Sister digital asset companies Bitfinex and Tether have entered a new area of business: the creation of peer-to-peer (P2P) applications.
Both companies have invested $10 million to date in the new project, with future investment of up to $100 million more, CTO Paolo Ardoino said in a recent interview.
The two companies in conjunction with P2P infrastructure developer Hypercore, have created a new company and protocol called Holepunch, launching its first application Keet : a point-to-point encrypted video calling application (currently in alpha).
Keet is the first in a series of peer-to-peer applications that will put people back in control. It is a completely free video calling application that uses peer-to-peer connections to facilitate communication and eliminate the risks of a central point of failure and over-reliance on third-party platforms. Unlike traditional video chat applications that use cloud-based software or external servers as intermediaries to connect two or more people, Keet users can initiate a call directly to another person’s computer. This allows video calls to take place without a central server or company operating the network.
Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Tether and Bitfinex & CSO of Holepunch expressed that;
“Web1 was the original form of the Internet. It was designed to distribute information and knowledge on a global scale, but it was not without its problems. Web2 improved on many of the user experience obstacles of Web1. Focused on social networking, it made content creation, sharing and consumption seamless, but not without one major flaw.” “Web2 requires users to relinquish control of their data, which has led to the emergence of monopolies and growing privacy concerns. That is why Tether and Bitfinex chose to participate in the development of Holepunch and Keet. It believes that freedom of choice, communication and finance are the lifeblood of the future, and anything that enhances those freedoms is worth expanding.”
The Holepunch protocol is currently closed source and will remain so until it completes alpha testing. In Q4 202 it will move to open source 2. The platform will not rely on any blockchain, but the integrated payments API will run, operate and be powered by Lightning Network. Tether tokens will also be supported as the default micropayment system for companies wishing to create products on Holepunch.
Mathias Buus, CEO of Holepunch Inc. also expressed that:
“Instead of transmitting communications through a single server, as most of today’s virtual communications applications do, Holepunch is an open network of computers that peers can use to discover each other,” ” Having been heavily involved in the P2P and Node.js ecosystems for the past 10 years, I strongly believe in open source and the role it will play in unlocking communication channels for billions of people around the world. This technology will enable Keet and the Holepunch platform to become the most unstoppable communication application, and we are thrilled to finally introduce it to the world.”
