Opal | One is decentralized memory for a cloudless future.

Right now, your data lives on somebody else’s server. They control the infrastructure, the access, and ultimately the rules. I don’t think that’s where this should go.

Opal | One puts memory back in the hands of the user. You control it, you own it, and you decide where it lives and how it gets distributed.

I removed the need for a centralized memory cloud, your data identity remains proprietary. This gives the user total control over how their data is distributed; the user has full control.

Opal | One is already built. I’m at the stage where I need to push it harder, test it on better equipment and finish the invariant math for release.

I have two papers on arXiv that explain a lot of how I got here and how I handle memory, state and data. The system is running. This is not funding to find out if I can build it.

Papers:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.16736
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.11476

What I need is better equipment so I can test larger workloads and enough time to stay in the code. Right now I still do manual labor to fund the work, which means I’m constantly splitting my time.

I need funding so I can acquire testing hardware and buying back my development time. I want to stress the architecture, tighten the math and finish Opal|One for release.

The larger goal has always been the same: decentralized memory where the user owns and controls their own data and decides where it lives.

I will use the funds to purchase new lab equipment to test my substrate in data center environments and on personal cloud-edge devices.

Right now I spend about 48 hours a week in my chair coding and closing down tasks. The other 40 hours is spent doing manual labor to keep the lights on.

I’d like to use part of this funding to buy back more hours in my seat, so I can spend more time testing, refining, and finishing the system instead of splitting my week between research and manual labor.

I’m the only person on the team right now.

I’ve been working around 98 hours a week on average to complete Opal | One. Most of my technical time is now going into finishing the MCP server, which gives coding agents persistent memory and a shared memory layer so they can work from the same state instead of constantly starting over.

My track record is the work itself. I built Opal | One, developed the underlying architecture and math, published the research on arXiv, built the Python SDK, and have been benchmarking and testing the system as I go.

I’m used to building things from the ground up and staying with them until they work. Right now the biggest limitation isn’t whether I can finish it. It’s how many hours I can keep in the chair while still doing enough manual labor to fund the work.

The most likely failure is not technical. The architecture is already working.

The bigger risk is time. I still do manual labor to keep everything funded, so if this project fails to get support, the outcome is pretty simple: I keep working more hours and development takes longer.

I’m neurodivergent, and fundraising and investor networking are much harder for me than building the technology. That creates a real bottleneck, but it doesn’t stop the work.

So failure here probably does not mean Opal disappears. It means I keep funding it myself, keep doing manual labor, and it takes longer to finish and release.

I already live that outcome now. Funding would mainly remove that constraint and let me spend more of my week where I’m most effective, in the code.

I haven’t raised outside funding in the last 12 months. No investors and no grants.

Everything I’ve put into Opal | One so far has come from my day job and my own pocket. I’m trying to change that, but raising money has been harder than I expected.

So far, the project has been completely bootstrapped.