This week in the Holoverse | Week ending 17th of October 2021

The path to Holo hosting Beta just became a whole lot clearer.

A brand new roadmap just dropped. This new road map completes key milestones Hosted Elemental Chat and Host Console Usage. It also shows what milestones are in progress so we know what is currently being worked on. Perhaps more importantly, it goes into more detail about the path to reach Holo hosting Beta.

Speaking of more detail, the blog post about the new roadmap goes into a new level of detail. When building something as groundbreaking as this, it’s impossible to imagine all the steps that are needed to build out the tech. Now as the Beta is in sight, it’s really pleasing to see this level of detail from the team.

The Work in Progress section of the road map blog post is particularly great to see. Elemental Chat Public Release, Publisher Portal & HoloFuel Readying for Pre-Release Testing, Holochain 0.1.x HDK Release and HoloPort Registration Usability are all massive milestones that are in progress right now.

It may still be a little technical for the everyday person to put all the pieces together to fully grasp the enormity of what has already been built. The same goes for the remaining steps of the road map. For those who wish to delve deeper, it’s so refreshing to know they can.

Acorn Project Management Alpha Released

A new approach to project management is brewing. Acorn is one of those software projects that have reimagined the space they are working in. This time, it’s project management that this Holochain powered software is reinventing. This weeks Alpha release enables anyone to start using it.

Acorn comes from long time Holochain contributors Sprillow. Amongst other things, Sprillow has been a driving force in the recent Holochain Documentation drive.

Acorn is a hApp (Holochain App) that you download and install on your local computer. This is different to a hApp that you will access through any Web browser using the Holo hosting infrastructure. No need for the Holochain Launcher either. You simply install it on Linux, Mac or Windows like any other app.

Be aware this is alpha software. The Acorn team recommend using real data, but using the export data function often so you don’t lose what you’ve been working on.

New Holochain in Action Video

The Holochain in Action team has dropped yet another developer-oriented video.

Although this video series is mostly for hApp developers, the demo of installing and using Acorn early in this video is great watching for anyone. As well as seeing how great Acorn is, watching the developers in the video get really excited is so pleasing. There’s a beautiful moment when all the developers in the video join an Acorn project that was just created from their respective locations in the world. They are all so excited to see remote collaboration in action in a hApp that anybody can now download and use. One of the devs in the video is Eric Harris-Braun (Holochain Co-Founder). His reaction to seeing it working is gold and highly recommended viewing.

As well as an in-depth demo of Acorn, this video speaks to the ever-growing list of building blocks developers can use to rapidly build their own hApps. The building blocks are open-source pieces of software that are reusable in any hApp. How many software developers start building their own hApps is so crucial to the success of this project. So seeing yet another element that is driving that uptake is excellent.

Kizuna on Launcher

Kizuna, the Holochain powered messaging and audio/video calls hApp, can now be tested by the general public as well.

For this release, you’ll need to first install the Holochain Launcher. Kizuna published step by step instructions so this is a pretty simple process.

When you have Holochain Launcher installed you can also install Elemental Chat and Elemental Chess.

With this many hApps being able to be used right now if anybody asks “when is Holochain going to be ready”, you can confidently reply “right now”. It just gets better and better from here on in.

Flux by JUNTO

A new newsletter from the Junto Foundation dropped this week.

Amongst the updates, the hApp from the Junto Foundation is now going to be called Flux. Flux will be developed by a for-profit company of the same name. The Junto Foundation will remain a not for profit foundation that will foster open-source developers and hold the voting rights of the for-profit Flux company.

There’s a screenshot of the current version of the Flux hApp. Think Discord, but being powered by Holochain, so it’s also completely P2P (Peet to Peer).


Looks like there’s plenty brewing over at Junto and Flux. The Holochain eco-system is getting stronger every day.