The Humm - A Vision with Nick Haslem
Note: In November 2023, we featured an introduction to HummHive and founder, Nick Haslem. This year, we’re diving deeper into the reasons for creating HummHive and how we could use it as a sacred space for our own stories.
Last week we met with Nick Haslem, HummHive’s founder, to discuss the motivation and origin story of the application he first envisaged in 2015. We learned about the constellation of different companies he is developing which we will explain below. The key goal is to empower individuals and communities to reclaim their agency for creating their personal/group sacred boundaries and spaces.
The HummHive protocol stands at the crossroads of self-sovereignty and local-first networks, offering users the agency to create, store, and share their stories with autonomy, and without interference. Built on Holochain’s peer-to-peer framework, it empowers users to directly support creators, cultivating resilient and sustainable digital content economies. As one of the first applications that was developed using Holochain, HummHive sets a precedent for decentralised publishing and user empowerment.
In HummHive’s last update we learned the team have undertaken the work of refactoring their application from Electron to Tauri. Using darksoil studios’ P2P Shipyard, they’ve been making the hApp mobile-ready! Video storage and playback capabilities have been added to further enhance their suite of content creator tools.
Nick Haslem has been deeply inspired by the place he’s lived for the last 8 years in the mountains of Australia. His vision is one of a resilient cultural anthology reflecting the full diversity of our collective experience. Restoring agency to the stewards of lore he told us:
Humanity has these codes on how to live and how to thrive with nature's library. This is wisdom and these stories need to be preserved.
HummHive is intended to empower individuals to share their stories, thoughts, etc., in a digital space, called a Hive, where they can be kept totally private, shared with invited readers, or made publicly available.
Creating a Buzz
Each Hive will have its own DHT where people can record their stories and a publisher tool that deploys the creators’ content. Hive creators can set their membership terms, manage their agreements and engage with their community. Nick’s decades in the affiliate marketing and referral industry has enabled him to embed a proven discovery process into HummHive. Engagement, syndication and distribution will be tracked and managed using Holochain.
Building sustainable followings in the creator economy is challenging. Multiple platforms need to be navigated, strict editorial and publishing policies adhered to, affiliate and commission-driven systems negotiated: it is restrictive and exclusionary.
The Value of Shared Stories
Nick has been working on a separate mutual credit currency project, StoryFuel, since 2022 to enable content-related micro-payments. Nick explained:
StoryFuel has no interest or usury. It’s non-speculatory so it prevents wealth accumulation through non-productive means. It has a dynamic supply that reflects actual economic activity. With a community-defined value that isn’t imposed by external authorities, it’s more transparent, efficient, and adaptable. By aligning economic incentives with human creativity and community values, StoryFuel has the potential to usher in a new era of global prosperity and collaboration.
Unlike blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, mutual credit currencies don’t use mining or staking and aren’t speculative. When deployed using Holochain transactions are immutably recorded and witnessed locally on a DHT, offering significant efficiencies over blockchain’s proof of work and proof of stake mechanisms. This protects user privacy, while also permitting necessary accountability and auditing.
Migrating Payments
With mutual credit users in mind, Nick told us about HUMMP Payments, which he has been busy developing in parallel.
The soon-to-be-released multi-capital currency exchange, including fiat, crypto and mutual credit, will also have autonomous reserve and value management tools. It will also be able to handle dynamic currency distribution among peers.
“It will enable a seamless bridge between different economic systems without compromising the principles of sovereignty. HUMMP will offer a comprehensive reimagining of how value can flow in our increasingly connected world.”
Nick has the vision to create a safe space for Indigenous cultures to archive and share (according to their preference) their cultural heritage and spiritual wisdom. Sustainable engagement requires a re-imagination of content delivery networks, Nick’s projects promise to help them blossom.
If you’d like to get early access to HummHive: Register Here!
Useful Links
HummHive’s blog hosted in their own Hive
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🌟 Latest Official News and Events from Holochain and Holo
Event: Zebu Live 2024 - October 10-11, 2024 - London, UK
(Less than) two weeks till Zebu Live London and we’re cooking up something special with our partner Kwaxala. This booth is all about verifiable data and regenerative ecosystems. If you're coming, swing by and say hi — we’d love to chat!
Get 25% off tickets!
The Holochain Foundation will be a sponsor of Zebu Live - London Web3 Conference, once again!
Also, here’s an article about the conference from CryptoDaily!
Video: Holo Registration & Springboard Setup
Mary Camacho guided us through the registration process for the Holo environment and Springboard. If you missed the full Holo launch brief video watch it here.
Announcement: Volla Quintus Smartphone - Indiegogo Campaign!
Get the new flagship Volla Systeme GmbH Phone Quintus with the Holochain chat app Relay preloaded on it from Indiegogo:
Prefer to pre-order? Secure your device at Volla’s online store:
Plus, enjoy a 10% discount! Use code HOLOCHAIN10 at checkout. The discount will show at the end of checkout!
Join Holochain.org’s Developer Portal: https://developer.holochain.org/
For a complete listing of all of the Holo Ltd and Holochain Foundation events go to their ‘Upcoming Events’ page!
🌟Latest News from the Holoverse:
Short Video: Social tech is holding us ransom with Siddharth Sthalekar of Neighbourhoods. Video produced by MaEarthMedia.
Update: Scott Frankum of Sustafy
I'm honored to share that I'm teaching a graduate brief at London College of Fashion this fall:
"Europe’s grand project is the circular economy metamorphosis based on a strategy of “growth without consumption.” Weave3 would like you to explore the implications of distributed networks beyond Ethereum, on fashion. Textiles are the first tranche of the European Union’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), inaugurating the most consequential transformation of global trade since World War II. The law fundamentally changes how textiles are made, brands compete, and businesses operate."
Recently I presented on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and, specifically supply chain tracing and Web3 distributed networks to meet the new global data laws to:
India's IICD
Instituto Marangoni London
Indus University, Ahmedabad
LCF makes four!
Update: Ferananda Ibarra of the Metacurrency Project/Commons Engine/Coventina Foundation
“Unless we have an open, neutral internet we can rely on without worrying about what’s happening at the back door, we can’t have an open government, good democracy, connected communities and poly cultures. It’s not naive to think we can have that, but it’s naive to think we can just sit back and get it.” Tim Berners-Lee - Magna Carta for the Web
It’s was very inspiring to be within a political context speaking about #holochain and how it enables for creating #GovTech that is immune to corruption, immune to concentration of power and the dysfunctional architectures of manipulation and control.
Different than #blockchain, it has no token, no consensus, no proof of stake and no gas fees. It’s really light and cost effective.
🌟Other Related News & Events
Article: Archiving Ancestral Knowledge to Co-Create New Economic Paradigms by Alison Guzman, PostGrowth Fellow
We learned of this article through the Post Growth Institute, interestingly, this morning 10/4/24! It is in the same alignment and vision as Nick Haslem’s vision of Humm, so we thought it important to share.
PostGrowth Fellow, Alison Guzman of Cultural Survival and MAPLE Microdevelopment, explores how the Mapuche communities of southern Chile are using digital archiving to preserve cultural heritage and challenge colonial frameworks. These archives, both tangible and digital, support community efforts to reclaim their land, culture, and economic sovereignty.
Seminar: The future Designer: Anthropology Meets Innovation in search of Sustainable Design with Michael Leube. Friday 11th October at 6pm ET.
For Seminar information: click here
Article: The Mojaloop moment: Expanding financial inclusion from the Gates Foundation (courtesy of Scott Frankum!).The Gates Foundation shared the following:
Picture the nearest big city. Now imagine it without any infrastructure. No roads, no electric lines, no trains. Without the vital infrastructure that makes our cities run, everything is harder—connecting with someone across town; growing a business; accessing healthcare.
This week, we’re talking about another type of infrastructure. It’s just as crucial as roads, but you can’t always see it: digital public infrastructure, or DPI. DPI allows people to buy food without carrying cash. It allows businesses to pay employees easily and electronically. It allows governments to ensure assistance funds reach families who need it while minimizing waste. It helps healthcare work better. And importantly, it connects millions of unbanked people with the digital economy.
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