Golem is a decentralized supercomputer that is accessible by anyone. The system is made up of the combined power of user’s machines from personal PCs to entire datacenters. Golem is able to compute almost any tasks from CGI rendering through machine learning to scientific learning. It utilizes an ethereum-based transaction system to clear payments between providers, requestors and software developers however it is safe because all computations take place in sandbox environments and are fully isolated from the hosts’ systems. The company released Brass in 2016 which includes Blender and LuxRender which are the two tools for CGI rendering. There are three releases that follows which are Clay, Stone and Iron. Golem has recently updated their Brass Beta and the highlight of this upgrade are the streamlined task creation GUI, the support for partial task restart in case of subtask timeouts and the fix that should alleviate the issues with the Docker service on Windows. Other than that, improvements have been made on the Blender verification and transaction tracking subsystems and fixed some minor pain-points in the UX. Transaction history will become more user-friendly with separate tabs for payments and incomes. Apart from that, improvements are made for requestors as well, requestors is now able to add resource file without having to repeat the task creation procedure if they have forgotten to add them beforehand. Grand vision and core features ● Golem is the first truly decentralized supercomputer, creating a global market for computing power. Combined with flexible tools to aid developers in securely distributing and monetizing their software, Golem altogether changes the way compute tasks are organized and executed. By powering decentralized microservices and asynchronous task execution, Golem is set to become a key building block for future Internet service providers and software development. And, by substantially lowering the price of computations, complex applications such as CGI rendering, scientific calculation, and machine learning become more accessible to everyone. ● Golem connects computers in a peer-to-peer network, enabling both application owners and individual users ('requestors') to rent resources of other users’ ('providers') machines. These resources can be used to complete tasks requiring any amount of computation time and capacity. Today, such resources are supplied by centralized cloud providers which, are constrained by closed networks, proprietary payment systems, and hard-coded provisioning operations. Also core to Golem’s built-in feature set is a dedicated Ethereum-based transaction system, which enables direct payments between requestors, providers, and software developers. ● The function of Golem as the backbone of a decentralized market for computing power can be considered both Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), as well as Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). However, Golem reveals its true potential by adding dedicated software integrations to the equation. Any interested party is free to create and deploy software to the Golem network by publishing it to the Application Registry. Together with the Transaction Framework, developers can also extend and customize the payment mechanism resulting in unique mechanisms for monetizing software. Check out CoinBureau for the full review of Golem.
Theta is a decentralized video delivery network, powered by users and an innovative new blockchain. Theta is an open source protocol purpose-built to power the decentralized streaming network and will allow for vertical decentralized apps (DApps) to be built on top of the platform to enable esports, music, TV/movies, education, enterprise conferencing, peer-to-peer streaming, and more. SLIVER.tv’s DApp will be the first application built on the Theta network leveraging its existing user base of millions of esports viewers. DSN and the Theta protocol solve various challenges the video streaming industry faces today. First, Theta tokens are used as an incentive to encourage individual users to share their redundant memory and bandwidth resources as caching nodes for video streams. This improves the quality of stream delivery and solves the “last-mile” delivery problem, the main bottleneck for traditional stream delivery pipelines, especially for high resolution high bitrate 360° virtual reality (VR) streams. Second, with sufficient amount of caching nodes, the majority of viewers will pull streams from peering caching nodes. This significantly reduces content delivery network (CDN) bandwidth costs, which is a major concern for video streaming sites. Lastly, the Theta network greatly improves the streaming market efficiency by streamlining the video delivery process. For example, advertisers can target end viewers at a lower cost and reward influencers more transparently.The Theta blockchain introduces three novel concepts: Reputation Dependent Mining: In the Theta protocol, the caching nodes play the role of miners in the blockchain. The block reward is not a constant, but depends on the reputation score of the caching node that mined the block. To obtain more mining rewards, miners not only spend computation power to mine blocks, but also relay video streams to downstream viewers to increase their reputation scores. Global Reputation Consensus: We propose a mechanism for the Theta network to reach the global consensus on the reputation scores for each caching node. Proof-of-Engagement: We introduce a novel Proof-of-Engagement scheme to prove that viewers legitimately consume the video streams, providing better transparency to advertisers and a basis for viewers to earn Theta tokens for engaging with the content.