Holepunch

On July 25, 2022, Tether, Bitfinex and the peer-to-peer infrastructure firm Hypercore launched Holepunch, a peer-to-peer platform for developers, investing $10 million to support startups building on it; the platform was to include a payments API on the Lightning Network, with USDT for micropayments. Ardoino said “Web2 requires users to give up control of their data.”⁠[1]

The three companies said they had built the underlying technology over five years. The protocol was closed source at the time, with plans to open-source it in December. Chief executive Mathias Buus is a self-taught JavaScript developer from Denmark with long experience in open-source and peer-to-peer projects, and Ardoino became chief strategy officer. Bitfinex and Tether said they were open to investing a further $50 million to $100 million.⁠[2]

Keet, the first app built on Holepunch, is a free, encrypted video chat program that was initially available only on desktop. Calls go directly between users’ computers and nothing is stored on a server. Ardoino said “Privacy is one of the most-forgotten human rights.”⁠[3]

On February 13, 2024, Holepunch released Pear Runtime, an open-source peer-to-peer app development platform that lets developers build apps without server infrastructure costs. Chief executive Mathias Buus Madsen said “Pear Runtime is all about direct connections — unmediated, unfettered and unbreakable.”⁠[4]

Speaking as co-founder and chief strategy officer, Ardoino said, “We challenge the conventional notion that servers are indispensable to online interaction.”⁠[5]

In April 2026 Tether launched the QVAC SDK, a kit for building, running and fine-tuning AI across devices; its materials say QVAC adds peer-to-peer capabilities through the Holepunch stack, including delegated inference and decentralized model distribution.⁠[6]