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Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how much Freenet would be considered “web3” and “blockchain” by the HN crowd, considering it explicitly uses smart contracts and transactions signed by self-custodied private keys

Guess it’s all in how you present things and what terms you avoid :)

For what it’s worth, I am interested very much in decentralized systems and smart contracts, having built them and also running a YouTube channel where I interviewed people behind the projects… including Ian Clarke and freenet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWrRqUkJpMQ

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Personally, I don’t consider Freenet and Hyphanet to be "blockchain" in the modern sense, and given how much the meaning of "web3" has changed in recent years, I think it might evolve further.

Freenet stands apart with goals and ideals that are quite different from today’s distributed applications, with a stronger focus on privacy and access to information.

Neither Freenet nor Hyphanet are linked to cryptocurrencies or financial speculation. I see them as decentralized networks created to ensure freedom of expression, privacy, and access to information in an anonymous and censorship-resistant way, without any intrinsic connection to cryptocurrencies or financial systems. And that's great!

I also believe the project has gained a certain credibility over time, thanks to the consistent work and vision of its developers.

I’ll check out your interview with Ian Clarke!

Freenet and Hyphanet aren't blockchain, although the original Freenet did pioneer the cryptographic contract back in 2000 (we called them "signed subspace keys"), which a few years later would form the basis for Bitcoin.

Freenet is designed to be a general-purpose platform for building and distributing decentralized systems like group chat[1], social networks, search, really anything that people use the Internet for today. Some people think of blockchain this way but blockchain is much more specialized (eg. group chat on blockchain wouldn't scale).

[1] https://github.com/freenet/river

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