👤 Who is behind Mycelium — the developers and initiators
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Mycelium is developed by the organization ThreeFold (ThreeFold Tech / ThreeFold Grid).
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In official announcements a participant named “Lee Smet” is referred to as leading the efforts to create a new IPv6 overlay network.
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The project is declared open-source; the repository is hosted on GitHub.
ThreeFold is an organization promoting ideas of decentralized networks and infrastructure. Mycelium is part of their ecosystem — not a third-party add-on, but an in-house project.
🛠 What Mycelium is — architecture and key properties
Mycelium is:
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An IPv6 overlay network written in Rust.
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When a node joins, it receives an IPv6 address from the
400::/7range. -
All connections are end-to-end encrypted; each node has a public/private key pair, and the node’s address is cryptographically tied to its private key.
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The network is “locality-aware” — the application chooses paths between nodes that minimize latency, aiming for optimal routing.
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It supports various transport protocols: TCP, QUIC, etc.
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The routing system is inspired by (or partially based on) the Babel routing protocol.
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Mycelium can operate even without a TUN interface (i.e., “as a message-bus only”) — for simple tasks of encrypted message exchange without full network load.
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The repository includes a “message-system” — above the network layer one can exchange arbitrary encrypted messages.
📡 Project goals, design and future prospects
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According to the description: Mycelium aims to offer a “secure, efficient and scalable” alternative to the traditional Internet, with emphasis on privacy, decentralization, and resilience. (Medium)
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The project is conceived as part of the larger ThreeFold Grid ecosystem — thus Mycelium acts as the “backbone network” within that ecosystem. (Medium)
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The developers explicitly aim for scalability on a “planetary” level. (Medium)
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Mycelium is positioned not only as a private-network solution but as fundamental infrastructure for a variety of scenarios: secure P2P communication, private communications, self-hosting, IoT networks, decentralized services, cloud resources, infrastructure, CDN, etc. (Medium)
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As of 2024–2025, Mycelium remains under active development; scalability is one of the key directions for further improvements. (Medium)
✅ Status, implementation and limitations
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Mycelium is already working; builds are available for Linux, macOS, Windows; iOS and Android are planned / in beta. (Medium)
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In official documentation it is claimed that the network can support roughly ~100,000 users within a single “network”. (Medium)
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Meanwhile, to improve resilience and scalability, developers plan future enhancements: better stability, NAT support, QUIC hole-punching, expanded protocols, simplified deployment. (Medium)
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Mycelium is an active open-source project under the Apache-2.0 license. (Medium)
🔎 Conclusions — strengths and potential risks
Advantages:
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High level of privacy and security: end-to-end encryption and crypto-bound addressing.
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Decentralization and elimination of central points of control.
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Flexibility: ability to use as a full IPv6 network or simply as an encrypted “message bus.”
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Suitable for many use cases: private networks, P2P, self-hosting, IoT, remote work, private internet access, peer-to-peer based services.
Limitations / Risks:
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The network is still under development; the goal of planetary-scale remains unproven.
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As with any P2P/overlay solution — if network is misused or peers are untrusted, there are inherent risks.
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The real level of adoption and number of active nodes is unclear — this impacts reliability and robustness.
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Overlay-networks are sometimes poorly treated or blocked by external services; exit via NAT or public relays may reduce anonymity compared to an idealized model.
If you want — I can check live metrics: how many nodes Mycelium has now, how widespread its usage is, and whether there are public reports about stability or major incidents.
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