Holo
= "Holo fuel is a mutual-credit crypto-currency and an accounting system put in place as means for payment and settlement of application hosting imbalances". [1]
Description
1. Arthur Brock et al.:
"Holo lets people use their web browser and existing payment systems to interact with decentralized crypto-apps and currencies, providing a bridge from Holochain's fully peer-to-peer world of the future back to the semi-centralized world of today.
Early adopters can use a Holo hosting box to host their own apps and data and earn Holo fuel for sharing extra space and computing power to host apps for others. Instead of burning computation on mining, Holo Hosts get paid for providing hosting to mainstream users who just use their browser instead of installing Holochain.
Most crypto projects tout the fulfillment of crypto-anarchist ideals of total decentralization and automation of agreements, yet fail to provide an easy path for normal people to reach those ideals.
Holo is a pragmatic compromise — a bridge for people to transition toward greater and greater decentralization and autonomy. But since Holo must interface with the centralized systems of today, some parts of it are also centralized. So this is not a typical crypto project or paper. We've already built a fully distributed platform in Holochain. Now we want to take it to the mainstream. Holo is the bridge to get there."
(https://files.holo.host/2017/12/Holo-Green-Paper.pdf)
2. Rhyzom:
"Important to keep in mind is that Holochain is just one of the functional building block components of a broader initiative called Ceptr (from receptor, as it employs a bio-inspired, ecosystemic approach to computation and organizing complexity). Though Holochain is separately introduced on its own first with Holo (ticker HOT) as its entry into the mainstream. Holo brings the economic ingredient needed for setting things in motion and forming the basis for a gradually expanding ecosystem around distributed holochain applications (hApps).
Presently an ERC-20 receipt, HOT is to be redeemed for Holo fuel upon launching in the first quarter of 2019. Holo fuel is a mutual-credit crypto-currency and an accounting system put in place as means for payment and settlement of application hosting imbalances. Developers will initially be paying host providers in Holo fuel to host their applications and provide their service to other users (via Holoport devices specifically designed for the purpose, or as configured on any other regular device) without their own running instances of a Holochain node (that way making hApps accessible from any web browser).
Some of the applications supported within the Holo app ecosystem will include:
- Distributed PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)
- Distributed Directories
- Rating/Tagging/Annotation
- Chat & Social posting
- Distributed Content Delivery Network
*A crypto-reputation-currency akin to a BitTorrent sharing ratio ."
(https://rhyzome.github.io/Ceptr-and-Holochain/)
Status
2026
Cameron Burgess:
"What exists now: distributed hosting infrastructure, operating. Edge nodes that keep an application’s data available when none of its users are online — work that enables hosting models the original 2017 design couldn’t anticipate, where a network persists independently of who happens to be connected. The HoloPort hardware programme put dedicated hosting nodes into the hands of early believers — and those devices remain part of the network. HoloPorts run the same node software as any commodity hardware. What’s evolved is the model: distributed hosting no longer requires dedicated devices, and the network is stronger for being open to any hardware that can run the software. The hosting vision is not abandoned. It’s operational, continuing to develop, and now situated within a broader stack that gives it substantially more to do.
The original economic argument — that commodity hardware aggregated across a distributed network can substantially undercut centralised cloud pricing — has since been validated by an entire sector. Decentralised compute networks now report general compute costs up to 85% lower than centralised cloud providers, with GPU access running at roughly one-third the cost of equivalent AWS instances in live marketplace comparisons.46 The structural reason is unchanged from 2017: centralised cloud providers price for data centre overhead, redundancy guarantees, vendor margin, and the premium that comes with operating at monopoly scale. Thirty percent of global cloud spending — approximately $217 billion of a projected $723 billion spend in 2025 — is estimated to be waste: idle resources, over-provisioning, and timing inefficiencies. Distributed commodity hardware eliminates a portion of that overhead — and it carries a further structural advantage: it obviates cooling load that runs to more than 30% of electricity use in less efficient data centres. In a home hosting model, that energy is simply waste heat absorbed into a living space — and in cold climates, it contributes to heating needs while doing useful work. The argument was right. The delivery was late.
What’s evolved since 2017 is the hosting model itself, and the evolution solves a problem the original design left open. Holo will support two distinct hosting types. In micro-hosting, individual hosts set their own prices and make their nodes available for work, negotiating directly with app providers. For this type of hosting, what Holo provides is the proof-of-service infrastructure for invoicing work in HoloFuel. This works well for smaller applications and developers who want flexible, cost-competitive infrastructure without platform lock-in. In macro-hosting, the customer sets their requirements and price range, and Holo acts as the single commercial counterparty for enterprise clients — aggregating capacity from across the host network and presenting it as a unified, contracted service — and the host bids for inclusion on the hosting project. A large deployment cannot practically negotiate with thousands of independent node operators at different prices; the macro tier solves that without centralising the infrastructure that delivers it. The hosting is still distributed. The commercial relationship is not.
These aren’t competing models. They serve different groups at different scales, and together they mean Holo can play credibly at both ends of the market — the developer building on cost-competitive commodity infrastructure, and the enterprise client who needs predictable pricing and a single point of accountability."
(https://decent.holoventures.io/05-the-stack/)
Discussion
Four Reasons to support the Holo / Holochain project
By Jean Russell:
They are both "Inspired by natural systems and living ecology principles. Biomimicry applied to crypto-technology.
- Holo rewards people for sharing hosting capacity with the most minimal transaction fees because it is designed to serve hosts and those hosted rather than a central office that controls the flow. It solves the challenge of managing minuscule bits of data and tracking the accounting of them without adding to the complexity.
- Holochain is agent-centric not data-centric, meaning that it is putting the participant at the center of control and ownership. I own my data. I control permissions for others to access it. And by starting with the person at the center and then connecting them to a larger system, Holochain manages the dance between identity as something I control and something I am situated in (my reputation and activity engaging with others).
- I can imagine the applications this structural design makes possible, and they excite me. I can imagine applications that honor my lived experience as it truly is. I can imagine markets that help companies address risks by funding nonprofits to address those concerns. I can imagine applications and even currencies that help us make visible the value flowing in our communities, giving dignity to all contributions and contributors."
(https://medium.com/h-o-l-o/thrivabletechnology-3371a6a9ff8b)