Towns Protocol

Introducing

Over the past decade, the digital places where we gathered online to communicate, create, and share have been trapped in walled gardens that we do not own.

Many communities can cryptographically prove that they own every part of their experience except for one key aspect, the base level of conversation and coordination, which they rent from companies with self-interested business models built on the backs of users' content.

We want to own our online experience and have a real sense of belonging to our online communities.

That's why we're introducing Towns, a group chat protocol and app designed for online communities to create better hometowns online. Towns enables community members to truly own their town squares - and communicate freely - with a fully decentralized, end-to-end encrypted chat protocol that people own.

Towns empowers communities to create programmable, self-managed gathering spaces for communication. Any group can use Towns to gather and chat freely in a space tailored to their needs - without ever having to worry that an organization will change the rules, profit from their activities, or take away their rights.

Why Towns?

Own Your Town

Towns gives you the building blocks to create your ideal community. Ownership of each Town lives on-chain, so they can be transferred, sold, or even held by another smart contract like a DAO or a multi sig, giving you complete control to delegate in the best interest of your community.

Make it Yours

Towns is a playground for creativity. Programmable smart contracts let you control settings like administration, reputation, privacy, and roles. Any community can build new clients or APIs on the Towns Protocol and keep complete control and customization.

Build New Support Models

Towns unlocks entirely new support models for your community. Community owners can create unique experiences such as selling access keys to specific channels, rewarding members for their contributions, or allowing users to trade NFTs directly in the chat—the possibilities are endless.

How does it work?

Towns has three key components:

1. Towns Protocol

a) Composable Smart Contracts

Towns is an Ethereum-based system of smart contracts that puts you in control of your online space. The contracts are extensible, composable, and upgradeable, enabling communities to write their own rules for moderation, access, and monetization.

b) Decentralized Network

The Towns network is an end-to-end encrypted near real-time communication system governed by the Towns smart contracts and powered by a decentralized, distributed proof-of-stake network of nodes.

2. appTowns

The Towns app takes all the technical things the protocol implements and makes them available in an open-source, end-to-end encrypted delightful chat experience. The experience ties together user identity and Town ownership through smart contracts representing access, moderation, privacy, and reputation. Tight integration with the web3 ecosystem directly in-app allows for new opportunities for users to interact with their communities in ways that weren’t previously possible. Everything from participating in DAO governance to on-chain game interactions to trading NFTs can occur directly in a community's Town where the communication is already happening. While this will be the first Towns app, it will be one of many as anyone can build clients against the Towns protocol to fit their specific needs.

3. daoTowns

Towns will be governed and stewarded by the Towns DAO, a group dedicated to supporting the growth and development of the protocol. The DAO makes important decisions for the platform, such as voting on the core development roadmap, technical upgrades, and managing the treasury. The DAO will represent key stakeholder groups in the Towns ecosystem, like users, node operators, space owners, and core contributors.

Who is behind Towns?

The Towns protocol and app are the work of the members of HNT Labs. HNT is a small group of world-class engineers and product people that believe in framework-driven value creation through open and direct communication.

The future of Towns is bright. We’re thrilled that today HNT Labs announced $25.5 million in Series A funding led by a16z crypto, and continues to be backed by leading investors such as Benchmark and Framework.

While HNT Labs will be stewarding Towns initially, governance and control of Towns will be transitioned to the Towns DAO progressively as we move towards decentralization of the network.

Vision

We envision a world where you are free to express yourself. Where you define the borders, and you set the rules. We envision a world where you build what you want, how you want.

Over the past decade, the digital town squares where we’ve gathered online — to communicate, create, and share — have been stuck in walled gardens. Moderation is inconsistent and confusing. Self-serving business models are built on the backs of users’ content. We no longer feel like owners of our online experience. We no longer feel a sense of belonging to our online communities.

We believe in freedom— the right to belong, the right to self-ownership, and the right to privacy. We believe we can participate in our communities without being taken advantage of, express ourselves without censorship, and organize without centralized control.

We envision an eternal town square with collective moderation, self-governing communities, and equitable business models where all sides win or lose together.

With Towns, it is time for us to own our hometowns on the internet.

FAQ

What is a Town?

A Town is a programmable, self-governed space that exists on the Towns protocol and allows a community's members to communicate freely and truly own their community.

Who is behind Towns?

The Towns protocol and app are the work of the members of HNT Labs. HNT is a small group of world-class engineers and product people that believe in framework-driven value creation through open and direct communication. HNT is backed by the world's leading investors including a16z crypto, Benchmark and Framework.

While HNT Labs will be stewarding Towns initially, governance and control of Towns will be transitioned to the Towns DAO progressively as we move towards decentralization of the network.

What is the Towns DAO?

Towns will be governed and stewarded by the Towns DAO, a group dedicated to supporting the growth and development of the protocol. The DAO makes important decisions for the platform, such as voting on the core development roadmap, technical upgrades, and managing the treasury. The DAO will represent key stakeholder groups in the Towns ecosystem like users, node operators, space owners, and core contributors.

Is Towns accepting whole community migration at this point?

Towns is not quite ready yet to onboard your entire community with our Alpha product. We&pos;re working hard to get there and will be sharing updates on our progress.

How does Towns sustain itself?

To ensure that Towns remains sustainable, the Towns Protocol will take a small slice of the economic activity happening between communities on the platform.

What chain does Towns use?

The Towns Alpha will launch on Goerli (Ethereum testnet), and Beta is intended to launch on Ethereum (and derivative L2s). This means Towns will support identity and gating based on Ethereum wallets and their assets. Towns will likely use side chains for other backend transactions in the app to keep costs low for users.

Is Towns Decentralized?

Towns will progressively decentralize over time. To start, HNT and our partners will run the backend in a Proof of Authority network; however, we are developing the decentralized backend to allow anyone to run a node and plan to decentralize the protocol as soon as possible.

What tech stack is Towns built on?

The Towns client is a React app, currently existing only as a web app, but our roadmap includes desktop and mobile clients. Third parties are encouraged to build other clients as their communities want as well.

The reference implementation of Town Nodes is built using Golang and Postgres, and Town Node operators are actively welcome to build other node implementations that improve the operation performance aspects of the network as they desire.

The smart contracts are written in solidity and compiled, tested, and deployed using Forge.

Introducing

Over the past decade, the digital places where we gathered online to communicate, create, and share have been trapped in walled gardens that we do not own.

Many communities can cryptographically prove that they own every part of their experience except for one key aspect, the base level of conversation and coordination, which they rent from companies with self-interested business models built on the backs of users' content.

We want to own our online experience and have a real sense of belonging to our online communities.

That's why we're introducing Towns, a group chat protocol and app designed for online communities to create better hometowns online. Towns enables community members to truly own their town squares - and communicate freely - with a fully decentralized, end-to-end encrypted chat protocol that people own.

Towns empowers communities to create programmable, self-managed gathering spaces for communication. Any group can use Towns to gather and chat freely in a space tailored to their needs - without ever having to worry that an organization will change the rules, profit from their activities, or take away their rights.

Why Towns?

Own Your Town

Towns gives you the building blocks to create your ideal community. Ownership of each Town lives on-chain, so they can be transferred, sold, or even held by another smart contract like a DAO or a multi sig, giving you complete control to delegate in the best interest of your community.

Make it Yours

Towns is a playground for creativity. Programmable smart contracts let you control settings like administration, reputation, privacy, and roles. Any community can build new clients or APIs on the Towns Protocol and keep complete control and customization.

Build New Support Models

Towns unlocks entirely new support models for your community. Community owners can create unique experiences such as selling access keys to specific channels, rewarding members for their contributions, or allowing users to trade NFTs directly in the chat—the possibilities are endless.

How does it work?

Towns has three key components:

1. Towns Protocol

a) Composable Smart Contracts

Towns is an Ethereum-based system of smart contracts that puts you in control of your online space. The contracts are extensible, composable, and upgradeable, enabling communities to write their own rules for moderation, access, and monetization.

b) Decentralized Network

The Towns network is an end-to-end encrypted near real-time communication system governed by the Towns smart contracts and powered by a decentralized, distributed proof-of-stake network of nodes.

2. appTowns

The Towns app takes all the technical things the protocol implements and makes them available in an open-source, end-to-end encrypted delightful chat experience. The experience ties together user identity and Town ownership through smart contracts representing access, moderation, privacy, and reputation. Tight integration with the web3 ecosystem directly in-app allows for new opportunities for users to interact with their communities in ways that weren’t previously possible. Everything from participating in DAO governance to on-chain game interactions to trading NFTs can occur directly in a community's Town where the communication is already happening. While this will be the first Towns app, it will be one of many as anyone can build clients against the Towns protocol to fit their specific needs.

3. daoTowns

Towns will be governed and stewarded by the Towns DAO, a group dedicated to supporting the growth and development of the protocol. The DAO makes important decisions for the platform, such as voting on the core development roadmap, technical upgrades, and managing the treasury. The DAO will represent key stakeholder groups in the Towns ecosystem, like users, node operators, space owners, and core contributors.

Who is behind Towns?

The Towns protocol and app are the work of the members of HNT Labs. HNT is a small group of world-class engineers and product people that believe in framework-driven value creation through open and direct communication.

The future of Towns is bright. We’re thrilled that today HNT Labs announced $25.5 million in Series A funding led by a16z crypto, and continues to be backed by leading investors such as Benchmark and Framework.

While HNT Labs will be stewarding Towns initially, governance and control of Towns will be transitioned to the Towns DAO progressively as we move towards decentralization of the network.

Vision

We envision a world where you are free to express yourself. Where you define the borders, and you set the rules. We envision a world where you build what you want, how you want.

Over the past decade, the digital town squares where we’ve gathered online — to communicate, create, and share — have been stuck in walled gardens. Moderation is inconsistent and confusing. Self-serving business models are built on the backs of users’ content. We no longer feel like owners of our online experience. We no longer feel a sense of belonging to our online communities.

We believe in freedom— the right to belong, the right to self-ownership, and the right to privacy. We believe we can participate in our communities without being taken advantage of, express ourselves without censorship, and organize without centralized control.

We envision an eternal town square with collective moderation, self-governing communities, and equitable business models where all sides win or lose together.

With Towns, it is time for us to own our hometowns on the internet.

FAQ

What is a Town?

A Town is a programmable, self-governed space that exists on the Towns protocol and allows a community's members to communicate freely and truly own their community.

Who is behind Towns?

The Towns protocol and app are the work of the members of HNT Labs. HNT is a small group of world-class engineers and product people that believe in framework-driven value creation through open and direct communication. HNT is backed by the world's leading investors including a16z crypto, Benchmark and Framework.

While HNT Labs will be stewarding Towns initially, governance and control of Towns will be transitioned to the Towns DAO progressively as we move towards decentralization of the network.

What is the Towns DAO?

Towns will be governed and stewarded by the Towns DAO, a group dedicated to supporting the growth and development of the protocol. The DAO makes important decisions for the platform, such as voting on the core development roadmap, technical upgrades, and managing the treasury. The DAO will represent key stakeholder groups in the Towns ecosystem like users, node operators, space owners, and core contributors.

Is Towns accepting whole community migration at this point?

Towns is not quite ready yet to onboard your entire community with our Alpha product. We&pos;re working hard to get there and will be sharing updates on our progress.

How does Towns sustain itself?

To ensure that Towns remains sustainable, the Towns Protocol will take a small slice of the economic activity happening between communities on the platform.

What chain does Towns use?

The Towns Alpha will launch on Goerli (Ethereum testnet), and Beta is intended to launch on Ethereum (and derivative L2s). This means Towns will support identity and gating based on Ethereum wallets and their assets. Towns will likely use side chains for other backend transactions in the app to keep costs low for users.

Is Towns Decentralized?

Towns will progressively decentralize over time. To start, HNT and our partners will run the backend in a Proof of Authority network; however, we are developing the decentralized backend to allow anyone to run a node and plan to decentralize the protocol as soon as possible.

What tech stack is Towns built on?

The Towns client is a React app, currently existing only as a web app, but our roadmap includes desktop and mobile clients. Third parties are encouraged to build other clients as their communities want as well.

The reference implementation of Town Nodes is built using Golang and Postgres, and Town Node operators are actively welcome to build other node implementations that improve the operation performance aspects of the network as they desire.

The smart contracts are written in solidity and compiled, tested, and deployed using Forge.