Inaugural product Keet brings peer-to-peer video chats to the masses  

The British Virgin Islands, July 25, 2022 – Holepunch (https://holepunch.to), a fully encrypted platform for building peer-to-peer applications, announced today the alpha launch of a fully encrypted video calling application called Keet (https://keet.io). The free video calling app utilizes peer-to-peer connections to facilitate real-time audio/video calls, text chat and file sharing. It is powered by an innovative stack of distributed technology, including DHT distributed databases, whereby users can find and connect to each other to form a swarm, on real-world home and office networks. This technique is called Distributed Holepunching and allows users to locate and connect to each other using only cryptographic key pairs upon authorization. 

Backed by Tether Operations Limited (“Tether”), the company operating the blockchain-enabled platform tether.to that powers the first and most widely used stablecoin, Bitfinex, the state-of-the-art digital token trading platform, and Hypercore, a developer of peer-to-peer, scalable, and cryptographically sound distributed systems, Holepunch was founded to unlock global communications and empower freedom of speech, access to information and combat censorship around the world.  Allowing users to be in control of their own data and communication channels are  fundamental to breaking free from technology monopolies. Funding is being provided by Tether and Bitfinex, and Paolo Ardoino has been appointed as Chief Strategy Officer. 

Keet is the first in a series of peer-to-peer applications that will put control back in the hands of individuals. It is an entirely free video calling app that utilizes peer-to-peer connections in order to facilitate communication while eliminating the risks of a central point of failure and over reliance on third-party platforms. Unlike traditional video chat apps which use cloud-based software or outside servers as intermediaries to connect two or more people, Keet users can initiate a call directly to another individual’s computer. This allows for video chatting to take place without a central server or company operating the network.

“Web1 was the original form of the internet. It was designed to distribute information and knowledge on a global scale but it didn’t come without issues. Web2 improved upon many of the user experience roadblocks of Web1. Centered around social media, it made content creation, sharing and consumption seamless but not without one major flaw,” said Paolo Ardoino CTO of Tether and Bitfinex & CSO of Holepunch. “Web2 requires users to give up control of their data, which has led to the rise of monopolies and growing privacy concerns. That is why Tether and Bitfinex chose to participate in the development of Holepunch and Keet. It believes that freedom of choice, communication and finances are the lifeblood of the future, and anything that will enhance those freedoms is worth amplifying.”

Holepunch protocol is currently closed source and will remain so until it completes alpha testing. It will then move to open source code in Q4 of 2022. The platform will not rely on any blockchain, but the built in payments API will run, operate, and be powered by the Lightning Network. Tether tokens will also be supported as the default micropayments system for businesses that want to build products on Holepunch. 

“Rather than relaying communications through a singular server, the way that most of today’s virtual communications apps do, Holepunch is an open network of computers that can be used by peers to discover each other,” said Mathias Buus, CEO of Holepunch Inc. “Having been heavily involved in the P2P and Node.js ecosystems the last 10 years, I am a big believer in open source and the role that it will play in liberating communication channels for billions of people around the world. This technology will enable Keet and the Holepunch platform to become the most unstoppable communication application, and we are thrilled to finally introduce it to the world.” 

To learn more about Holepunch, please visit holepunch.to ; to learn more about Keet, please visit https://keet.io