“Impervious API is a programmatic layer that sits on top of the Bitcoin Lightning Network, i.e. “Layer 3.””
Truly peer-to-peer, Censorship and surveillance resistant, Default encrypted, Payments built in
It uses IPFS for storing files. And also Lightning, Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs), a DIDComm system, WebRTC.
And it seems pretty similar to Holochain in its goal.
I know there is some excitement in the bitcoin community about it.
I find the project very interesting and was surprised by the similarities in the goal with Holochain (not the approach).
Quick survey of their web site.
I suspect that most of what is promoted, has not been developed. If you trace Holochain development through the years you will see the issues with distributed computing that have been overcome. Impervious is proposing a lot of things that are difficult to do in a distributed fashion.
Collaborative Document editing like Google Docs has required central server. Holochain now has Sym, the first distributed, real time, collaborative framework. How is Impervious going to do that?
Jitsi Meet is Peer to peer video using WebRTC. In order for them to do group messaging you need a relay server. Not distributed. How is Impervious going to do that?
Looking at the job description for their Back End developer, they are using GoLang (Holochain switched to Rust for better security) and AWS. Maybe AWS is just for development while they get their distributed network up and running. Maybe their system will be vulnerable to AWS deplatforming.
And lastly, it uses blockchain as its foundational technology. If Arthur is to be believed, and I do, you can’t deliver a truly unencloseable carrier on a blockchain. It may look like one, until someone figures out how to game the Proof of Whatever, system.
I don’t wish them ill will. Any project with those goals is noble and will contribute to everyone learning more about how to live without technology provider overlords.
