> I just learnt from your comment about the helm and umbrel. The second is only a cryptocurrency wallet according to their homepage.
getumbrel, pretty much a source-available (not quite FOSS) two-developer effort, is going after the same market as thehelm and used "self-hosting" bitcoin (lightening) wallets as a wedge, because there is indeed an overlap between adopters of decentralized-tech such as cryptocurrency/defi and users who prefer self-hosting. See getumbrel's v04 release blog post: https://archive.is/xZEec
> All in all, without knowing/judging the people involved, it looks like a typical PR stunt from a money-hungry corporation who would not contribute to a broader selfhosting ecosystem.
Fair. Not sure if thehelm is a PR stunt, but the founders have successfully exited from at least one venture in the past (I believe, Rapid7).
> In my very personal opinion, i'd strongly recommend to take a look at established, community-run solutions in this field
Thanks for pointing me to FOSS alternatives. I responded to OP's What is their business model? How do they afford to host all this without selling data or charging money? by pointing out that there indeed are for-profit efforts in this space up and running, even if nascent.
> there is indeed an overlap between adopters of decentralized-tech such as cryptocurrency/defi and users who prefer self-hosting
I'm not really sure about that. If you have stats about the proportion of cryptocurrency/defi users actually selfhosted, i'm curious. On the other side, i've rarely encountered people in the selfhosting/privacy ecosystems who are interested in cryptocurrencies.
I can't speak for "cryptocurrency/defi" culture but self hosting is definitely very strong on Bitcoin maximalist space. I think the idea spams from running your own node to search and validate transactions privately and without the need to trust anyone or leaking data that might associate that transaction to you. I guess the reason for that is that Bitcoin maximalism also overlaps with libertarian self sovereign ideals and censorship resistance.
And I think this is attested by the number of projects similar to Umbrel like Ronin Dojo, Raspiblitz, MyNode and even hardware vendors like Nodl and Start9. CryptoCloaks sells accessories like cases for RPis, a popular device for running Bitcoin and Lightning nodes. Some people might even go beyond and get their blocks from the Blockstream satellite transmission.
I'm not sure you'll ever get stats about that because those people like to remain hidden. Perhaps the growth rate of Bitcoin and Lightning network nodes operating on the Onion network might be a good starting point.
getumbrel, pretty much a source-available (not quite FOSS) two-developer effort, is going after the same market as thehelm and used "self-hosting" bitcoin (lightening) wallets as a wedge, because there is indeed an overlap between adopters of decentralized-tech such as cryptocurrency/defi and users who prefer self-hosting. See getumbrel's v04 release blog post: https://archive.is/xZEec
> All in all, without knowing/judging the people involved, it looks like a typical PR stunt from a money-hungry corporation who would not contribute to a broader selfhosting ecosystem.
Fair. Not sure if thehelm is a PR stunt, but the founders have successfully exited from at least one venture in the past (I believe, Rapid7).
> In my very personal opinion, i'd strongly recommend to take a look at established, community-run solutions in this field
Thanks for pointing me to FOSS alternatives. I responded to OP's What is their business model? How do they afford to host all this without selling data or charging money? by pointing out that there indeed are for-profit efforts in this space up and running, even if nascent.