When any device touches the internet it joins the cloud relay; one anycast address finds the nearest region, and relays peer over the web to bridge far-apart peer-to-peer islands.

How it works

A device with internet links to the backbone over a TCP/WebSocket connection; cloud nodes peer with each other at near-zero cost.
One hostname fronts the whole fleet via GeoDNS / anycastAnycast, one address that routes you to the topologically-nearest server automatically. The device races the nearest relays and keeps the fastest., so it reaches the closest relay.
Any two devices on the backbone are ~1 hop apart; a bundle exits at the relay the recipient is currently attached to, and a topic only fans to regions with live subscribers.

Why it matters

For developers

No special handling, when connectivity exists, the backbone extends reach automatically. The mailbox is an untrusted store of sealed ciphertext, so adding capacity is just adding nodes.

For business

Local meshes anywhere on Earth reach each other and your services the moment any node gets online, region-aware, so you never pay to flood empty regions.

Deeper implementation detail is coming in the Hop whitepaper.

← Direct data channel Any transport →

Internet relay

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