What is Holo (HOT)?
HOT is the native token for Holo, a blockchain platform that hosts decentralized applications (dApps). It works alongside Holochain, a development platform for DeFi solutions. It’s a peer-to-peer (P2P) service that connects the Holo ecosystem users with the Holochain developers through access to the apps.
Holo is an ERC-20 token. The platform is still in its Alpha/Beta phase, and some of the features and tokenomics may change after the Mainnet launch. You can take a look at the Holo price trends in the graph above.
Who Founded Holo?
Holo was co-founded by Arthur Brock and Eric Harris-Braun. Brock is a self-described culture hacker and crypto platform designer. He builds decentralized cryptocurrencies and blockchain architecture. Harris-Braun has over three decades of programming experience. He’s founded several other software development companies.
At the time of writing, the Holo Mainnet has not yet launched. However, in 2018, the platform held an initial community offering. During this event, the Holo price was around $0.001.
The two founders started working on Holochain in 2016. The goal was to improve the day-to-day utility of blockchain-based apps for regular users who may not be familiar with the technology itself. However, the Holochain development environment lacked practical outreach, leading to the Holo crypto project.
In 2017, Brock and Harris-Braun, alongside a group of researchers, released the first version of the Holo Green Paper. Here, they outlined the key ideas and goals for Holo:
- Improve the outreach of decentralized software like Holochain;
- Provide users with more digital decentralization and autonomy;
- Allow app hosts to earn credits while providing storage.
Although the asset was volatile, its value remained low. In 2021, market fluctuations increased. On April 5th, the HOT price reached its peak for 2021 and exceeded $0.03.
What Are the Uses of Holo?
During the initial community offering, there were 177.6 billion HOT tokens minted. 75% of this supply was set aside for public sale, while the remaining amount is locked for the team to use in the future. Since the mainnet is not yet available, the protocol is subject to change. Therefore the Holo price and supply may differ once the official launch occurs.
Based on the protocol, the HOT token is designed to be inflationary. However, the team intends to have an algorithm that controls the overall supply. It will reduce and increase the supply depending on the demand. Users will be able to have negative balances with a digital credit system. These measures should help make the HOT price more stable.
The Holo network is described as a distributed marketplace, similar to a cloud hosting system. It’s used primarily to host dApps built on Holochain. It essentially connects the Holochain developer environment with the end users using a P2P model. The app storage is partly decentralized and uses one of the two types of hosts:
- Software-based – hosts that download special software to run in the background of their device and provide the required processing power;
- HoloPorts – users that operate special storage hardware.
Alongside HOT, the Holo ecosystem also uses HoloFuel tokens. These tokens were built specifically to be used in microtransactions. You can earn HoloFuel by providing hosting and storage services on Holo. The platform supports a wide range of dev projects, including DeFi solutions, blockchain governance tools, decentralized social networks, and others.
Holo aims to offer high-speed transactions, handling a large number of operations simultaneously. All HoloFuel transaction fees are listed with the HOT price value. After the Mainnet launch and the exchange of HOT for HoloFuel, the remaining Holo tokens will be used as liquidity and stored in a reserve.
As a bridge, Holo does not use conventional consensus mechanisms to reinforce network security and integrity. The system allows each decentralized app to use its own preferred method of data validation. The information will be stored on local hash chains that will vary from dApp to dApp.
Both Holo and Holochain use the gossip protocol, which allows the network to transfer and validate data more efficiently. Each network node knows several other nodes that it forwards the data to. In turn, these nodes forward the data to other nodes they know. The chain keeps going until all nodes have received the same information to validate.
The Holo ecosystem works on improving blockchain scalability. Rather than continuously synchronizing data, the consensus is reached via the private forks of each dApp. The users decide when the data should be synchronized, thus reducing the network load. This also makes Holo energy efficient, since it requires less bandwidth than other blockchains.
Many aspects of the Holo crypto environment are still under development and subject to change. Some users are able to participate in the testnet and provide feedback. Once the Holo network Mainnet launches, the network is expected to allow users to exchange their tokens with an equal HoloFuel and Holo price.
