Holo's hosting platform: Testing the potential of Elemental Chat and Holochain

Author: Holochain

Compiled by: ChainCatcher

With the launch of the hosting platform, we have reached an important moment for Holo. The pre-release testing of Hosted Elemental Chat continues to be successful, with over 200 peer chats happening globally. Messages are arriving quickly, and participants report a real-time chat experience using the application. Elemental Chat is testing the end-to-end infrastructure of a peer-to-peer Holochain application hosted by a peer-to-peer Holo hosting network. This showcases the potential for tremendous new possibilities on the network. Why do we say this?

This means that each user, when creating their credentials, is generating an encryption key for their application instance. Holo can never write chat logs on their behalf. Holo can never delete user entries. The only thing Holo can do, as an infrastructure provider connected to the centralized internet, is to prevent applications from being hosted on the platform. Applications certainly have their own set of rules, which the creators and developers of these applications will design.

I have asked several team members to share what this means------just to help everyone understand the true significance of these outcomes.

"When I use elemental chat, I know that my friends and all of humanity are hosting the service I am using, making the internet feel human and fresh again." --- David Atkinson

"We have proven that Holo hosted products are effective; they are a complex system of distributed hApps and centralized infrastructure, forming the foundation of the Holo ecosystem and HoloFuel." --- Alastair Ong

"This version is the first iteration that provides value to individual network users. Now, anyone can participate in Hosted Elemental Chat, and you don’t have to be a host." --- Rob Lyon

"Hosted eCommerce is the seed of digital agency using a browser and basic internet connectivity." --- Lisa Jettin

Everyone on our Holo team has different personal reasons, motivations, and perspectives on the capabilities and significance of Holochain and Holo in the world. Arthur has shared a lot about this in his blog series on the future of unshuttable operators and communications. Many in the team view Holochain as a distributed infrastructure that can digitally support distributed coordination to address and overcome the most pressing global and local governance and collaboration challenges of the future.

Some of us are excited to choose how and where data is stored at a structural level and who can access it. Others on our team are concerned about the lack of transparency and coercive tendencies of mainstream internet service providers and are pleased that developers can now replace these applications on Holochain.