Introduction

Messaging Apps are widely used for personal peer to peer connections. Lately, its usage for business services is exploding.

But there is a catch: if existing messaging channels are sometimes private for peer to peer communication, B2C services totally lack privacy.

Added to this, the ability to identify (a verifiable way) who is behind a service (or who I am talking to in peer to peer private messaging) is nonexistent in all popular apps.

For Person-to-Person Use

Here is a summary for person-to-person interaction for most popular apps.

Channel	Privacy	Security	Auditability	Peer Authentication
Signal	🟢 Very High	🟢 Very High	🟢 Very High	🔴 None
WhatsApp	🟠 Medium	🟠 Medium	🔴 None	🔴 None
Telegram	🟡 High	🟡 High	🟢 Very High	🔴 None
Hologram	🟢 Very High	🟢 Very High	🟢 Very High	🟢 Yes, Verifiable Credential exchange

For Providing Business Services and/or AI agents to Users

Same table but this time for business services and/or AI agents.

Channel	Privacy	Security	Auditability	Price	Service Type	Peer Authentication
Signal	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
WhatsApp	🔴 No privacy	🔴 Very Low	🔴 None	🔴 Expensive (price per conversation and per message)	🟠 Centralized	🟠 Unverifiable or Verified by Meta
Telegram	🔴 No privacy	🔴 Very Low	🟢 Very High	🟢 Free	🟠 Centralized	🔴 None
Hologram	🟢 Very High	🟢 Very High	🟢 Very High	🟢 Free	🟢 Decentralized	🟢 Yes, Verifiable Credential exchange

🚨 Problems with Most Popular Messaging Services

1. 🏢 Centralized Control
   Messages, keys, and user data live on a single provider’s servers, creating a single point of failure, censorship, or subpoena.

2. 👁️ Metadata Surveillance
   Even “end-to-end encrypted” apps log who you talk to, when, and from where. That metadata fuels advertising, profiling, and government requests.

3. 💰 Opaque Business Models
   “Free” chat usually means your data is the product. Platforms monetize surveillance rather than protecting your privacy.

4. 🕵️ Unverifiable Identities
   Anyone can spin up a username or phone-number account and impersonate a business or bot. Users get no cryptographic proof of who’s on the other end.

5. 🤖 No Privacy for Business Integrations
   Business, brand or AI-assistant chatbots pass through messaging app owner servers, and external clouds that can read, store, or even train ML models on your content. “End-to-end encrypted” does not exist for these use cases. Services that require serious privacy cannot use these messaging services.

6. 🚫 Lock-In & Poor Interoperability
   Each platform is a walled garden; your contacts, chat history, and bots can’t move freely to alternative apps or self-hosted servers.

7. 🚸 Weak Parental Controls
   Age gating relies on self-declaration or platform policy, not cryptographic proof, so minors easily reach inappropriate services.

8. 🖼️ Limited Content Provenance
   Forwarded media lacks verifiable origin or tamper evidence, fuelling misinformation and deep-fake distribution.

9. 💸 Pay-to-Message Economics for Businesses
   On platforms like WhatsApp, businesses pay per message they send. This raises costs and locks companies into proprietary pricing.

Bottom line: users and organizations trade convenience for hidden costs, loss of privacy, vendor lock-in, and uncertainty about who or what they’re really talking to.

🌟 How Hologram Solves These Problems

In contrast, Hologram is an open-source messaging and AI agent App+SDK that let users and businesses run decentralized, end-to-end-encrypted and powerful chats based service.

Every agent or service proves its identity with verifiable credentials, giving users cryptographic Proof-of-Trust instead of relying on centralized platforms or intermediaries.

1. 🏢 Decentralized Control
   Hologram uses DIDComm peer-to-peer encryption and lets you self-host your services and/or deploy them to any hosting company. No single server can block, censor, or subpoena the whole network.

2. 👁️ Zero Metadata Surveillance
   Messages are end-to-end encrypted and routed over decentralized channels; Hologram logs no contact graphs or timestamps. Your relationships stay private.

3. 💰 Transparent, Ethical Business Model
   Open-source code, no ads, no data mining. Ecosystems monetize via privacy-preserving trust-fee flows (pay-per-issuance / verification of credential) on the public good Verana network, not by selling user data.

4. 🕵️ Verifiable Identities
   Every user, service, and AI agent presents Verifiable Credentials. A cryptographic Proof-of-Trust shows who you’re talking to before you engage.

5. 🤖 Privacy-Respecting AI & Integrations
   AI agents run as Verifiable Services you can audit or self-host. No hidden cloud middlemen reading or training on your messages.

6. 🔒 Open Standards, No Lock-In
   Built on DIDComm + W3C Verifiable Credentials, released under Agpl-3.0 for Hologram User Agent, Apache-2.0 for the SDK. Switch wallets, hosts, or forks without losing your data or contacts.

7. 🚸 Built-In Kid Protection
   Services declare a minimum age in their credentials; parents set a birthdate + PIN, and Hologram blocks age-inappropriate connections, without exposing children’s data.

8. 🖼️ Content Provenance
   Optional C2PA signing lets creators embed tamper-evident proofs of origin. Recipients can verify media authenticity directly in the chat.

9. 💸 No Pay-Per-Message Fees
   Hologram itself is free. Any business can build its services and make them accessible at no cost.

Hologram replaces fragile, centralized chat with a decentralized, verifiable, and privacy-preserving trust layer—empowering users, businesses, and AI agents alike.