What is ThreeFold?
ThreeFold is a fully operational, decentralized internet infrastructure – deployed locally, scalable globally, and owned and powered by the people. It’s built on a foundational platform that runs directly on bare metal, offering a scalable solution focused on the essential building blocks of the Internet and Cloud: compute, data, and network. This isn’t just another cloud service; it’s a new way to think about how the internet works, putting control back into the hands of individuals, organizations, and communities.
Main Benefits of ThreeFold
Here’s what makes ThreeFold stand out:
- Compute: Runs on Zero OS, a bare metal operating system that’s efficient, secure, and autonomous. It can handle any Web2, Web3, or AI workload right at the edge of the Internet, offering unmatched scalability and reliability.
- Data: Unbreakable Data that remains private and owned by you. It’s designed to be 10x more efficient and orders of magnitude more secure and reliable than traditional systems, scalable to a planetary level.
- Network: An unbreakable, end-to-end encrypted overlay network that always finds the shortest path between participants. It uses logical Internet addresses linked securely to private keys, ensuring unlimited scale and optimized performance.
- Community-Powered: Anyone can deploy nodes from home or office, hosting a decentralized alternative to corporate data centers, with 80% of earnings going to the hoster.
- Open Source & Transparent: The entire system is open source, driven by a vibrant community and a dedicated team.
How ThreeFold Works
At its core, ThreeFold is powered by nodes – distributed computers providing processing power, storage, and networking. These nodes form the physical foundation of a global, community-powered infrastructure. Getting started is simple: all you need is a modern computer, electricity, and a network connection. Boot it up with Zero OS, and voilà, you’ve got a ThreeFold Node ready to contribute.
Hosting and Earning with ThreeFold
Once a node is up and running, its capacity is verified, registered, and secured on the ThreeFold Blockchain. This capacity becomes available for use and can be listed on the ThreeFold Marketplace, where users can access these resources directly. Hosters earn rewards based on utilization, creating a fair and transparent peer-to-peer economy. It’s a win-win: the network grows stronger, and hosters get compensated for their contribution.
Developer and System Administrator Friendly
ThreeFold isn’t just for hosting nodes. It’s open for developers and system administrators to deploy virtual machines, containers, Kubernetes clusters, web gateways, and more – all on top of a decentralized, open-source cloud. It’s a flexible platform designed to complement the current Internet, allowing users to continue accessing and interacting with the traditional web while benefiting from ThreeFold’s enhanced security and privacy.
Impact on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure – by building a decentralized and scalable internet infrastructure.
- SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities – through community-powered nodes reducing reliance on centralized data centers.
- SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions – by enhancing privacy, security, and data ownership.
- SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals – fostering open-source collaboration and community-driven development.
Why ThreeFold Matters Today
The internet was once a peer-to-peer network, but over time, it’s become fragile and overly centralized. This centralization brings problems like compromised authenticity, privacy breaches, security risks, and sustainability challenges. ThreeFold offers a fresh, fundamental approach designed to be secure and private by default. With end-to-end encryption protecting data and ensuring only the owner has access, it’s a platform for anyone wanting autonomy and full control over their data and applications. In a world where data is power, ThreeFold hands that power back to the people.
