The internet is growing at an extremely fast pace, but is that a good thing?

The current growth of internet needs 4000+ new large scale data centers of computer systems. The global data growth will reach more than 40 Zetabytes by 2020 which represents an average yearly growth of 42% starting at 4.5 Zetabytes in 2013. To host all this data, over 4000 new big data centers have to to be built. And to achieve this goal, $ 1 trillion USD investment capital is needed and land totalling the size of the UK would be needed.

The Internet is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. In this article we'll explain why that's not always such a good thing and where we see opportunities.

Internet capacity needs to become localized

A big majority of users in the world connect to servers that are not present in their region and as such experience higher costs and low performance. According to a study by datacentermap.com, 80% of the data centers of the current Internet's service providers are based in the U.S. and Europe. The rest of the world has scarce Internet resources dotted around territories.

As a consequence most Internet users use Internet-based services running on infrastructure which is located far away from their physical location and most likely outside their country's borders. This decreases the general end-user experience (latency) but also adds unnecessary costs to transporting the information back and forth. Also, it adds legislation and compliance headaches to enterprises.

Our mission is to empower and inspire people to recognize abundance by living new experiences one hour at a time.

The Internet needs to perform better

Compute and Storage vendors create poor-performing solutions. There have been yearly improvements in hardware following Moore's law. While this has allowed ThreeFold to progress and innovate, it has also led to software developers taking these advances for granted; cutting corners where they can, creating sub-optimal code and allowing software components to be layered on top of each other to achieve certain behavioral functionalities.

The inefficiencies have now led to a situation where organically-grown IT architectures are immensely complex. They use a variety of components from different software and hardware vendors integrated by so called 'integrators'. The overall effort and cost involved to create, operate and maintain such architectures is growing continuously and requiring an ever-increasing budget and resourcing to continue.

If we could go down to the core algorithms and take another look at these, and innovate at the heart of technology instead of applying patches and pain killers, we would be able to create much more end-user capacity than what systems provide today. Systems will last longer and will not have to be replaced by faster ones. Also, fewer engineers will be needed to create, operate and maintain these systems. Combined, these elements would present a more stable and reliable platform that can achieve higher levels of uptime.

Only upsides, right? Well a huge downside of such an approach is that vendors will make less revenue and more importantly less margin as systems will run for longer, be more stable and require less updates. So why would vendors innovate at the core of their solution?

The Internet needs to become more sustainable

Did you know that the current Internet is responsible for between 5 and 10% of global energy consumptions? Making it more harmful to our planet than the airline Industry. The good news is that we can achieve 10x more power efficiency by addressing certain areas such as storage.

ThreeFold’s decentralized cloud crypto platform is the new internet-based in the world’s largest cloud network. In addition, it’s 100% private, making user data completely encrypted.

ThreeFold believes IT can do a much better job at being more sustainable - in fact ThreeFold believes it can reduce the Internet’s carbon footprint by 10 times compared to other industry standards in IT capacity producing solutions.

Power consumption is a function of better compute and storage performance that in theory would require more racks and cooling. ThreeFold's architectural approach brought solutions that enables it's Farmers to achieve roughly 3 times the performance per rack (so it uses fewer racks) and the racks require less energy than typical racks in the industry.

The Internet needs to become more affordable

The biggest cost in running IT architectures is the human cost. Today's complex systems, built out of ‘band aid and patches’ point solutions, organically-grown and badly documented IT infrastructures, need an armada of people to keep them ticking. Even though this is an example, one can learn a lot from the trends that are presented:

· On average an IT budget takes 5% of overall revenues

· IT consumes 6.5% of the total number of Full-time equivalent in the company, of which 85% are insourced and 15% on payroll. This means that the enterprise doesn't retain internal know-how to operate their IT.

· About 50% of IT budgets are spent on Infrastructure ane operations. Similarly, a big part goes to applications. A mere 5% is considered to be internal overhead within the IT department.

· Around 65% of the IT budget is spent on resources and services, around 35% is spent on hardware and software.

These figures present industry average numbers and paint a troubling picture that IT is a sizeable part of an overall budget, and that most spending is going to have the right knowledge skills insourced to the organisation to run the core IT architecture it relies on. For any other discipline in any organisation this would present an unacceptable risk to the business and its continuity - strangely not for IT.

The Internet needs to become self-healing

The biggest source of downtime in computer systems is people. Getting people involved in fixing infrastructure problems creates the risk of accidentally causing more system downtime. A very recent example on this hit a large organisation cloud service provider.

20+ years ago when Internet data centers came into existence next to telecom points of presence (POP), the level of complication in architecting, and building and maintaining these infrastructures exploded. From an already reasonable complicated technology setup to transport packets of data around the globe, these information warehouses were created where data was uploaded to, processed, and the obtained results sent back to end users on the other side of the globe.

Managing a data center that contains solutions for information transportation, storage and processing is not an easy task and the growth of data volume uploaded, stored and processed has exponentially increased. The number of technologies invented and implemented in regards to the processing and storing of information has also exploded. This resulted in a double exponential growth in complexity to architect, build, operate and maintain these IT systems.

The time has come that we no longer rely on people to do the right thing in case of emergency - the complexity is overwhelming and the dependency on the availability of that information is huge. Having people to do manual deployments and operational responsibilities does not provide the agility and speed to keep up with the continuous exponential growth of the industry. It is time to take the human element out of IT and let smart and autonomous systems to take over. This will also let people focus on more creative activities.

The world needs a responsible internet

On a humanitarian level the opportunities for creativity, learning and development are currently negatively influenced by a lack of access to performant and affordable Internet services. Since Internet access is a human right, it should protect the status quo between the developed and less-developed regions of our world.

The Internet is growing fast, with the wrong solutions

It is evident that the current solutions are super unsustainable and make no sense. Luckily, ThreeFold and many other start-ups are deploying new solutions.

The ThreeFold Token is the currency of the new Internet. It is a decentralized digital currency that represents a unit of reservation of capacity (compute, storage) on the largest peer-to-peer network of capacity on earth.

Capacity is a new high-demand market, and the TFT will be the medium of exchange for this commodity on the peer-to-peer internet brought by ThreeFold. TFT synergistically connects the world of cloud and blockchain markets to the most scalable universal substrate without compromising, performance, security and privacy.

How are ThreeFold Tokens created?

No ThreeFold Tokens have ever been minted. ThreeFold Tokens are generated through a process called “Farming”. Farming happens when active internet capacity is added to the ThreeFold Grid. Independent farmers earn ThreeFold Tokens (TFT) by providing neutral and decentralized internet capacity, thus expending the usable Grid. Therefore no central entity controls the internet.

5 good reasons to buy ThreeFold Tokens

· TFTs are exclusively generated when new capacity is added to the TF Grid. There are no centralized issuers. Tokens have not been created out of thin air.

· While the ThreeFold Grid can expand, a maximum of 4 Billion TFTs can ever be in circulation. This limit ensures stability of value and incentivization for all stakeholders.

· TFT lives on the Stellar Blockchain. TFT holders benefit from a big ecosystem of proven wallets and mediums of exchange.

· By employing Stellar technology, TFT transactions and smart contracts are powered by one of the most energy-efficient blockchains available. Furthermore, TFT is the medium of exchange on the greenest internet network in the world.

· The market for farming, cultivating and trading TFT is open to all. Anyone with internet connection, power supply and necessary hardware can become a Farmer or trade ThreeFold tokens (TFT).

· By buying, holding, and utilizing ThreeFold Tokens, you are actively supporting the expansion of the ThreeFold Grid and its use cases — creating a more sustainable Internet.

Important note: TFTs are not an investment instrument. It is the medium of exchange on the ThreeFold Grid, and is a mechanism to enable the Internet we believe is possible.

ThreeFold’s decentralized cloud crypto platform is the new internet-based in the world’s largest cloud network. In addition, it’s 100% private, making user data completely encrypted.

ThreeFold's open source technology powers the peer-to-peer Internet revolution that holds the premise to disrupt the global Internet in many ways.

What do you think of when you hear the word Internet? For many, it's the websites and applications we consume online as end users. But the Internet is much more than this. And ultimately, every action we take online goes through a complex set of automated processes and protocols to store, run, and transmit data (e.g. photos, videos, messages, other files) across the global Internet infrastructure.

Today, this infrastructure consists of massive, power-hungry data centers, and is largely privatized and owned by tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Amazon – who also happen to own the biggest online "free" platforms. But there's a catch. By owning both the infrastructure and the digital experiences we consume for free, we were actually turned into products of their business models. Our data is being collected and isn't owned by us anymore. While data has become the most valuable commodity on earth, don't you think it's wrong that we don't own the value of our data today?

"Today, every individual is worth between US $1,000 and $20,000 online, per year. The Internet and Cloud Industry is worth trillions, yet all this value is centralized to a handful of companies. This has to change."

ThreeFold's open source technology powers the peer-to-peer Internet revolution that holds the premise to disrupt the global Internet in many ways.

An Internet By the People

The ThreeFold Grid is formed by people from all around the world that connect Internet capacity to a peer-to-peer Infrastructure owned by humanity. Together, we expand a data-sovereign and planet-positive Internet infrastructure that puts people back in control of their data, and their digital lives. ThreeFold's infrastructure can store all of humanity's data – from personal data to public datasets and security archives – and can run all emerging technologies such as blockchain, IoT, and Big Data – with more efficiency and security.

ThreeFold flips the current data center model upside-down, and allows people around the globe to connect Internet capacity in the form of hardware, and earn income for it. This decentralized approach means that anyone can take part in the world's largest and fastest growing economy – the Internet and Cloud.

You can see now how this new Internet is by the people, but how about the latter? What does the ThreeFold Grid enable?

An Internet For the People

Now anyone, anywhere can connect to the ThreeFold Grid and use capacity with some key advantages:

A World Where we Own the Value of Our Data

Today, all of the data we create online sits inside of centralized data centers and we do not own it. ThreeFold turns terms & conditions on their head and gives us, the people, full control of our data rather than third parties. We can keep our data private, decide with whom to share it, and even decide on where it's stored and located. And considering that our personal data is worth between US $1,000 and $20,000 per year, ThreeFold offers a direct way for us to own our digital life and the value attached to it.

We Exchange Value Without Intermediaries

The "People's Internet" is peer-to-peer. This means connections between senders and recipients are completely end-to-end, eliminating the need for any form of intermediaries from the model. Can you imagine what the world would look like without intermediaries? Let's take an example like Airbnb.

Today, if you are looking for a place to stay on vacation, you will probably end up using the services of Airbnb. But did you know that Airbnb charges both consumers and property owners for using their service? In a peer-to-peer world, this wouldn't be necessary. You'd simply access a database of property owners (possibly through a peer-to-peer marketplace) and be able to complete the transaction yourselves. No hidden fees, just a direct exchange of value!

Applications Run on the Edge

In its essence, edge computing brings compute and storage closer to people (and the devices where it's being gathered) rather than relying on a centralized data centers located on the other side of the planet. This is the essence of the ThreeFold Grid. So, data doesn't suffer any latency issues (performance) and it's far more efficient / money-saving. Further, the distributed nature of the Grid allows for true privacy and security. Edge computing is not just a growing trend but, because of the growing number of connected devices and global Internet usage, it's becoming a real necessity.

But what about the planet?

If you've been following us, you must already know that the Internet is responsible for 10% or more of the world's energy consumption. And with decades of experience in the Internet and Cloud industry, ThreeFold co-founders knew how to turn this around. We developed a lightweight operating system and infrastructure, removing unnecessary layers of complexity from the traditional and Web3 models (actually, blockchains are making it even more complex). The ThreeFold technology is always geared towards maximum efficiency while maintaing performance. And with these advancements, we can already save up-to 90% energy on storage workloads.

Additionally, the distributed nature of the Grid uses less bandwidth (see above re: edge computing). It's been reported that Netflix alone takes up 15% of the Internet's bandwidth. What if Netflix were to leverage the ThreeFold Grid? If stored closer to watchers, we could reduce network usage considerably.

Our commitment to the planet goes beyond the technology. Through a partnership with Take Action Global (TAG), we aim to take three times more CO2 out of the air compared to what we put in. Imagine regenerating the earth while using the Internet?

At ThreeFold, we believe that it's time for us to take back control. As the world turns more and more digital due to the pandemic and even just the natural progression of technology, it's time that we not just realize the problems of today's Internet, but that we do something about it.

This will happen! So join in, and spread the word!

What is Peer-to-Peer?

Peer-to-peer (P2P) is a term that originated from the distributed computer application architecture where tasks and workloads are shared between peers, popularized by Napster, a revolutionary file storing system from the late 1990s.

The concept inspired new structures and philosophies in many areas of human interaction. P2P systems and groups are typically critical of authoritarian and centralized social structures and believe in equality, meritocracy, flat systems, participatory & circular economies, as the concept represents a concrete pathway to these outcomes or visions.

P2P systems are network, not linear or 'pyramidal' hierarchies (though they may share some elements). They are 'distributed', though they may have elements of 'centralization' and 'decentralization.' And intelligence is not located at any center, but everywhere within the system.

How does ThreeFold relate to peer-to-peer?

ThreeFold's peer to peer computing network is a distributed architecture that splits tasks and workloads between its peers, ThreeFold Farmers. Farmers are equal participants in the network and together they form a peer-to-peer network of nodes, the ThreeFold Grid.

Farmers make their resources, such as processing power, disk storage or network bandwidth, directly available to other network participants, without the need for central coordination by servers or stable hosts. Farmers are both suppliers and consumers of resources, in contrast to the traditional client-server model in which the consumption and supply of resources is divided.

In the near future, ThreeFold will create Digital Twin, which will go beyond the era of peers doing similar things while sharing resources. It will actually enable much more than that. Digital Twin will create a complete new digital world with diverse peers that can bring in unique resources and capabilities to a virtual community on the ThreeFold Grid. This will empower the network of peers to engage in greater tasks beyond those that can be accomplished by individual peers, and are beneficial to all the peers.

Why did ThreeFold choose peer-to-peer?

Everything starts (or should start) from the why, and the ThreeFold story started a long time ago. Before the inception of ThreeFold, many of the co-founders of the project used to work with the largest IT & Cloud actors. Throughout their experience working in the Industry, they realized that the complexity of the technology and the centralization of knowledge & power led to an inefficient, unsustainable, not scalable and unequally distributed infrastructure. So they decided to redesign the whole Internet and cloud infrastructure bottom-up with the vision of shaping a global internet economy that can scale anywhere efficiently, cost efficiently and sustainably.

Why does the world needs peer-to-peer?

By developing the technology, the conviction that peer-to-peer was the best solution for humanity and the planet strengthened itself. Why? Well, put simply, a peer-to-peer system removes all forms of intermediaries, unnecessary steps and complexity from the picture. Therefore, it simplifies the architecture in an incredible way. The benefits are many but here are the most popular benefits:

· Privacy: Our peer-to-peer environment means no middlemen or intermediaries, meaning data travels directly between peers and stored on the nodes of their choice rather than being sent through and stored by a third party.

· Security: Data stored in data centers is susceptible to security breaches. In bypassing data centers and exchanging data directly between peers, we can achieve much greater security as it reduces code and back doors significantly.

· Scalability: In a many-to-many system, scale is essentially unlimited. There is simply no bottleneck. And hardware (nodes) can be added at ease compared to current data center model.

· Cost-efficiency & Sustainability: End-to-end (direct) connection between peers means a more efficient path for data and less energy is needed. Less energy means less cost, and less harm to our planet.

In 2021 the world is going peer-to-peer!

We're now in 4 years into the project, and it is clear that ThreeFold holds the most advanced technology and is probably the only tech company in the world that can achieve a peer-to-peer network & digital world as envisioned by the concept authors. The ThreeFold Grid is running and already at it's 2.4 version and 2021 will bring various commercial opportunities for the public to partake in the peer-to-peer network, from hosting IT workloads to experiencing P2P end-user solutions. In other words, in 2021, the world will be able to go peer-to-peer.

ThreeFold’s decentralized cloud crypto platform is the new internet-based in the world’s largest cloud network. In addition, it’s 100% private, making user data completely encrypted.

According to Energy Post, the Internet will consume 20% of the projected electricity demand with 8000 TWh by 2030, making it one of the most energy-intensive sectors in the world. Hyperscale data centers typically use cutting-edge technologies — facility designs, cooling systems, and workload-optimized equipment to improve efficiency, but the current centralized approach leads to many bottlenecks.

While many in the sector are trying to reduce energy consumption by powering their infrastructures with renewable energies, it will not shift the trend. Companies in the industry must commit to reach the “zero carbon footprint” threshold and fast.

In this article, you’ll discover more about the current energy consumption of the cloud industry, what we can do to improve the situation, and the best options to reduce the carbon footprint.

Current Energy Usage Problems With Data Storage

Today, the world's largest technology companies (Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, amongst others) own 80% of the global Internet and cloud infrastructure and 60% of its networks. This also makes them responsible for the increased global energy usage and the environmental impact related to that consumption. Here are some statistics indicating that this trend is in full bloom:

Source: Nature

A case that summarizes the vast footprint that companies create by choosing traditional data centers is Netflix. Alone, Netflix is responsible for 18% of today’s internet traffic. The main reason is that while it is the world’s favorite streaming platform, most of its data resides in centralized data centers. Data needs to travel to all the rest of the world. If Netflix could host their data on a peer-to-peer network, it would look like torrents and come with the following benefits:

- Low carbon footprint

- 24/7 availability of information

- Available anywhere around the world

- 100% secure information

A Change in Hyperscale

Data-centers energy usage has been relatively stable over the last half-decade, thanks partly to the emergence of super-efficient information factories with an ordered, standardized computing architecture that quickly scales up to hundreds of thousands of servers.

Hyperscale data centers first appeared around a decade ago, when corporations like Amazon and Google began to require fleets of a quarter-million or more servers.

According to a 2016 assessment by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, moving 80% of servers in small US data centers to hyperscale facilities will result in a 25% reduction in energy usage. That transition is now underway.

Today, the globe contains approximately 400 hyperscale data centers, many of which provide services to modest businesses or colleges that would not have had their servers in the past.

On the other hand, there is a clear trend that companies are using cloud storage solutions that are based on hyperscale data centers, which makes it a matter of great concern.

Source: Nature

How Can We Improve Energy Efficiency in the Cloud Storage Sector?

Researchers in academic labs and engineers at some of the world's wealthiest organizations are exploring possible solutions to improve the industry's efficiency in energy consumption. They are optimizing the following:

1. Computer Operations Efficiency

One growingly proposed solution is to ensure that servers are running at total capacity as feasible, while others are shut off rather than being left idle. For example, Facebook developed a mechanism called Autoscale that decreases the number of servers that must be on during low-traffic hours. In experiments, this resulted in power savings of roughly 10–15%, according to the company's 2014 report. Nevertheless, these efficiency improvement rates are not high enough.

2. Generating Renewables Sources

The fast global deployment of the technology that uses renewable energy sources, paired with quick learning rates, has reduced their prices. This trend is expected to continue, making renewables more competitive with fossil fuels in all nations throughout the world and the most cost-effective alternative in an increasing number of markets. In the image below, you can see the % of savings.

Source: Energy Post EU

Since 2010, big tech companies have been committing themselves to use 100% renewable energy. In 2011, Facebook pledged to do it, and in 2012, Google and Apple followed suit. Nearly 20 Internet corporations had done the same as of 2017. However, there must be an investment decision made to make renewable sources available for all. That’s why it’s not a sustainable solution now.

3. Cool Peer-to-Peer Cloud Storage Data Centers

Standard cooling systems use approximately 40% of the energy cost in traditional data centers. But there is another problem with this solution because cooling towers, which evaporate water to drive air conditioning, consume vast amounts of liters of water, eliminating compression chillers and cooling towers that save energy and water. In 2014, data centers in the United States utilized around 100 billion liters of water to do this.

One frequent method to reduce energy usage is to place data centers in colder climates and bring fresh air from outside. This measure helps to reduce overcrowding, although it does not solve the problem entirely.

4. Recycle Waste Heat

The notion of leveraging the heat coming off the servers to save power consumption elsewhere coincides with improved cooling.

However, because heat does not move well, waste-heat utilization is often confined to data centers near a nearby client or in a city that already utilizes piped hot water to heat houses.

5. Peer-to-Peer Cloud Storage

So let's imagine the cloud and internet as a decentralized network composed of nodes that keep an up-to-date copy of all encrypted information, making it secure and private. This solution is private and safe and genuinely the most sustainable alternative that will drastically reduce energy use in the data storage sector.

All this makes the ThreeFold peer-to-peer cloud storage the best option, and here’s why.

ThreeFold P2P Decentralized Data Storage — The First Real Step to Energy Efficiency

Did you know that the energy consumption range of internet data worldwide is from 0.004 kWh/GB to 136 kWh/GB? ThreeFold’s power usage, on the other hand, is 0.00086 kWh per GB (21.5% less than the lower range).

Source: Twitter

ThreeFold is an entirely peer-to-peer cloud storage solution that provides the most secure and private decentralized cloud solution that recently claimed to go carbon neutral before the end of 2021. Here are their main features:

1. Limitless workloads: In a secure end-to-end environment, you can scale your workloads indefinitely.
2. The world's first carbon-neutral peer-to-peer network: To allow the world's first carbon-neutral network, the leftover carbon footprint of the grid will be transformed into carbon credits and invested in planet-positive projects.
3. Decentralized: With dedicated CPU, SSD drives, and RAM — just for your web application or development environment — you can run your Kubernetes workloads anywhere in the globe, outside the power of centralized parties.
4. Compatibility: It is compatible with IPFS and Hypercore / Hyperdrive. On top of that, any storage platform may be placed. As a result, this is the most trustworthy and globally scalable filesystem yet devised.
5. Encryption: A public peer-to-peer cloud network that connects the whole earth. End-to-end encryption is used, and the quickest path is taken.
6. Marketplace for dApps: A marketplace for pre-built peer-to-peer network apps for community builders looking for alternatives to centralized services.
7. Infrastructure provider: Smart contracts for IT enable the provisioning and management of decentralized cloud crypto resources systematically. Make ThreeFold Grid installations that are repeatable and scalable.

We need people to take energy-saving more seriously and renew their cloud storage systems. Zero carbon footprint is the goal.

Did you know that only 44% of the global population had Internet access today? Thus, technology is unequally distributed and not accessible to everyone although. As a result, Internet access is a human right. While faster adoption is expected between 2025 and 2040 with the emergence of IoT technology solutions and decentralized networks such as blockchain, the question remains whether some countries will be left behind in the current global socio-economical developments and if they will ever catch up.

What would it be like if a sustainable technological infrastructure such as ThreeFold was introduced to these markets? Economies are going digital, and all the most innovative educational, social and economic opportunities are found online. With more affordable academic programs, decentralized digital economies, and the ability to connect with anyone worldwide, the Internet evolved to play a significant role in empowering people worldwide. ThreeFold aims to empower developing regions with an affordable, sustainable and decentralized Internet infrastructure to enable communities with Internet access.

In case you currently have a terrible internet connection, or you don't have it continuously, in this article, you will discover how to obtain it today no matter where you live.

Why Is the Internet Today Not Accessible to Everyone?

Close your eyes and imagine not having internet on your smartphone or any other device and having to go to specific places to rent a computer for hours to do what you have to do with a lousy internet connection.

Yes, it sounds awful or out of this century even, but, unfortunately, that’s the reality of two-thirds of the world’s school-age children and billions of people worldwide who lost their internet connection because of COVID-19.

Nevertheless, bringing technology to less-developed countries is a Herculean task, which will take a long time and a vast budget to become a reality. Here is why.

Limited IT Infrastructure

A good internet connection in developing nations is not a luxury. Instead, it is essential for economic and social growth. Moreover, it’s a solid instrument for supplying critical services such as education and health care.

Only about 35% of the population in developing countries has access to the internet. However, people can’t wait for their authorities to follow the slow path of implementing traditional IT infrastructure, making wireless technologies like peer-to-peer cloud solutions a priority to overcome these difficulties in the shortest time possible.

In this chart, you can see the average mobile internet connection speed, which shows how the current internet infrastructure is doing right now in many developing countries:

Source: Data Reportal

The Economic Impact of a Good Internet Connection on Developing Nations

To have a clear idea of how technology helps developing countries, the Imperial College Business School conducted extensive research on this topic in 2017. As a result, it is critically estimated that a 10% increase in mobile broadband penetration causes between 0.6%-2.8% increase in the gross domestic product (GDP). Thus, its impact is enormous in the short term.

Let’s take a look at the infographic below.

Source: Visual Capitalist

Better IT Infrastructure for Companies and Entrepreneurs

Another immediate consequence of having 5G internet technology in developing countries is providing companies and entrepreneurs with better IT infrastructure to build their projects, translating into better job opportunities (quality and quantity).

A robust technological infrastructure makes every sector have better conditions to produce, distribute, and sell their products/services at more competitive prices, which lets the internal market be more assertive and have better export policies.

An investigation made by UNCTAD shows that the evolution of 4.0 technologies will have this tendency.

Source: unctad.org

This means that developing countries’ governments must align their investments and development policies with frontier technologies (IoT technology has the highest budget) to maximize the benefits of applying 5G internet to their societies.

Nevertheless, any investment or development effort will not be worth developing if developing countries do not have a quality internet connection. And following the current trends of related public investments, it will most likely take several more years to become a reality.

But, to close the internet gap in developing countries worldwide, an innovative initiative has developed a 100% secure and private internet solution for everyone.

A Decentralized Solution to Provide Better Internet for Developing Nations

ThreeFold has all the necessary features that technology in underdeveloped countries needs because their economies haven’t received enough investments to have a good IT infrastructure that could provide them with a better internet service.

ThreeFold’s decentralized cloud crypto platform is the new internet-based in the world’s largest cloud network. In addition, it’s 100% private, making user data completely encrypted.

Moreover, its “decentralized internet cloud” characteristic makes ThreeFold capable of providing 5G internet to everyone who participates in the platform, giving people access to do everything they do on the Internet now (buy online, communicate, store data, use apps, etc.) safely and privately.

There are three ways to jump into ThreeFold’s network now.

1.   Set up a 3node

Being a node inside the ThreeFold Grid means that not only you’ll have an optimized internet connection that will be available 24/7 with no risk to be hacked, but you’ll also have the possibility to create shorter bridges between people around the world to enable a more accessible, cheap, and sustainable internet with a program that will make you generate income by selling your node’s capacity inside ThreeFold’s peer-to-peer cloud storage.

There are no technical knowledge requirements to set up your node. All you need is an electrical outlet, internet connection, and a Titan V2 3Node to start earning. Learn more about how to become a node in ThreeFold.

2. Get the ThreeFold Token (TFT)

The TFT is the exclusive cryptocurrency used inside the ThreeFold Network to exchange digital services inside the platform. These tokens are created when people and organizations add capacity (become farmers) to the ThreeFold Grid. TFT’s supply is limited to 4 Billion.

TFT represents a peer-to-peer computing and storage capacity (CPU, RAM, SDD/HDD) on the ThreeFold Grid. We need to have TFT use chats, videos, and everything we use digitally inside ThreeFold’s platform. Discover more about TFT.

3. Advocate a better Internet for everyone?

In recent years, the Internet has become an insecure place for everyone. The lack of security and vulnerability allows our information to be exposed by a handful of companies that centralize data center storages services. As a result, it generates that we are not the owners of our data, turning us into their products.

That’s why ThreeFold has developed a fully decentralized internet where every person who joins the p2p network is 100% the owner of their information with the highest security standards who also has a zero ecological footprint which can make anyone in the world have internet.

No matter where you live, in this article, you will find out how to start having secure and private internet today!

However, what if companies could place their data in a decentralized infrastructure? What benefits would they have? What would the process look like? How much money would companies save in doing this?

This article will provide the answers to those questions and more. But first, let’s explain the current situation of centralized data centers.

Current Conditions of Centralized Data Centers Worldwide

The total number of internet users worldwide grew by 332 million in the past 12 months, with more than 900,000 new users each day. To respond to these off-the-charts growing rates, companies have developed massive centralized cloud computing and data storage centers. Unfortunately, therefore, the server’s Internet infrastructure is usually placed only in the most advanced regions of the planet, plagued with deficient distribution to the rest of the world.

On the other hand, it takes time and billions of dollars to construct hyper-scale data centers that could remedy this situation. At the same time, not all aspects of environmental impact are considered in the creation of such facilities, which makes the situation difficult since the usage of electronic devices made up between 10-20% of the world’s electricity supply in 2020.

Nevertheless, the Internet is the world's largest network of information, so it is essential to have a secure, decentralized infrastructure and inexpensive architecture to store, share, and — in an ideal world — control our information.

P2P Cloud Storage Is the Best Way to Keep Your Data Private and Secure

A peer-to-peer cloud storage network is a decentralized and encrypted platform based on nodes, where these nodes are people around the world who store data in the most secure and private way.

But, why should we decide to move to a peer-to-peer network? Consider these four reasons:

1)  100% Secure and Censorship-Resistant

Because there is no centralized server, P2P systems do not have a single potential breach point and thus a single point of failure. As a result, any server may fail catastrophically, resulting in data outages and impacting millions at one go.

The strength of P2P cloud storage is generated in the nodes distributed around the world, where data is cut into pieces before being stored on different nodes and is reconstructed only when needed by the user. This means that if a node shuts down, the self-healing decentralized infrastructure will redistribute data to other nodes and make it fully available on the network again in milliseconds.

On the other hand, censorship is increasingly used on the Internet, demonstrating that it isn’t the free and neutral environment it used to be. There are three forms of censorship today:

1. Prohibiting people’s access to particular Internet destinations and services.
2. Disabling access to disruptive technologies that enable users to overcome censorship.
3. Identifying users who are circumventing censorship.

Several censoring tools are available, where most of them take advantage of the fact that circumvention traffic is easily identifiable.

That’s why everyone needs access to a P2P cloud solution and a thoroughly reliable and globally scalable P2P filesystem.

2) Decentralized Ecosystem

Having a peer-to-peer secure infrastructure is essential for any web3 solution to efficiently scale Hosting web3 solutions and storing data on such infrastructures provide some major advantages. Here are two benefits:

Efficient Data Download

File download time is one of the most critical performance indicators for any project. In a peer-to-peer cloud storage network, download times are incredibly fast as the network finds the shortest paths for data to transit, and doesn't depend on centralized servers to relay the information. The result is reduced latency, shorter and more sustainable paths, multiple hop connections, and cross ISP traffic the bottlenecks to make data download faster.

P2P networks are able to take the most efficient routes as the infrastructure is distributed across many locations and therefore data can be stored closer to where it is needed the most.. It can be compared to a "global peer-to-peer network VPN" that operates on top of existing networks and seeks any avenue to connectivity. At the periphery, strongly authenticated.

More Cost-Effective Infrastructure

On the other hand, P2P cloud storage eliminates the need for costly centralized servers that require ongoing maintenance and monitoring. Also, to support data centers’ hardware stacks, enormous cooling systems are required to keep them cool, leading to unnecessary extra costs. By having many people and organizations hosting the infrastructure anywhere around the world, a lot of efficiencies are achieved. This allows storing large data sets with significantly reduced costs.

3) 100% Autonomy

The data centers that operate today are monitored by semi-automated processes, where the only way to verify that things are going well is through supervisors. Unfortunately, this makes the system vulnerable to human error and malicious hacking possibilities.

Therefore, if decentralized cloud storage systems were used, these overheads and backdoors would be eliminated since the system would be 100% controlled by autonomous technology that can execute all workloads.

4) Environmentally friendly

One of the significant benefits of migrating from traditional data center storage to a peer-to-peer network is the high energy-saving capacity. According to Computational Research, companies could end up using 87% less energy if they migrate to cloud storage.

Nevertheless, the challenge of maximizing energy savings in the IT industry must be continuous, so it has reached a level of proclaiming carbon neutrality. While some may argue that this is environmentally friendly, it decreases the quantity of green energy accessible to the rest of the economies they operate.

Finally, there is one P2P cloud storage alternative that fulfills these requirements: ThreeFold — an integral solution created to solve the specific issues mentioned above. ThreeFold is a + decentralized, secure infrastructure and self-contained decentralized internet network, offering evolving efficiency and innovative ways of connecting people around the globe.

5) Data Breaches and Power Outages

Remember the last time that you saw news related to data breaches and power outages in the data storage industry? These happen all the time and some unrecoverable consequences have occurred throughout the past years because big tech companies settled their data inside traditional data centers.

When a data breach happens, it is normally because of:

1. A lack of internal security
2. Unreliable data storage hardware
3. Weak user passwords.
4. Cyber-threats against centralized data centers
5. The human error leading to backdoors in the system

On the other hand, power outages occur because of:

1. Single point of failures
2. High data traffics that can’t be supported by centralized servers Meteorological reasons (Storms, earthquakes, high wind, snow)
3. Cyber-attacks to centralized data centers

As you can see, most of the causes that generate data breaches and power outages can be fixed if companies could implement a peer-to-peer network to manage their data, which makes ThreeFold the best solution.

Why You Want ThreeFold As Your P2P Cloud Storage Solution

With ThreeFold, your data is distributed across a decentralized cloud network of nodes that use ThreeFold’s ultra-secure and open-source software. Together, these nodes form a global grid of interconnected compute and storage that can host all forms of data and applications

At the same time, ThreeFold’s decentralized nodes have their IPv4 and IPv6 address. They are fully interconnected, and all traffic on the ThreeFold’s network is encrypted and conceived to be a complete peer-to-peer infrastructure, making it impossible for data to be stolen, modified, or shut down. This is very different from blockchain consensus mechanisms where data is shared across the network. On ThreeFold users benefit from a unique private environment accessible only via their private key.

Don't store your data on vulnerable and centralized storage systems, the time has come to switch to P2P cloud storage.

The fact that various difficulties were brought with COVID-19 in 2020 drove corporations toward remote staff and cloud-based technologies where information vulnerability created a massive need for companies to improve their cyber assets or risk data loss and increment costs.

In this article, you’ll discover more about the two main reasons why the Internet urgently needs a P2P global network and the best alternative that implements this innovative technology.

Feature 1: Internet Security

Cybercrime has increased by 600% due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fraudsters have boosted the use of sophisticated email, mobile, and computer malware armed with the knowledge that people spend more time on their electronic devices.

Undoubtedly, with the introduction of machine learning and tailored spear-phishing emails, malware attacks have become increasingly sophisticated, which generates the need to implement a P2P network to overcome.

Let’s see each section in more detail.

1)  Email Malware

An email malware is a harmful code spread in electronic mail and can be activated when a user clicks on a link, opens an email attachment, or interacts with the infected message in some other way.

According to Purplesec 2021 Cyber Security Report, malware is sent through email in 92% of cases, so knowing how to recognize it can prevent being scammed in a non-P2P network architecture. The following are some "red flags" that suggest an email may contain malware:

1. Suspicious sender's email address: If the sender's email address is unknown or does not match an expected address for a corporation, it's likely a malware email.

2. Your username appears in the email topic or attachment: A virus email's subject box may contain your username or be blank. Your username could be included in the filename of malicious attachments.

3. Malware emails frequently include the words "warning," "danger," or "urgency" to entice recipients to respond hastily before they have had enough time to consider their options. If you receive an email that asks you to download a file to remedy an issue, be cautious.

2)  Mobile Malware

Mobile malware is malicious software meant to attack mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to obtain personal information.

According to Purplesec, the number of new malware types for mobile devices surged by 54% in 2018, which could arguably be prevented using a P2P open network.

Here are some security tips for avoiding mobile malware:

1. Connect to a secure Wi-Fi network: When people access their private data in public places, like an airport with free Wi-Fi, the data may be accessible to criminal users sniffing wireless traffic at the same point of access.

2. Prevent Jailbreaking: Jailbreaking means breaking the device’s security model and allowing all apps, including malicious ones, to access the data owned by other apps.

3. Encrypt your devices: It makes it extremely hard for someone to break and steal data by protecting your gadgets by fully encrypting the device. Setting the device and the SIM card with a secure password is essential.

3)  Computer Malware

Have you ever noticed strange cases of image pixelation or random windows popping up on your screen? Or maybe you heard weird sounds? If your answer is yes, there is a high chance that malware or virus may have invaded your machine, making the use of a P2P virtual network urgently required.

According to Purplesec, macOS malware grew 165% over the last year, and Windows development rates for malware dropped from an all-time high to 11.6%.

However, there are precautions you can take to avoid this kind of malware:

1. Update your antivirus: You must make sure that your apps, antivirus software, and operating system are up to date to prevent your computer from becoming infected.

2. Automatic virus scanning: Your antivirus software should contain automated functions allowing continuous scanning of your machine against viruses and performing cleanup.

3. Reboot in safe mode: Safely starting your computer offers you the opportunity to run your antivirus program and look more closely at the (potential) problem.

Feature 2: Decentralized Data

There are several examples of massive sales of data from major technology companies to third parties previously seen, making it urgent that data is spread in a fully decentralized internet now.

When someone provides personal information to a company or any governmental entity, most people do not understand how it is used and stored nowadays, which produces concerns about the potential risks that data can suffer when stored in centralized data centers.

Let’s see the differences between centralized and P2P open network.

1)  Centralized Data Storage

Did you know that 80% of the world’s data currently resides in hyperscale data centers in central locations concentrated in 20 companies?

Centralized data storage systems are built on a central server where authorized persons can manage the information to make possible data traceability.

One of the most significant disadvantages of centralized data storage is that it has deficient privacy standards, making it easier for third-party participants to access data through hacks.

2)  Decentralized Data Storage

A decentralized cloud crypto strategy involves using several separate devices linked to the network, supplied by various nodes. These nodes retain autonomous control, which allows each of them to determine its criteria for the availability of data workload.

A P2P network offers increasing data privacy and transparency, reducing processing needs which drastically decrease resource usage, making it cheaper to run within the decentralized web.

After describing these two essential features that the Internet must have now, we firmly believe that ThreeFold is the best alternative to make a more secure, decentralized, and sovereign internet.

ThreeFold Is the Best Solution to Have a Fully Peer-to-Peer and Secure Internet

ThreeFold is a peer-to-peer cloud storage solution granting substantial energy efficiency compared to existing data storage systems while letting information be 100% secure, private, and available 24/7 without exception.

This fully decentralized platform improves:

1)  Network Security

To close the enormous security gap in data centers nowadays, the ThreeFold P2P virtual network has developed its operating system called Zero-OS, which runs on the nodes. Every node is linked inside a specified network and has its iPv4 or iPv6 address, which keeps the information 100% encrypted and private to the user.

Also, the Peer-to-Peer Network uses a web gateway mechanism that allows the exposure of services to the open internet without allowing incoming connections to keep applications and storage secure at all times. This means there is no incoming TCP/IP traffic allowed from the outside.

2)  Network Efficiency & Scalability

ThreeFold’s Peer-to-Peer Network was designed to find the shortest possible path between peers and encrypt the end-to-end connection. It allows for peer-to-peer links like in meshed wireless networks. This is very different from consensus mechanisms like distributed blockchains which use more networks than centralized networks.

When you download the same file from a peer-to-peer network, using a BitTorrent platform as a starting point, the download is performed differently. The file is downloaded to your computer in bits and parts from many other computers connected to the same P2P network and already have that file or at least parts of it. At the same time, the file is also sent (uploaded) from your computer to other devices that are asking for it. This situation is similar to a two-way road: the file is like multiple small cars coming to your PC while also leaving to others when it is requested.

When it comes to file-sharing, the larger a P2P network is, the faster it is. Having the same file stored on many of the peers in a P2P network means that when someone needs to download it, the file is downloaded from multiple locations simultaneously. Peer-to-peer networks are incredibly scalable. Adding new peers is easy as you don’t need to do any central configuration on a central server.

3)  Centralized Data & Points of Failure

Nowadays, the centralized data issue is not the only problem that information management is facing. There are also central points of failure in the system, which leads to sporadic shutdowns that sometimes can last minutes and even hours.

To overcome today's colossal data centralization gap, ThreeFold has created the most optimized peer-to-peer cloud network, bringing privacy by design. All data and applications remain under the user’s control.

Therefore, a P2P global network, such as the one offered by ThreeFold, stimulates equality by blocking a substantial amount of single-player data accumulation and also eliminates the possibility of making websites around the world to be disconnected because of the internet shutdowns.