Modern application development is powered by a fusion of servers, databases, and programs hosted on centrally managed public and private clouds. Many enterprises and small businesses have migrated on-premise solutions to Amazon, Microsoft, and Google in order to leverage the scalability, security, and support that these vendors compete to provide. However, centralized hosting, computing, and distribution infrastructure faces many threats, including, surveillance, censorship, theft, and coercion. As the Internet has grown, it has been centralized for convenience and cost, leaving the security of the system entrusted to a handful of corporations and governments. Simultaneously, advances in the performance of asymmetric cryptography coupled with a relaxing of export control laws drove the advent of secure decentralized systems.
