🔗Empowering sovereignty and economic freedom

Billions of people around the world still remain without access to the Internet or financial services today. Yet many of them have access to electricity and network, and some even already own a mobile phone that could help them access the Internet and financial services. But without fair and reliable connectivity, they remain in the dark. ThreeFold holds an answer here.

The Internet is a human right but it is unequally distributed around the world. ThreeFold enables the realization of an open-source, peer-to-peer Internet that can scale to anywhere electricity and network exists. Everyone deserves access to the Internet, education and financial services to equally learn, partake and succeed, regardless of where they were born, their gender or their socioeconomic status.

🔗So how can ThreeFold go truly global?

Going global is complicated and even more these days with the evolving regulatory and socio-economical landscapes. Thus, it’s important for us to be on the ground. So we will work with our community and ecosystem on one hand, and with governments and regulators on the other hand, for all of us to meet in the middle. We will always aim to be the most transparent, trusted, inclusive and decentralized Internet solution wherever we go.

A first step in our strategy is to support the growth of local communities across regions to build local presence on the ground. The only way for a truly decentralized Internet to emerge is to involve people in the building process of it, both on a hardware and software level. We are in the midst of kicking off an extensive global expansion strategy, with grants and hiring plans to grow the ThreeFold Grid across markets and ultimately build strong local communities that can serve potential customers locally.

Together with these communities, we will develop and grow the ThreeFold Grid, establish our presence with local developers, grow our ecosystem, and collaborate closely with our network.

Throughout the last year we have made incredible connections across industries including Blockchain, Web 3.0, IoT, Real Estate and Supply Chains.

Every region is unique and we cannot take the same approach wherever we go. This is where the idea of ‘glo-cality’ comes in – a global concept applied locally with regional context.

🔗Global Concept: Launch of educational campaigns around the importance of a peer-to-peer Internet

ThreeFold’s mission is to realize the promise of an open-source, peer-to-peer Internet owned by humanity, and we take this commitment heartedly. The first objective of our global strategy is to allow anyone who wants to expand the peer-to-peer Internet to their neighborhood to be able to find compatible computers and how to get started.

For a multi-region approach to scaling the ThreeFold Grid to arise, a decentralized 3Node marketplace will be launched in April 2022. This will allow communities to access a simple, decentralized and certified platform to buy and sell compatible computer hardware locally. As the ThreeFold Grid expands, we will look to go local, as shared below:

🔗Applied locally: Grow localized ecosystems of developers and enterprises to productize the infrastructure

Most countries are looking for new Internet infrastructure alternatives to protect their sovereignty. ThreeFold’s peer-to-peer Internet supports any current and emerging technological trend in a way that is fully compliant with any local digital laws and regulations. For developers and enterprises, this includes a peer-to-peer Infrastructure as a service which offers a distributed, quantum-safe storage and a decentralized edge computing platform to host any current or future technology. For institutions, we will offer a suite of advanced infrastructure set-ups for a sovereign and unbreakable Internet infrastructure.

Decentralized financial and legal systems are being created along with industry experts from around the world to deliver on cross-border financial freedom, education and Internet access. Along with a strong ecosystem, we are planning to offer a full suite of advanced technological, financial and educational solutions to countries, especially in the global south to bring access to education, Internet and financial inclusion to more than a billion people by 2030.

At ThreeFold, we’re committed to building and expanding the open Internet that is owned by humanity. We are always looking at expanding our ecosystem with the world’s best thinkers and talent ready to be at service of a mission that unites us all. If you think this could be you, we’re waiting for you!

Have you read our manifesto yet? Join the peer-to-peer movement today!

Apply for an open position here and bring your proposals to the community-led forum.

We have a new format for ThreeFold Weekly, now on our blog. If you’d like to review any of the first eleven editions, please find them on our forum.

🔗Major ThreeFold News:

• Members of the ThreeFold team attended the World Blockchain Summit in Dubai. Over two days we exchanged with countless people and their reactions were unanimous – ThreeFold is undeniably one of the most exciting projects in the blockchain space. We’re excited to join many more events this year to drive the ThreeFold movement forward!

• Yesterday, we participated in the 6th track of the Gaia-X Hackathon. Our tech gurus Geert and Weynand presented ThreeFold and guided participants through the deployment of workloads on ThreeFold Cloud in a hands-on session.

ThreeFold was featured in the news twice last week:

• The Future Is Now: Kristof De Spiegeleer Of ThreeFold On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene (Interview with Authority Magazine)

• ThreeFold: Is the Decentralized Web the Future of the Internet? (Coverage on CoinCheckup Blog)

🔗Community updates:

• Kyle Ellicott and Kristof de Spiegeleer discussed how ThreeFold is decentralizing the Internet and how it is more relevant than ever before.

• We’re collecting farmer stories to share about the people behind ThreeFold – a globally diverse community united around the mission of building an open-source, peer-to-peer Internet, owned by humanity.

• Only 8 L2 and 3 L0 validator spots remain. We are grateful to know that the people behind the validators believe in a decentralized future and want to take part in a meaningful way. Learn how to stake TFT and become a validator here.

🔗Technology Developments:

• The ThreeFold Grid version 3.0.0 A5 was released on Devnet. Testnet will follow soon.

• TF Grid v3.0 A5 will support dedicated nodes.

🔗ThreeFold Grid: 

• Hurry up and migrate your 3Nodes from V2 to V3. As a decentralized community, it’s our collective responsibility to ensure we’re powering the latest version of our technology for feature and security reasons. Follow the migration process via ThreeFold Connect here.

• Please remember that the minting payout for March 2022 will be executed on the 8th of April instead of the 5th of April.

• We created a new pricing calculator for TF Grid deployments and are looking for feedback.

• 3Node deliveries to all parts of the world continue. If you ordered a Titan recently, please fill in this  specific migration process to ensure quick delivery.

See you next week, everyone!  🙌 

You can find all earlier editions of ThreeFold Weekly along with the ThreeFold Product Updates here.

Join the ThreeFold movement, a community of like-minded people that build the world of tomorrow!

• Learn how to host the Internet at your home or office.
• Get TFT, the currency of the peer-to-peer Internet.

🔗Participate in the ThreeFold L2 Validator Program

The ThreeFold Blockchain records transactions that happen on the ThreeFold Grid, including Internet capacity (farming), Internet capacity provisioning (smart contract for IT), identity, account metadata and more.

Validator nodes support the network by remaining in sync with the ThreeFold Blockchain and recording the chain’s data while validating and/or injecting transactions. Essentially, a validator stores and validates transactions aka, mining blocks.

With about a hundred L2 validator nodes to join the network, clients will be able to rely on a distributed, peer-to-peer network instead of relying on centralized services.

Many people and organizations rallied to run validator nodes using computing and bandwidth resources – but more are needed to allow ThreeFold to continue to grow. The rest of this post describes how you can help and what’s in it for you.

🔗Why run a ThreeFold L2 Validator?

L2 Validators store the records of the ThreeFold Blockchain, the ThreeFold DAO and the development of side chains on the ThreeFold Grid. There are only 50 in the first batch and 37 have already been verified – meaning there are only 13 spots left! Running an L2 validator requires 2,000,000 TFT staked in order to begin validating. This 2,000,000 TFT is the minimum bond needed to begin validating blocks. A validator also earns voting rights in the ThreeFold DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization), which is responsible for the operations of the ThreeFold Blockchain and ThreeFold Grid.

Running a validator node on a computer isn’t a complicated task. For many of us who love ThreeFold, we want to support the decentralization of the peer-to-peer Internet, and running a validator node is a great way to do that. Also, it is a unique and revolutionary project to have in your room or office. Running a validator node requires little electricity, close to zero technical knowledge, and no real time commitments. 

🔗Validator Node Rewards

For their commitment, and as an incentive for their continued participation, validators are rewarded with a share of the ThreeFold Grid’s revenue. By helping the network reach consensus, validators also earn rewards for processing transactions into new blocks or checking the work of other validators because that’s what keeps the ThreeFold Blockchain secure. A minimum of 5% yield is foreseen in the next 2 years.

🔗Join the Peer-to-Peer Revolution

ThreeFold is realizing the initial promise of an open-source, peer-to-peer Internet owned by the people. Anyone can become a validator and participate in the decentralization of the Internet economy. If you are interested in running one, just follow these simple steps:

• Step 1: Create an account (wallet) with the ThreeFold Connect app.
• Step 2: Buy the required amount of TFT to reserve your validator. Find all TFT buying options here.
• Step 3: Log into the ThreeFold Forum using ThreeFold Connect and go to the L2 Validator Signup category.
• Step 4: Follow the registration instructions to become a L2 Validator, and review the checklist of your application before submission.

Someone from the ThreeFold community will get in touch with you within the next few days to welcome you to the ThreeFold universe. We’ll have a brief call to verify your identity and wallet treasury to confirm your application. The successful verification process secures your spot as a ThreeFold L2 Validator.

There’s a saying that goes, “If it is free, you are the product.” Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are known for being completely free of charge. Their business models and profits are based on collecting, analyzing and selling their users’ data. Studies now show that high social media use correlates with self-reported declines in mental and physical health. The same platforms are being manipulated by private companies that spread political disinformation and polarity. According to internal Facebook reports, 64% of the people that joined extremist groups did so because algorithms steered them there. In an increasingly interconnected world where people are surrounded by smart devices that collect their data 24/7, data ownership and control has never been more important than anything else.

Since the launch of Bitcoin, many cryptocurrencies have rallied the movement of decentralization, but only a handful hold technology that can bring true impact. What if there was one project out there that could apply the peer-to-peer and open-source fundamentals to the Internet? ThreeFold spent the last six years developing a new Internet infrastructure from the ground up consisting of a new decentralized operating system, a quantum safe storage system, a planetary mesh network and a distributed edge cloud solution.

ThreeFold builds on 20+ years of technological innovations in the cloud automation, Internet storage and cybersecurity markets brought by its co-founders such as Kristof de Spiegeleer – a serial entrepreneur whose technologies have been acquired by Oracle, Verizon, Data Symantec and others. Together, the ThreeFold co-founders decided to start from scratch as they realized it was the only way to achieve a peer-to-peer and open-source digital backbone that secure, private and self-sovereign.

According to de Spiegeleer, “ThreeFold holds more technology than all the Web3 space combined.” ThreeFold’s decentralized operating system can run on any computer, including servers, desktops and laptops, allowing anyone to connect hardware from their home or office to the peer-to-peer Internet.“

But what differentiates ThreeFold the most from the crowd is that it’s a project anchored in it’s values and vision. The project always remained far from fake hype, market making or FOMO games like the large majority of crypto projects. With a low market cap today, and its ability to transform the Internet at large, the time to buy ThreeFold Tokens (TFT) is now. “We’re on the verge of signing our first countries and also have use cases across Real Estate, Education, Supply Chain, Metaverse and Blockchain coming up this year,” said de Spiegeleer, “So, we believe we are looking at tens of millions of users on ThreeFold in the upcoming years.“

Stake your claim in the decentralized Internet by hosting the Internet or getting TFT today.

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.