Shardnet.app
Chat, store and share files without servers. Encrypted on your device, split across the network. No accounts. Storage nodes see only opaque ciphertext.
Chat, store and share files without servers. Encrypted on your device, split across the network. No accounts. Storage nodes see only opaque ciphertext.
This page is designed to help you find out whether Shardnet.app is good and if it is the right choice for you.
title: "SHARDNET: A Serverless, Peer-to-Peer Protocol for Encrypted Data Exchange and Resilient Storage" author: "Shardnet Project" date: "2026-06-23" subject: "Shardnet Protocol"
Shardnet is an application-layer peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol for secure, serverless data storage and exchange. Every file is encrypted client-side with AES-256-GCM, split into fifteen Reed-Solomon fragments, and distributed across the network. Any ten fragments are sufficient to reconstruct the original. Nodes communicate directly over QUIC/TLS 1.3 using a Kademlia-based DHT for discovery and routing. No central server holds data, credentials, or routing state. This document is the authoritative technical specification of the Shardnet protocol: transport, erasure coding, cryptography, identity, storage, and network maintenance.
Listed in
Encryption
AES-256-GCM — client-side, before any data leaves your device
Chat
Room-based, Ed25519-signed messages over the same swarm
Open protocol
Full spec published (WHITEPAPER.md) — no proprietary lock-in
No Server Required
Single static binary — zero runtime dependencies, zero cloud
NAT traversal
UDP hole punching + STUN — works behind most home routers
Routing
Kademlia DHT — fully decentralised peer discovery, no tracker
Transport
QUIC / TLS 1.3 — encrypted, low-latency, NAT-traversal built-in
Erasure coding
Reed-Solomon 10+5 — survives loss of up to 5 of 15 fragments
Encryption
AES-256-GCM — client-side, before any data leaves your device
Identity
Ed25519 keypair — cryptographic node identity, no accounts
Technically-minded users and developers who want to store or share files without trusting a third party. This includes privacy-conscious individuals, open-source communities self-hosting shared documents, developers building decentralised applications that need a storage layer, and organisations that cannot or will not rely on cloud providers for sensitive data.
Shardnet is currently in public alpha — functionally complete but not yet independently audited for security. Early adopters are individual developers and privacy researchers evaluating the protocol. We're not listing customers until the security audit is done and the protocol is production-ready. If you're interested in an early deployment, reach out directly.
Shardnet removes the server from the equation entirely. Files are encrypted on your device (AES-256-GCM) before leaving it, split into 15 fragments via Reed-Solomon erasure coding, then spread across the peer swarm. Any 10 of those 15 fragments reconstruct the original — even if a third of the network goes offline. Nodes storing your shards see only ciphertext indistinguishable from random noise. No account, no API key, no company holding your data. The decryption key travels only in your magnet link.
Most "decentralised" storage products still have a centralised component — a coordination server, a token smart contract, a wallet requirement, or a proprietary daemon. Shardnet has none of these. It runs as a single static binary with no runtime dependencies, connects over QUIC/TLS 1.3, and routes via a Kademlia DHT. There are no tokens, no fees, and no registration. If you run a node, you contribute storage and gain access to the swarm — the protocol is self-sustaining because every user is also a provider.
Shardnet started from a simple frustration: every "serverless" storage tool we looked at still had a server somewhere — a coordinator, an incentive layer, or a hosted gateway. We wanted something where the threat model was actually clean: zero-knowledge storage, no central point of seizure, no account to compromise. We built the protocol in Rust, wrote the spec first, then implemented it — QUIC transport, Kademlia DHT, Reed-Solomon erasure coding, AES-256-GCM encryption, all from scratch. The result is a single binary you can run on any Linux machine and be part of a global swarm in under ten seconds.
Which are the primary technologies used for building Shardnet?
Rust — the entire stack, compiled to a dependency-free static binary QUIC / TLS 1.3 (quinn + rustls) — encrypted transport with mutual Ed25519 authentication Kademlia DHT — XOR-metric peer discovery and shard routing (K=20) Reed-Solomon erasure coding — 10 data + 5 parity shards per file AES-256-GCM — client-side file encryption Ed25519 — node identity and signed chat messages Axum — embedded HTTP/WebSocket server for the web GUI Argon2id — proof-of-work for node admission (Sybil resistance)
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