Hello friends –
I hope you are well, wherever you are in the world. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on where we are and express gratitude to our collective community for the efforts we are all taking. Much of what I share with you now comes from @kristof on a team call we held yesterday, which left me very inspired.
What a time we live in.
Yes, there is a lot of bad in the world, but also so much good! And the more there is chaos, the more there is potential for change – to do something which makes a difference. We are lucky because of the time we live in. Because of technology and interconnectedness, we are informed – of the good and of the bad. The truth is that today, a few individuals can come together to change the world. This was not the reality 100 years ago.
If we do something which is not common, which is not the norm, of course it will be more difficult to push it forward. And what we are doing is not the norm, yet we are doing it! The grid is live in more than 60 countries and is being utilized. We have an active community of supporters and participants around the world. A Digital Free Zone in Zanzibar is coming alive. This is crazy! Crazy good!
People want change. More and more people are waking up. And ThreeFold is here for them.
ThreeFold is a train which will not stop.
Think of ThreeFold as a train. A train which will not stop. Too many people want this to happen, what we have all started together. The Grid. The Free Zone. The Venture Creator. If it’s not Path A, it will be B. If it’s not Path B, it will be C. And there are many letters in the alphabet.
Whoever wants to be on this train will be welcomed. We will find a way. Let us remember though it’s not just about being “on the train,” but about pushing the train along, together. An inherent aspect of decentralization and open source is participation. The more we work together to push the train, the easier it becomes, and the faster we move forward. The beautiful thing is that people really want to help. It is up to all of us to find ways to make it easier for them to do so.
On a path to self-sovereignty and restoring the commons.
Why is it that we exist? It’s not just to build another cloud. Yes, the cloud is extremely important, a necessary step in our journey. But it is not the “be all end all.” So what are we working towards, really?
If you’re following the project, you’ve heard of OurWorld by now. OurWorld is something we are creating for all of us together, and for our world – a set of tools to enable us to be self-sovereign and to restore the commons. The world today has become a place where the few own everything, and it created many problems and unhealthy side effects. Restoring the commons is about co-owning everything. And this can never happen if people are not self-sovereign. And we cannot be self-sovereign without an underlying infrastructure such as the ThreeFold Grid.
We have come so far, together we build.
Four years ago, we predicted the crypto crash and that we would need to stay close to our values. While of course these last years did not always go how we expected, we are proud of how far we have come and of where we are going. Today, the ThreeFold Grid is a reality. It is being used. And people are excited about it.
The Grid is not perfect. Nor will it ever be. This is by design – after all the grid is decentralized and open-source. (This means solutions on top need to be deployed in such a way where data and workloads can never be lost. This is easily accomplished with Quantum Safe Storage and Kubernetes and other methods.)
But the grid is the best effort in the world in our capabilities. This is an objective truth. These days, our team is focused on TF Grid 3.12. This upgrade is to bring forward the minimum viable efforts we need in order to commercialize the grid and introduce the ThreeFold Cloud. We don’t have an exact timing on this release but we are working hard to bring it forward ASAP. (ThreeFold Cloud is the team’s effort at grid commercialization. Of course others in the community are and will be working on their own solutions. This is the beauty of our decentralized open source movement.)
In the meantime, we are also in active discussions with the community around TF Grid 3.5 (formerly TF Grid 3.12) – a more significant upgrade to the Grid focused on maximum decentralization. This is something we will take our time with. We need to be sure we get it right. We need to be sure we reach consensus. For now please continue to bring your suggestions and feedback to the forum, and more formal next steps will follow.
Thanks, to all of us!
I want to thank everyone that is involved in this project. From the team to the farmers to those building on the grid and spreading the word. To say that what we are all doing together is important would be a massive understatement. And we should all be very proud. So, onwards and upwards. Together we build.
On behalf of the ThreeFold Team,
Sam