The Internet requires too many gatekeepers. Making it Self-Driving might be closer than we think

Many organizations are currently working on protocols that might eventually become a part of the Web 3.0, an evolving set of standards in development for the new Internet. Some of the leading projects contributing to the Web 3.0 movement include Elastos, MaidSafe, and the ThreeFold Foundation.

Today’s Internet is in control of a few powerful and influential corporations. Centralized platforms such as YouTube and Facebook take a large cut out of what content contributors make. In most cases, users do not get a reward for their data and time they contribute to social media networks. 

Building a Decentralized, Autonomous, “Self-Driving”, “Self-Healing” Internet

The developers at the ThreeFold Foundation aim to address the main problems with the Internet we use today by building an autonomous and decentralized network that’s “self-driving” and “self-healing.”

As noted on ThreeFold’s official website, “Today, the Internet is not distributed, it is not neutral, it is not secure, it is not environmentally-friendly, and it is not cost-effective. It requires too many layers and too many human gatekeepers.”

The Internet we’re currently using cannot meet the anticipated demand of significantly greater capacity required to integrate Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. ThreeFold’s developers are in the process of building a new, “complementary” Internet that aims to address the serious security and privacy issues faced by people using the world wide web today.

Autonomous IT Will Support Open-Source Blockchain Platforms

ThreeFold’s Autonomous IT platform is a reliable, secure, decentralized, sustainable, and versatile. It can reportedly handle a very large workload. It is self-driving, self-healing, and so, functions without human intervention.

“Autonomous IT is the next step in the evolution of IT, bringing solutions to the current dilemmas. Major trends such as IoT, 5G, Edge Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Open Source, & dApps prove decentralization is happening,” the ThreeFold team states.

ThreeFold team members and stakeholders have spent the past 15 years working to develop modern infrastructure that can support distributed ledger technology (DLT) networks. The group hopes to build a decentralized grid of autonomous IT to support the greater IT workloads of tomorrow while resolving the problems associated with online monopolies, increasing inequality, and the “loss of autonomy” within our global society.

ThreeFold Network, ThreeFold Grid Support the Network’s Ecosystem

The ThreeFold Foundation provides a digital avatar, 3Bot, and the ability to integrate edge cloud workloads (IoT, 5G, CCTV). The Threefold Network is an ecosystem to support a decentralized marketplace for storage, compute, and applications.

The ThreeFold Grid serves as an alternative to centralized cloud providers. It aims to be a globally accessible, neutral, and sustainable network of “autonomous storage and compute Internet capacity” developed by the ThreeFold Farmers. The network currently has over 83,000 TB and 14,500 cores.

Applications that can run on the Linux operating system can also reportedly run on the ThreeFold Grid but with “more privacy, security, closer to the end-user, and at a much lower cost,” the platform’s developers claim.

ThreeFold Token and 3Bot 

The ThreeFold Token (TFT) is a decentralized digital currency. It is used for purchasing autonomous and peer-to-peer Internet services including compute, storage, applications on the ThreeFold Network. NOTE: ThreeFold Token was not released through an ICO and is only generated by farming Tokens. It is the token of a new neutral green internet, backed by internet capacity, with its own intrinsic value.

The 3Bot is based on top of the ThreeFold Grid. It acts as your “digital self,” according to the network’s developers. The 3Bot is a personal all-in-one application, which allows users to truly own their data.

The ThreeFold team claims: “3Bot is your escape from the many popular centralized and often-abused applications used by a [large] majority of the world today. Your digital self grants you full access to a 100% neutral and decentralized digital life.”

Several other blockchain projects including Tron (TRX) are developing a decentralized version of the Internet. However, the technology is still in its early stages of development with many security issues in the smart contracts that power DLT platforms.