Grid uses software called WireGuard for this purpose, a simple, fast, and secure option among its alternatives.

By means of encryption, the traffic on a private overlay network is unreadable to any other device on that network. Likewise, the workloads within the private network have no visibility of the underlying network. Individuals who deploy workloads can access their networks over a secure tunnel, assuming that one of the nodes in the network is reachable from the public Internet. This is suitable for workload administration and some private applications. For public services and peer-to-peer communication, the ThreeFold Grid provides other solutions.

🔗Planetary Network

The Planetary Network is an implementation of the Yggdrasil Network, which is a next generation approach to network routing. It is a peer-to-peer solution where all traffic is encrypted and takes the shortest path to its destination. These features make it highly compatible with the ethos and goals of the ThreeFold Grid: privacy, security, and efficiency. The design also allows nodes, workloads, and users to communicate freely without relying on centralized intermediaries.

Many ThreeFold Farmers connect their nodes to a home router which blocks all inbound traffic by default. This is a sensible feature that doesn’t interfere with most Internet usage (enthusiasts who want to host their own website or a gaming server might bypass this, for example). However, nodes on the Grid need to be reachable, especially in order to receive workload definitions from deployers.

The Planetary Network solves this by accepting inbound traffic through an outbound connection to a publicly accessible peer. You can think of this like making a call to an operator and then waiting for another call to be routed to you on that line. Even if your phone is set to block all incoming calls, someone can still reach you if they can reach the operator.

This also provides a way for workloads to communicate with one another and be reachable by users. Anyone can enable the Planetary Network on their own device to access sites and services in a very secure and private way. While the ThreeFold Grid is designed to be fully interoperable with the existing Internet, the Planetary Network provides an alternative which can sit side by side in a seamless way.

🔗Reliable Message Bus

Using the Planetary Network, nodes and Grid users can send messages over the Reliable Message Bus. Notably, it is used for the delivery of workload definitions as mentioned earlier. Zero-OS supports some other RMB messages as well, for doing things like checking available capacity on a node in real time. RMB is a general purpose protocol that can be used by developers in their applications. It queries the ThreeFold Blockchain as a kind of address book for the Planetary Network, enabling nodes and users to find each other in a decentralized way.

🔗Public IPs and Web Gateways

Finally, let’s see how the Grid can offer services over the public Internet using public IP addresses and web gateways. Everytime we type a domain name into our browser, like threefold.io, it is resolved to an IP address. The browser then forms a connection with that address to retrieve the site we’re looking for. Reviving a theme from earlier, that IP must be publicly reachable.

🔗Public IPs

We’re in the midst of a shift from the older IPv4 standard to the newer IPv6 standard. While IPv6 has plenty of addresses for every device on the planet and many more, it hasn’t been universally adopted yet, and IPv4 addresses are in short supply. You likely have one assigned to your router at home, and these days, even getting a second one from your ISP can be a difficult and expensive proposition.

The ThreeFold Grid allows farmers who own blocks of IPv4 addresses to rent them out to deployers. These addresses get attached to individual workloads which are then reachable over the public Internet. A deployer could then assign their own domain name to that IP and host a website there. This is a very flexible way to make Grid deployments publicly available, but it comes at a relatively high cost.

🔗Web Gateways

Web gateways are another way to make workloads on the ThreeFold Grid available over the public Internet. In this case, the farmer may provide a domain name that points to one of their nodes which is publicly reachable. Deployers are then able to reserve a subdomain, like explorer.threefold.io is a subdomain of threefold.io, that routes traffic to their workload. It is also possible for a deployer to point their own domain to the gateway node which then routes traffic to the appropriate workloads.

We glossed over a bit in the earlier description of domain name to IP address resolution. In fact, multiple domains can point to a single IP address and this is common practice among existing web hosts. Adding similar functionality to the Grid helps to ease the demand for IPv4 addresses and is a lower cost solution for deployers than renting a dedicated IP. The web gateway also serves to enhance security and reliability of Grid-hosted services.

The gateway provides a connection from the public Internet to the secure private overlay networks that all workloads use. However, this is not a standard network connection but instead a network socket, which provides security through separation. This is something like passing along the contents of mail pieces without their envelopes. Web gateways also enable redundancy, as multiple gateways can point to the same workload, and multiple workloads can serve the same set of gateways.

When we say the ThreeFold Grid scales limitlessly, this is one of the ways that’s true. Many nodes, many gateways, many applications, and many users can all fit into this model. Deployers can start with a single virtual machine and a single public IP like in the example I’ll use to wrap up this piece below, then ramp up to a globally distributed and highly redundant system as their requirements grow.

🔗Send, receive, complete

Now we’ve seen how the ThreeFold Grid handles networking. From private and secure communication between workloads, to next generation peer-to-peer communication and full compatibility with the existing Internet, these offerings are comprehensive. Not only that, but they can be pretty darn fun to play with too.

In my own recent experience, I deployed a virtual machine on the Grid with a public IP and hosted a simple website with a map of nodes on the Grid that I’d been working on. I was able to quickly share it with some colleagues and members of the community. It went from a project I was tinkering with on my own computer to a live site on the Internet in a matter of minutes, thanks especially to the networking features of the ThreeFold Grid.

For the final piece of this series, we’ll see how everything comes together to turn computer code into a meaningful digital experience. Stay tuned!

Since the launch of ThreeFold Grid 3.0, TFT has been available on three blockchains – Stellar, Binance Smart Chain and the Substrate-based ThreeFold Blockchain (aka TF Chain).

There are already active bridges that connect Stellar to Binance Smart Chain and TF Chain, improving the accessibility and availability of TFT, while also connecting the ThreeFold ecosystem to external blockchain networks.

Learn more about TF Chain in our blog post here.

🔗What are bridges and why are they important?

The concept of bridges in crypto is similar to a bridge in the physical world. Bridges in the real world simply connect two different locations and communities so that the people can travel back and forth and resources can be exchanged freely.

Similarly, using bridges in blockchain allows users to easily transfer tokens and other crypto assets between two or more networks – regardless of the different protocols, tooling, and governance models these networks have. Simply put, a bridge ensures a secure interoperability between different blockchains.

ThreeFold uses blockchain bridges to connect external blockchain networks to the ThreeFold ecosystem. The bridging mechanisms we’ve implemented allow TFT to be transferred securely between different blockchains. Currently, we’ve established two 2-way bridges:

• Stellar <> Binance Smart Chain
• Stellar <> TF Chain

But what is the difference between the 3 chains?

Stellar is an open-source network for storing and moving digital assets, and still remains the main blockchain for the minting of TFT and distribution of farming rewards. Until the launch of TF Chain with Grid 3.0, only TFT living on Stellar were accepted for the reservation of Internet capacity on the ThreeFold Grid. 

Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is a standalone, parallel Binance chain that is a leading DeFi ecosystem next to Ethereum. On BSC, TFT is implemented as a cross-chain asset, allowing anyone to connect to the bridge using Metamask or Trust Wallet – the most popular Web 3 wallets in the world.

TF Chain was built on the Substrate framework with the purpose of decentralizing user-farmer relationships on the ThreeFold Grid. It has its own native form of TFT, which can be bridged back and forth from Stellar-based TFT. This model will be implemented for other chains in the future, for interoperability and cross-chain features between blockchain and DeFi ecosystems and the ThreeFold Grid.

🔗What’s new with TF Chain?

TF Chain represents a leap forward for simplicity in payments for capacity reservations and a move towards greater decentralization of the systems that support the ThreeFold Grid. With the launch of ThreeFold Grid 3.0, TF Chain became the official record of ThreeFold farms and nodes, and brought peer-to-peer billing based on smart contracts for workload deployments on the ThreeFold Grid. 

For now, minting will remain on Stellar but reservations of nodes and capacity on ThreeFold Grid 3.0 are already executed via TF Chain. Bridges were established between Stellar and TF Chain to facilitate payments, e.g. if you pay for a workload deployment in Stellar TFT, this payment needs to be bridged to TF  Chain’s native TFT to fund the smart contract.

🔗The two-way bridge between Stellar & BSC 

Until recently, the bridge between Stellar and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) was one-way only: from BSC to Stellar. Even though it was possible to transfer TFT from Stellar to BSC via  command line, this was only an option for tech-savvy people. Now, you can also deposit TFT from Stellar to BSC using the bridge with a proper UI, as you can see in the image below.

When depositing from TFT Stellar, please be sure that both addresses and memo are as indicated in the instructions or the TFT you transfer will be lost forever. To facilitate the process, a QR code is generated and can be scanned using the ThreeFold Connect app, automatically filling in the right address and memo on your behalf.

As Binance Smart Chain is a more expensive chain, a fee of 50 TFT will be automatically charged for the bridge from Stellar to BSC. Find the full step-by-step guide for the Stellar-BSC bridge here. 

🔗What’s next? 

As the ThreeFold ecosystem continues to grow, we’re looking into building more bridges (e.g. Cosmos, Ethereum) to improve the accessibility of TFT and simplify the onboarding of blockchain and DeFi projects on the ThreeFold Grid. TF Chain will play an important role in the further development of the People’s Internet, so give our blog post on TF Chain a read here. 

Try out the Stellar-BSC bridge here and visit our forum to share your experiences.

🔗The ThreeFold Grid

In January we launched ThreeFold Grid 2.4 on Mainnet and evolved it through version 2.8. In September, we launched ThreeFold Grid 3.0 on testnet and just this week, we launched TF Grid 3.0 on mainnet, with limited capacity for now.

ThreeFold Grid 3 brings a massive leap forward in the decentralization of the ThreeFold Grid and makes for a much simpler user experience for farmers and grid users.

The starting point ThreeFold Grid 3:

• What’s New in TF Grid 3.0
• Manual

🔗Notable Tech Developments

Other new developments on the tech side included QSFS (Quantum Safe Storage System), TF Chain, Smart Contracts and more (take a look at the new tech section we launched with the new threefold.io this year and of course our knowledge base).

🔗The ThreeFold Token (TFT)

2021 was all about bringing TFT to more chains and making TFT more accessible, with the BSC integration, TF Chain, and 1inch.

Read about our TFGrid & TFT Price Simulation.

🔗ThreeFold Farming

Today, the ThreeFold Grid is live in 57 countries with more than 1,450 Nodes online. Thanks to all the Farmers who both built or bought and connected 3Nodes!

In 2021, we introduced a certified farming program and farming rewards 3.0 which will apply from ThreeFold Grid 3.1 onwards (end Jan). We also established weekly 3Node updates to keep you in the loop at all times.

🔗Partnerships

Throughout 2021, we announced key partnerships with ownCloud, DigiThree Labs, CasperLabs and many more. Most recently, two of these partnerships were featured in the news, TAG and Computecoin. All of these will be launched in 2022.

🔗2022 Preview (Q1)

In the first part of 2022, we are launching our grid.

Read our launch plan and offer feedback!

> OUR LAUNCHPLAN Q1 2022

🔗The ThreeFold Token

Now is the time to buy TFT! (Please take a look at the launch plan above.)

In 2022, our goal for the ThreeFold Token is to be available at as many entry points as possible. We’re planning integrations with many ecosystems like Cosmos to achieve great networking effects for the money networks. There will be discounts for Utilization based on pre-purchasing of TFT, and more.

🔗Wrapping Things Up

There’s no other project out there like ThreeFold. TF Grid 3 is here, the grid is continuously growing across the world, and this collective effort is uniquely positioned to truly decentralize the Internet. Remember: ThreeFold is inevitable.

So, here we go! You can expect many more updates soon on what was covered above. And may the year 2022 be full of health, happiness and opportunities for all of us!

Please be reminded we are a decentralized movement, we need your help to let us all “BE THE INTERNET.” Become a farmer, register for a validator, contribute to our movement, develop a solution on top of TF Grid … If you’re not sure how to help out but want to, please get in touch on our two-way chat or here on the forum.