ThreeFold co-founders have worked on Internet Storage and Cloud Technology since the ‘90s, and after many successful exits, they realized that the only way to have a truly sovereign, secure, and energy-efficient Internet, was to start from scratch. So we did.
5 years down the line, we created a new operating system, a smart contract for IT and a peer-to-peer network that can be scaled anywhere by anyone.
## Why does ThreeFold exist?
### Our Mission
Our mission is to build and expand a data sovereign and planet-positive Internet owned by the people, for the people.
### Our Vision
A planet-positive Internet that provides equal chances to learn, partake and succeed, to everyone, everywhere.
### Our principles/ values/ mantras
- **Sovereignty / Protecting users**
- We believe that everyone should own their data, and no one else, not even ThreeFold.
- Our Peer-to-Peer technology allows every user to be data sovereign - giving them 100% control over their data.
- **Sustainability**
- We unify our practices, partnerships, and products around a single mission - to heal our planet. By making our technology actionable, we enable a collective approach to have an impact together.
- **Equality**
- We believe that everyone should be given equal chances to learn, partake and succeed.
- Internet access is a human right, and at ThreeFold we commit to scale our technology to new regions to empower the unconnected.
## Brand attributes
- **Purposeful**
- ThreeFold exists to help humanity thrive. Our mission is bold and motivates every step we take. We adapt to our evolving environment and passionately strive for excellence.
- **Empowering**
- ThreeFold helps people find themselves and do what they love. We provide support to people and projects that help build a better world, whether they have moonshot visions or down-to-earth ambitions. We aren’t the hero of our story - they are.
- **Approachable**
- ThreeFold keeps it real. We’re open and honest, avoid upstage corporate language and phony marketing spins.
- We don’t see ourselves as a company, but more like humans helping other humans. So being genuine, friendly and loving comes naturally.
## What is ThreeFold?
### The People’s Internet
- Powered by ThreeFold’s Open Source Technology, The People’s Internet is the engine for a data sovereign and planet-positive peer-to-peer infrastructure - owned by humanity.
- The People’s Internet is formed by individuals and organizations from all around the world that connect Internet capacity to the ThreeFold Grid.
- Together, we expand a data sovereign and planet positive Internet infrastructure, owned by the people.
> Join the movement
- **Say Goodbye to Data Centers**
- Farming TFT eliminates the need to build expensive and power-hungry data centers.
> View the Explorer: [https://explorer.threefold.io/](https://explorer.threefold.io/)
The ThreeFold Grid is the world’s most advanced peer-to-peer Internet infrastructure. It can scale limitlessly, and brings a more performant, secure and sustainable Internet to host humanity’s data and workloads.
By connecting a TFNode (server-type hardware) in your home or office, you can empower your city, village, or community with a data sovereign and planet positive Internet infrastructure that can host the data of millions of people and earn income for it, - TFT.
- Capacity= compute, storage & network generates TFT for the farmer
- The more Internet capacity is connected, the more is earned.
- The more IP address avaiable the more is earned as well.
- Utilization = **proof of utilization**
- **Reputation**
- By being authenticated by other Farmers and providing more accessibility such as connectivity, IPs & location -- reputation and rewards increase. This has not been implemented yet
### Use the People's Internet
**Game-Changing Peer-to-Peer technology**
- Many developers and companies are already building on the People’s Internet - the world’s largest and most advanced Peer-to-Peer Internet.
- Anyone can easily store their data and build applications on an Internet that combines the most secure and powerful technologies in the world.
#### Why
- **An Open Alternative**
- The People’s Internet technology stack was built from scratch.
- All its technology is made open source for humanity to expand its potential.
- **Scalable & Affordable**
- On ThreeFold, technologies can scale limitlessly and at a fraction of today’s cost thanks to peer-to-peer technology.
- **Fully Compatible**
- All the solutions built on ThreeFold are compatible with the most used developer tools and protocols.
- Any javascript developer can develop on top of Digital Twin
- Any system administrator can deploy and workload compatible with Linux
#### Main Benefits
- **Everywhere in the World = Global Coverage**
- countless farmers & locations allow you to host your apps
- The largest and most distributed peer-to-peer Internet infrastructure in the world, available in 30+ countries and growing fast.
- **Data Sovereignty**
- Connection is ultra-secure and truly private, providing full control over the access rights and location of data and workloads.
- **Planet Positive**
- The Infrastructure is 10x more efficient and the carbon footprint is offseted 3x in the form of carbon credits to regenerate our planet.
#### Who is already building on us
***Empowering Climate Action Education - TAG Story**
***Building the World’s Largest Art database - Artheon Story**
***Enabling a Circular Coffee Economy - Spinn Story**
>TODO: complete by linking to a document for each part
## ThreeFold Tech
**ZeroOS**
> TODO:
**Smart Contract for IT**
Any IT expert can create new smart contracts to automate the deployment and operation of IT workloads. By storing the Smart Contracts in the blockchain database, it also becomes available to other users of the grid.
The Smart contract for IT brings a peer-to-peer and limitless approach to Internet capacity provisioning. The infrastructure will autonomously orchestrate upon the smart contract.
**Planetary Network**
ThreeFold’s Peer-to-Peer Network was designed to find the shortest possible path between peers and to encrypt the connection end-to-end. It allows for peer-to-peer links like in meshed wireless networks.
Planetary Network works with 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.
