Hyphanet: Decentralized Key‑Value Store with WebAssembly Contracts

The author announces a ground‑up redesign of Freenet, now renamed Hyphanet, a peer‑to‑peer decentralized key‑value store that uses WebAssembly contracts to define state and merge operations. The new architecture ensures that every contract implements a commutative merge function, allowing state updates to propagate through the network like a virus and achieve global consistency in seconds. Applications run directly in the browser by connecting to a local websocket that communicates with the Freenet peer, eliminating the need for a central API server. The author has released installers for major desktop operating systems, enabling users to join the network and build decentralized apps such as River, a group chat, and Delta, a CMS. Early adopters include fintech unicorns and YC scaleups, who are using the platform for secure, decentralized data storage and retrieval. The project also includes a search/recommendation engine called Atlas, which is under development. The author invites the community to try Freenet and provides links to GitHub, documentation, and a talk.