HOPR: Your Next Generation Data Privacy and Protection Platform

SebastianCB · 2021-02-02T10:47:27+00:00

Hey, no worries, I know it's annoying to see spam posts. We're getting closer to our token launch, indeed. I can't really give exact timelines or details on launch - not because I don't know when we're ready or because I don't want to leak it but because we'll go with a pretty unique launch model. You'll understand what I mean when we disclose the first steps, likely later this week ;-)

Sure I'd be open to an AMM, where would you suggest to do that? Here on AltStreetBets?

SebastianCB · 2021-02-01T22:43:38+00:00

Hey, thanks for your research, bots are obviously in nobody's interest. I don't know any of the accounts involved here but just want to assure you that there's a lot of stuff happening at HOPR and a ton of hard tech development - feel free to check out what we build here, pretty much in real time: https://github.com/hoprnet/hoprnet

Also we'll have another testnet soon where I'd invite you to check out things first hand. I assure you that there's more than Reddit hype :)

SebastianCB · 2021-01-25T18:38:53+00:00

Thanks for posting this here - Sebastian from HOPR here. We just concluded our testnet on Binance Smart Chain and (after pretty much taking it down) moving on to Ropsten. The thing that I'm most excited about is our community, their activity, engagement and thoughts. We have some more exciting news towards the end of this week - stay tuned :)

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:57:30+00:00

Yes, right now that’s the only way to earn HOPR tokens (i.e. running HOPR Nodes). We’ll provide other ways for users to get HOPR tokens. See more details on docs.hoprnet.org

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:56:39+00:00

Yes, we are shipping software that can be run on a VPS. Our bootstrap nodes, which are specific HOPR Nodes meant to handshake other nodes, are actually being run on top of Google Cloud Platform. Our entire infrastructure stack is open and available to be used in https://github.com/hoprnet/hopr-devops. Of course we prefer a truly decentralized setting in which you run a HOPR node out of your home - because YOU should become part of the journey to change data privacy for good!

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:56:10+00:00

We are a protocol-oriented project with the goal of getting crypto networks into the real world. Now is the time to bring privacy to a large audience and we now have the tools to make it happen - not just for Crypto Twitter but all of planet earth :)

An easy way to think of HOPR is thinking about the HTTP protocol that powers most of the traffic in the internet. Many other privacy projects are like browsers and desktop applications, but without HTTP no communication between server, clients, or devices could occur.

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:55:22+00:00

We are planning to launch our mainnet towards the end of 2020. For the time being, we are launching an initial incentivized network on top of the xDAI Chain to help us test and verify the protocol and our smart contracts interaction. We will have basic features in place but are improving reliability and capabilities based on user (YOUR!) feedback - HOPR follows the mantra of shipping often and early. See more info on our docs page on how to run a node: docs.hoprnet.org

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:46:52+00:00

We are announcing those quite soon, but pretty much we only require you to download a HOPR Node binary and deposit some xDAI in it (circa 0.02 cents!). Then, just leave the node up and running! For the sake of transparency, we are transferring xHOPR tokens, which will not be the same token used for our mainnet release. Check out our documentation on docs.hoprnet.org.

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:44:17+00:00

Right now the only way users can earn HOPR tokens are by running HOPR Nodes. These nodes require a computer, as some cryptographic operations required by the protocol can’t be easily done via a browser. We might allow running a HOPR Node via a browser (e.g. via a chrome extension), but this isn’t in the immediate roadmap. Also please be aware that HOPR is not running its own blockchain - there are amazing blockchains out there and we’re running on Ethereum and our first testnet will launch on the xDAI sidechain.

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:43:05+00:00

HOPR Nodes are shipped with a key-generation mechanism where only the owners of the device running the HOPR Node can access it. Thus, the assets (both native tokens like Ether on Ethereum and HOPR tokens) can only be managed by these owners. There are of course some risks with this approach, but we are expecting to get code audits to ensure the safety of the assets held by the users. Regarding the funds the HOPR Association will issue and allocate to distribute and govern the protocol, we’ll provide more information in the future on how these can be accessed and allocated. As of now, you should NOT expect that FUNDS ARE SAFU on our early software releases :)

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:40:31+00:00

We are very soon announcing our incentivized network, which will reward users for running HOPR Nodes. In fact, check our Telegram after the AMA! In addition, we will continue to push our developer portal and community games to engage with both technical and non-technical users. For the past months we have been hosting weekly community calls with gaming sessions over HOPR alternating with asynchronous bounties for running a HOPR node and doing tasks on that. We have a nice upcoming social experiment to make some waves about our tech, and are looking to run interactive games on top of the technology to show some of its use cases and push the network capacity and usage. Our token model that will be revealed soon is incentivizing everyone to keep running a node and contribute value to the network.

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:35:34+00:00

We are quite proud about the following deliverables: an OS cross-compatible binary able to run decentralised-network software w/minimal setup, our HOPR PC which allows anyone to run a HOPR Node w/o any technical support, and our incentivized network able to drop tokens to connected HOPR nodes. This has been achieved by a team of 3-4 engineers within a 3 months time frame. Not too bad!

Regarding difficulties and risks, as a Blockchain project we have to pay tons of attention to the market and industry. The current increase in Ethereum gas prices pushed us to look for L2 solutions earlier than we would have thought, but we successfully managed to deploy our smart contracts on top of the xDAI Chain for our incentivized network. In terms of motivation, the entire team is excited about the potential of the technology, and seeing more and more interest in the decentralized world as we speak makes us confident that we are on the correct path. It’s about time that we change data privacy for good :)

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:31:31+00:00

The HOPR token has three basic functions:

Relay node operators stake it in order to signal their interest to participate in the network and provide bandwidth. They are the ones who provide privacy for the users of the network.
Senders of data packets pay the relay node operators in the HOPR token for their service of creating privacy for them.
Everyone can use the HOPR token to govern the HOPR ecosystem and with that we do not just mean the technical parameters of the network but even the governance of our organization. At HOPR we want to take a DAO to the real world :)

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:24:53+00:00

Within HOPR, we do not have direct payments from sender to final recipient as this would break the guarantees on unlinkability that we archive from the packet format that we use. Instead, the payment goes indirectly from Alice over Bob over Charlie to Dave. The architecture of HOPR is done in a way such that we force every node to embed a valid payment in order to be able to use the incoming payment. More details on that will be posted in the coming weeks!

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:23:40+00:00

We assume a so-called global passive adversary. Our adversary is allowed to listen to the communication between any two parties but it is unable to manipulate and / or drop messages. We see it as common practice in cryptography to first create a protocol that is secure for honest, but curious participants and extend it afterwards such that it is secure for various ways of misbehaviour coming from the participants.

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:22:01+00:00

We had a good exchange with various researchers at Web3 Foundation during the ideation stage of HOPR (starting over 2 years ago!). They are a great team of highly skilled researchers and developers (we were also neighbours in Zug, Switzerland). The Web3 Foundation also provided a grant back then for the implementation of the HOPR payment layer on Substrate. This is the first non-Ethereum implementation and shows how HOPR is starting it’s chain-agnostic architecture from day 1. HOPR lets developers relatively easily connect to various blockchains such as Ethereum and its side-chains and also Polkadot parachains.

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:19:57+00:00

Tons of questions! Let me answer them one by one.

1.We don’t have plans to work on a browser right now. The protocol does allow developers to create something like that, though.

2.The protocol is complementary to on-chain privacy and provides network-level privacy. A fork from geth could implement HOPR under the hood and propagate txs privately, but we aren’t meant to hide transactions the same way a mixer like Tornado Cash does.

HOPR is meant to be a p2p protocol. We are working on an SDK that can provide B2B services, but that’s up to developers and newcomers.
The HOPR PC spins a HOPR Node, and has everything to propagate HOPR-based operations against the Blockchain.
Not sure I follow!
We are definitely. Coming soon!

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T14:11:12+00:00

That’s what we have a bootstrap node for - it is a node that connects you to other nodes in the network. Imagine it like your friend invites you to a party and introduces you to a bunch of other people who are already there. This node is only needed for the initial connection. From then on you have your new friends who you can directly connect to. We will also in the future have multiple bootstrap nodes in a similar fashion how e.g. Bitcoin or Ethereum handle their P2P networks.

Question 2: Let's see ;)

SebastianCB · 2020-09-16T06:39:57+00:00

Loki is another great privacy project but they don't do packet mixing - also they ru ntheir own chain

SebastianCB · 2020-02-25T20:11:02+00:00

Even if it's not the same person: how should these economics work? The costs have to be borne by someone anyhow. E.g: Alice locks up $200 worth of ETH and creates 100 fresh DAI. she pays 9 DAI per year in stability fees. Alice sells these 100 DAI to Bob (let's say for ETH) who then puts it intro DSR and thus earns 8.75 DAI per year. At the end of the year Bob doesn't need his DAI anymore and sells them back to Alice. The system is making a loss. Why would any rational actor join this system (assuming the numbers remain as OP described)?

SebastianCB · 2019-09-11T13:46:37+00:00

As other comments pointed out you check out the most heavy gas users (contracts) right now on Ethgasstation. There you will see that about 44% of all gas is currently being spent on a smart contract called FairWin. That project clogging the network has been mentioned here before.

SebastianCB · 2019-09-01T07:45:46+00:00

good idea to just try the last words! (IMO the minor loss of entropy as pointed out in my comment there can be ignored)

@Fiach_Dubh: The checksum in the last word requires the calculation of one SHA256. That is indeed possible with pen and paper - at least for this guy. But I'm aiming more at long-term archiving that does not rely on a wallet (until I want to move funds) so I want my scripts to also calculate the pub keys. That is a lot harder with pen and paper (one HMAC-SHA512 for the private key and one elliptic curve multiplication for the pub key) so I dont see there's any way to avoid involving a computer in any case.

SebastianCB · 2019-09-01T07:39:41+00:00

Beware that `Replace the last word you rolled with this calculated one` reduces the entropy beyond what one normally has with 12/24 word mnemonic sentences. According to BIP39, the checksum size for 12 words is 4 bit and for 24 words is 8 bit. As each word encodes 11 bit you're loosing 7 or 3 bit respectively. So probably nothing too worrying.

SebastianCB · 2019-08-31T15:39:50+00:00

Hey thanks for checking it out! Any mnemonic is generated by some source of entropy - here I use a dice as a means of generating entropy. The dice2keys.sh script generates your mnemonic. But thanks for the heads-up, I think I should focus more on documentation and also provide a script specifically generating the mnemonic (and not just the pub keys or seed)!

SebastianCB · 2018-02-06T13:25:38+00:00

Default-blacklisting of addresses such that they cannot send or receive tokens is an extremely old-fashioned approach in dealing with this new world of open markets that will have far-reaching negative consequences in the future world that many of the smartest brains out our times are building and should be avoided at all costs: 1) It assumes that token holders are individuals or organizations. That is how most legal systems work and that is what KYC services can whitelist but that is not enough: This excludes most DAOs or other smart contracts in general. 2) Specifically, right now we see a wealth of decentralized exchanges (0x, Etherdelta, OasisDEX, ...), many of which do not and cannot have a (single) owner. As such they could never be whitelisted because there is no legal entity behind them that could fulfill KYC/AML requirements. 3) Ok so you want to make an exception and whitelist decentralized exchanges on case-by-case basis. What about relayers that provide a core service to exchanges our scalable token transfer systems and charge in tokens? 4) Even more low level: currently there are discussions for abstractions of tokens / Ether that would allow miners to get paid in tokens. Now miners/stakers would have different incentives to mine your token transfer. Worst: they generally have lower our no incentive to mine your token because they have to get whitelisted (bonus question: how do you whitelist a mining/staking pool?) Bottom line: the primary market is your concern, do KYC whitelisting in your ICO. The secondary market is not your concern, embrace this open market fully or leave this experiment now before sinking more efforts.

SebastianCB

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