How HoloFuel works
A currency created by use, not by mining, and live since 1 November 2026.
A currency created by use, not by mining, and live since 1 November 2026.
The HoloFuel Network opened on 1 November 2026. Members join through the Unyt accounting app and can pay for hosting, for services listed in the Decent Directory, or pay each other. Net Zero FZC operates the network and the HOT swap, under a provisional licence of ninety days. This page explains the mutual-credit design and says where today's launch differs from it.
Most cryptocurrencies begin with a fixed pile of coins and let the market decide what they are worth. HoloFuel flips that order. Nobody mines it: units are created when credit is spent and disappear when it is paid back, and the design ties that credit to useful work. A host lends CPU, memory, bandwidth or storage to a Holochain app, and that app pays for the service. HoloFuel is simply the bookkeeping of that exchange.
This is how the network is designed to work.
1Anyone with spare hardware can offer it to the Holo network and publish a price for it.
2Users open the app in their browser as usual. Behind the scenes, the host serves its data.
3When the hosting is paid, the host's balance goes up and a matching obligation is recorded on the other side. Nothing is mined, nothing is printed in advance.
HoloFuel is a mutual-credit system: every credit is born together with a debit of exactly the same size. Add up every balance on the network and you always get zero, so there is no fixed supply. The amount in circulation breathes in and out with the hosting being done.
| One hour of hosting is paid | Balance |
|---|---|
| Host who served the app | +2.40 HF |
| Capacity account on the other side | −2.40 HF |
| Whole network | 0.00 HF |
With no miners to reward, even tiny payments can move without a gas fee eating into them. Only locking HOT in the Ethereum bridge costs gas.
There is no protocol-wide tariff. A host describes the machine, for example 8 GB of RAM, 4 virtual cores and a 250 GB SSD, then picks an hourly rate. HoloFuel only moves when that capacity is actually consumed. A bigger, more reliable box can ask for more; a modest one can compete on price.
That is the design intent. For now, Holo's pricing page still quotes hosting per deployment, settled in national currencies such as USD and EUR.
A negative balance is not an error, it is a credit line. By design, how deep you may go depends on your record of delivering hosting, not on how much money you already hold. Serve reliably and your line grows; fail to deliver and the debt stays on your chain as a promise still owed. Reputation and peer validation take the place of collateral.
That part is still to come. At launch, user and host accounts have no credit limit, so you can only spend a balance you hold, and swapping HOT does not give you one. Host limits may later follow an earnings-based algorithm. For now, only the two infrastructure providers, Holo and Net Zero, share a limit of about 177 billion units, equal to the HOT supply.
Because each unit maps to real computing resources, HoloFuel aims to be value-stable: its reference point is the cost of hosting, not a dollar peg and not a scarcity story. That is a design goal, not a guarantee: Net Zero makes no claim about what HoloFuel is or will be worth.
| Capacity money (HoloFuel) | Scarcity money (Bitcoin-style) | |
|---|---|---|
| Where a unit comes from | Spent into existence as credit, then earned or swapped from HOT | Mining, on a fixed schedule |
| What stands behind it | A matching obligation to deliver hosting | Scarcity and market belief |
| Who earns it | Hosts contributing capacity | Whoever owns the most hardware |
| Supply | Grows and shrinks with activity | Capped by protocol |
A global blockchain forces every node to agree on every payment. On Holochain, each participant keeps their own signed chain and only a group of peers validates each transaction. No bank issues HoloFuel and your keys stay on your own computer, so Net Zero can't move your balance, or recover your keys if you lose them. The network still has an operator though: every member must pass identity verification, and Net Zero can suspend or close an account, or hold a bridge transaction.
HOT is the ERC-20 token sold in 2018 as a claim on future hosting. Since 1 November 2026 it can be swapped one-for-one for HoloFuel, with no swap fee, during a window of at least six months. Closing the window or changing the ratio requires 60 days' notice. The swap is voluntary and HOT keeps trading on exchanges, so nothing forces you to move.
1Install Unyt on a computer and pass the identity check. You must be at least 18 and not subject to the sanctions listed in the Platform Terms.
2Lock HOT from Ethereum mainnet in the bridge contract and the same amount of mirrored HOT appears in Unyt. It is still HOT, and you can bridge it back out. HOT on Base or Arbitrum must first be converted to Ethereum HOT.
3An automated agent turns your mirrored HOT into HoloFuel. This is the step that changes what you hold.
Want to watch credits and debits appear as hosting is paid? holofuel.best goes further, with more detail and visual animations of how HoloFuel works.
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