During the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival in April 2024, UWEB and JDI Global officially released the highly anticipated "2024 DePIN Development Report". The report pointed out that the total market size of the related industries involved in DePIN has exceeded 5 trillion US dollars and is expected to reach 3.5 trillion US dollars by 2028.
DePIN, or Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network, combines blockchain technology and physical infrastructure to combine various resources in the physical world (such as storage space, computing power, network connections, etc.) with the digital world in a decentralized way, thereby promoting the development and innovation of the digital economy. This concept reveals an imaginative application scenario: the infrastructure in our daily lives, such as communication base stations, car charging piles, photovoltaic panels, billboards, and data storage and computing devices behind the operation of the Internet, will no longer be controlled by centralized entities and institutions, but will be dispersed into units of the same size and in the hands of individuals or large-scale miners. These physical infrastructures are highly standardized and scaled, forming a comprehensive network.
This article will explore the crypto projects in the DePIN track that are currently worth paying attention to from the two sectors of computing power and network.
Render:
Introduction:
Render Network is a decentralized GPU-based rendering solution provider that aims to connect users who want to perform rendering jobs with people who have idle GPUs to handle rendering. Owners can connect their GPUs to the rendering network to receive and complete rendering jobs using OctaneRender. Users send RENDER to individuals who perform rendering work, and OTOY will receive a small portion of RENDE to facilitate transactions and run the rendering network.
Team and Financing:
Jules Urbach is the founder of Render. Jules sets the strategic vision for OTOY and is the chief architect of the company's technology roadmap. With more than 25 years of industry experience, he is widely regarded as a pioneer in computer graphics, streaming, and 3D rendering. He made his first game at the age of 18 and went on to make the first 3D video game platform on the web and licensed the software to Macromedia, Disney, Warner Bros., Nickelodeon, Microsoft, Hasbro, and AT&T.
Render Network has raised over $47 million through public sales and financing rounds. Investors include Multicoin Capital, Solana Ventures, and Sfermion.
Infrastructure:
Render Network consists of three main layers:
Off-chain rendering network: including creators, node operators, rendering network, and rendering application layer suppliers.
Blockchain layer: handles payments and escrow contracts, ensures transaction security and transparency, and uses RENDER tokens for payment.
Interaction between node operators and creators: A distributed network model (OctaneBench) based on server core network infrastructure arbitration is used to measure GPU rendering speed and ensure consistent performance pricing.
Token situation:
RENDER's current market value is 2.5 billion, FDV is 3.5 billion, the maximum supply is 6.4 billion, and the current circulation rate is 61.50%. The main trading markets are Binance, Coinbase, OKX, Kraken, gate.io, KuCoin and other mainstream exchanges.
On November 2, 2023, Render Network has successfully completed the upgrade to Solana and officially migrated from the Polygon ecosystem to the Solana ecosystem. According to Render's emission plan, a total of 6.84 million RENDER tokens will be emitted each year, and these tokens will be diverted to different participants, including node operators, liquidity providers, creators, computing nodes, and Sol token upgrade rewards. This diversion is expected to ensure a balanced distribution of tokens in the RENDER ecosystem. It is important to note that according to the emission plan, the annual inflation rate of Render tokens will be maintained at 1.8%.
RENDER tokens have been fully introduced into the BME (Burn Mint Equilibrium) model, in which Render tokens are no longer just a medium of exchange, but have more functions. Specifically, 95% of the Render paid by users will be destroyed, and the remaining 5% will be donated to the Render Foundation. In addition to the destruction mechanism, the new model also introduces a points system that allows service providers to earn points based on the network services they provide, and obtain Render emission rewards based on the points ratio. This incentive mechanism is expected to attract more computing resource providers and rendering nodes to join the Render network, thereby improving the availability and performance of the network. Therefore, the introduction of the destruction mechanism and points conversion will significantly reduce the circulation of Render. When the network utilization reaches a certain load condition, Render can become a de facto deflation mechanism.
Therefore, the increase in the price of RENDER is highly correlated with the BME mechanism. Under the BME model, when the demand for rendering tasks is insufficient, operators can get more income than before, and when the total task price corresponding to the demand for rendering tasks is greater than the total amount of Render rewards released, miners will get less income than the original model (burned tokens > newly minted tokens), and RENDER tokens will also enter a deflationary state.
On July 26, 2024, Render (RNDR) completed the token swap and brand upgrade, and the token name was changed to Render (RENDER). This token swap upgrade did not make any substantial changes to Render, but only increased the recognition of the token name and unified the three-party interface with the Render official website, foundation, and OctaneBench.
Introduction:
Aethir is a distributed cloud computing infrastructure. It aggregates enterprise-level GPU chips into a global network to increase the supply of on-demand cloud computing resources in the fields of AI, gaming, and virtualized computing. Enterprise GPU owners can become their own cloud computing providers, thereby unlocking the revenue potential of underutilized GPU chips. End users can get the affordable on-demand computing resources they need to support their AI training and inference workloads, real-time rendering applications, and other virtualized computing operations.
Team and Financing:
Aethir is led by an experienced and accomplished team with a proven track record of success in both technology and business. Its CEO Mark Rydon has held important positions at NOTA Platform, Flux Capital, Gaas LTD, Kulture Athletics, Inc. and Bechtel Corporation. CBO Daniel has held positions at Mythos Venture Partners (GP), IVC (Venture Partner), YGG SEA (CIO), Riot Games (Head of International Distribution Management) and Riot Games China (Head of Operations).
So far, Aethir has successfully raised a total of US$11.53 million through the initial DEX offering (IDO) and other financing rounds. The public sale has raised US$2.53 million, of which the Pre-A round of financing totaled US$9 million, accounting for 78% of the total financing amount. This financing values Aethir at up to US$150 million.
Infrastructure:
Aethir's architecture is also its biggest highlight, which includes three core roles: container, indexer and checker. The transaction process relies on Arbitrum to provide decentralized cloud rendering services. This design not only emphasizes real-time response and efficient scheduling, but also enhances network security and reliability through distributed systems.
Container: Provides real-time remote rendering services, executes and renders applications, such as real-time rendering of game vision. Users can participate in Container by staking $ATH.
Indexer: An efficient scheduling system that connects users to the most suitable container, optimizes matching resource requirements, latency and service costs.
Checker: Evaluates container performance and service quality, ensures network reliability and efficiency, and imposes appropriate penalties through random checks.
Token situation:
ATH's current market value is 2.8 billion, FDV is 3 billion, the maximum supply is 42 billion, and the current circulation rate is 9.66%. The main trading markets are mainstream exchanges such as OKX, Bybit, HTX, gate.io, and KuCoin.
Aethir has chosen to dedicate a significant portion of its Total Token Supply (TTS) to computational rewards, a strategic move to strengthen its ecosystem.
Rendering Proof of Work: Token incentives are provided to node operators as an additional reward for completing computational tasks within the ecosystem. This encourages supply-side entities to join Aethir's ecosystem and provide valuable processing and computational work. Rendering Proof of Work is distributed to containers only after completing computational tasks.
Proof of Capacity: Computing providers earn Rendering Proof of Capacity by demonstrating readiness to provide computational services. Providers are rewarded even when not actively working, as an incentive to join the ecosystem, reducing the risk of participation.
Destruction Mechanism: The platform charges a 20% service fee and 5% of token rewards, and destroys them proportionally.
Introduction:
io.net is launching a decentralized GPU network on top of Solana as a coordination layer between large amounts of idle computing resources and individuals and entities that need the processing power provided by these resources. io.net's unique selling point is that rather than competing directly with other DePINs on the market, it aggregates GPUs from a variety of sources (including data centers, miners, and other DePINs such as Render Network and Filecoin) while leveraging a proprietary DePIN, the Internet-of-GPUs (IoG), to coordinate operations and align incentives of market participants. io.net customers can customize their workload clusters on IO Cloud by selecting processor type, location, communication speed, compliance, and service time. Conversely, anyone with a supported GPU model (12 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD) can participate as an IO Worker, lending their idle computing resources to the network. While service payments are currently settled in fiat and USDC, the network will soon support payments in native $IO tokens as well. The price of resources is determined by their supply and demand as well as various GPU specifications and configuration algorithms. io.net's ultimate goal is to become the preferred GPU marketplace by offering lower costs and higher quality of service than modern cloud service providers.
Team and financing:
Ahmad Shadid, founder and CEO of io.net, has extensive experience in data science. COO Tory Green has more than 20 years of experience in venture capital and senior management. CSO & CMO Garrison Y. worked as the head of Growth & Strategy at Ava Labs, the leading developer of Avalanche blockchain, before joining IO. Angela Yi in the team graduated from Harvard.
On March 5 this year, io.net received $30 million in Series A financing, with a valuation of $1 billion. The leading institution is Hack VC, and participating investors include Multicoin Capital, Solana Ventures and OKX Ventures.
Infrastructure:
io.net combines Mesh VPN and reverse tunnel technology to build an efficient, secure, and low-latency distributed computing network. Mesh VPN provides a powerful network infrastructure to ensure fast and reliable communication between nodes; while reverse tunnels simplify network configuration and enhance the security and convenience of remote resource access.
Mesh VPN network: decentralized network structure, allowing direct connection between nodes, providing low latency, high redundancy and optimized load distribution, suitable for complex network environments.
Reverse tunnel technology: allows engineers to securely access and manage IO Workers without complex network configuration, establish connections through intermediary servers, and promote secure data transmission.
Token situation:
IO's current market value is 2.8 billion, FDV is 2.3 billion, the maximum supply is 8 billion, and the current circulation rate is 11.88%. The main trading markets are mainstream exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, HTX, gate.io, and KuCoin.
io.net executes the repurchase and destruction of $IO tokens according to a fixed set of preset procedures. The specific repurchase and destruction quantity depends on the $IO price at the time of execution. The funds used to repurchase $IO come from the operating income of IOG (The Internet of GPUs), and a 0.25% order booking fee is charged from the computing power buyers and computing power providers in IOG, as well as a 2% handling fee for purchasing computing power with $USDC.
