True to the motto “the bear market is for construction”, the Bitfinex crypto exchange with Tether (USDT) and Hypercore have announced the launch of a fully encrypted platform, Holepunch, for building peer-to-peer applications. As part of the initiative, the trio launched Keet, an encrypted app capable of facilitating real-time audio and video calls, text chat and file sharing.
The partners aim to give control of data while breaking technology monopolies with Holepunch, according to the announcement. Tether and Bitfinex funded the development of the Holepunch platform. Paolo Ardoino, Chief Technology Officer of Tether and Bitfinex, will lead the new initiative as Chief Strategy Officer.
Speaking on behalf of Tether and Bitfinex, Ardoino highlighted the need to address growing privacy concerns, saying:
“This [Tether and Bitfinex] believes that freedom of choice, communication and finances are the cornerstone of the future, and anything that will enhance these freedoms deserves to be amplified.
Holepunch is currently operating as a closed source protocol in its alpha or pre-release phase, which will be moved to open source by the end of 2022. In doing so, Holepunch will not use blockchain technology at its core and will transition instead to an internal payment API powered by the Lightning Network.
Developers building solutions on the Holepunch protocol will be able to use USDT as the default for micropayments. However, the company has yet to disclose support for other cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.
Related: Web3 Platforms launch the Open Metaverse Alliance
Blockchain-based Metaverse and Web3 platforms have come together to form the Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3 (OMA3), an alliance founded on four core principles: transparency, inclusiveness, decentralization, and democratization.
As Cointelegraph reported, the alliance will focus its efforts on specific topics related to the metaverse, including setting standards for non-fungible tokens (NFT)protocols, transferable identity, portals between virtual worlds, mapping and indexing.