Original title: Everything Old is New Again
Original author: luffistotle
Original source: zeeprime.capita
Compiled by: Mars Finance, Daisy
Table of contents
DePin
Blockcast
in conclusion
Key Points
Older technologies can be excellent targets for DePin projects. Storage protocols have proven this in the past.
While other DePin projects like Helium have encountered difficulties, which were mainly due to demand issues, the construction of the network has been very successful.
Multicast and radio waves are now a neglected technology, and their underlying needs have changed significantly.
These technologies can be repurposed to become alternative data transfer protocols that benefit content delivery networks.
DePin
Blockchain networks excel at a few things, but perhaps most importantly, they unlock trustless collaboration. In the early days, people were excited about the possibilities that this capability could unlock. The most exciting idea at the time was about combining resources into networks that would be nearly impossible to coordinate without blockchains, or perhaps even impossible.
Perhaps the most successful project of the time was Filecoin, which had such great intentions that it later spawned a whole host of important variations on the concept of using latent storage. At their core, many of these projects are about giving old things new life—repositioning them as relevant for today’s age. Old or overlooked technologies are often the best candidates for three key reasons:
Distribution – As an older technology, they are usually widely distributed in society;
Cost – they are often very cheap to produce or use;
Compatibility – Newer technologies provide the foundation for using these technologies in different and related ways.
For decentralized storage protocols, we once had a large amount of isolated and underutilized storage capacity, which is now transformed into cloud storage. The Internet and the coordination layer of blockchain can repurpose this isolated storage into products that the market deems valuable.
Recently, this broader category has been referred to as decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs). This category has had a less than ideal experience in many ways, with many criticizing these networks for being unsustainable by launching with incentives far beyond actual revenue. This is a long-standing question in the crypto industry as to whether these forms of launch are justified.
Helium’s first product is probably one of the most iconic examples of this. While they succeeded in creating a robust network of IoT nodes, they failed to find enough demand for the network, ultimately resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in incentive spending with little to no corresponding revenue. They have since pivoted to a more mature market, cellular 5G networks, and I’m optimistic about how their mobile communications plans will pan out.
Early modern civilization was a lot like a giant DePin project. Social coordination enabled the bundling of all the potential (physical) human capabilities in a region to achieve a common goal of increasing overall prosperity and stability. Before this, the scope of coordination was much smaller, essentially limited to the family unit. Ultimately, this broader coordination led to the world you and I know today. The fundamental element here is to combine the physical potential that was extremely core to human life at the time and unlock new application scenarios.
The first DePin network circa 15,000 BC
Shifting the focus back to modern society, the kinds of networks that can have a profound impact on society are often closely tied to the fundamental things in our daily lives – electricity, data transmission and monetary coordination.
So what are some of the current overlooked technology opportunities that could be repurposed to adapt to how the world has changed since their introduction?
There is growing interest in electricity, for example the React Network team is trying to solve the problem of distributed energy grids, and we have also witnessed similar projects in the past such as Energy Web and Grid+. At the same time, alternative data transmission is an interesting area that is currently being overlooked.
The sending and receiving of signals can be done through a variety of mediums - whether it is physical fiber or wireless 5G. Historically, most data transmission has been carried out through radio waves, broadcasting radio and television content from top to bottom to billions of homes around the world. With the emergence of higher-performance solutions such as 5G and fiber, and the rise of interactive networks, market demand is gradually shifting to two-way transmission mediums to meet customized online experiences.
Once considered a public good as fundamental as the right to self-expression, the Internet has left multicast (and the airwaves) behind, with limited content and declining usage. However, they still offer data transfer capabilities that are currently underutilized, and there are opportunities for repurposing them.
Can we find a way to harness this potential resource (more efficient data transmission throughput) and apply it to today’s more modern solutions (such as unicast, cable, and fiber)?
Blockcast
Blockcast is looking to build a DePin network of broadcasters that leverages multicast to distribute content (data) across multiple mediums.
Why do we need this type of data transmission when higher performance solutions are already available? Global data usage has been on an upward trend, and this trend is not expected to decrease. As we consume more and more 4K video content and higher quality content, users' data needs continue to grow. Although fiber optics and 5G are very powerful, they have their limitations. At some point, we will reach their limits, too.
A better way to understand it is to imagine the topology of all the data that needs to be transferred in a given time - like a giant traffic jam. Solving these "traffic jams" is basically what content delivery networks (CDNs) do every day. Some vehicles need to get to their destination immediately, but when you look closely at the individual needs of all the participants, you may find that some of them can accept taking bus/mass transit (they all need the same content).
I guess this meme is true
Blockcast is trying to build this mass transit system and expand the scale of the Internet. It is a complementary tool for balancing the data transmission needs of content providers and consumers. One of the most realistic examples is when Netflix launches a new season or other highly anticipated shows.
If there is a huge spike in demand at the same time (such as at a release or a live sporting event), the cost of delivering that content can skyrocket because the delivery pipe is under tremendous pressure. There are two basic ways to reduce this cost (both in terms of data volume and monetary cost): take advantage of time differences or reduce the amount of pipe used. Currently, the entire Internet is basically unicasting. Unicast refers to the form of data transmission to a single address. This one-to-one server-to-client delivery model means that every user requesting media must get their own copy, even if someone nearby needs the same content.
The solution is something that was tried in the early days of the Internet - multicasting. As the name implies, multicasting is a way to transmit data to an entire group rather than a single address. This was originally a core part of the Internet, and the Mbone (multicast backbone) in the 1990s was the only way to stream movies and concerts to a large number of fans at the time. However, this early form of Internet broadcasting was discontinued due to tracking problems and the resulting billing difficulties.
Today, scaling Internet traffic is a constrained task, constrained by the six largest content delivery networks (CDNs). The infrastructure and value of the Internet are increasingly centralized. Large traffic generators cannot afford to lay fiber to every location, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have been eroded by profit margins, eventually becoming "dumb pipes". Blockcast creates a permissionless network to scale Internet traffic and activate the underutilized broadcast capacity in the current network. By having a group of relay node operators (ordinary Internet users) participate in a hybrid wireless and lightweight virtual private network (VPN) network, these nodes can pass multicast traffic through traditional pipes if the Internet Service Provider has not enabled multicast or wireless methods are not available. The broadcast (cast) nodes transmit multicast traffic over unused frequencies and serve users directly or from nearby nodes through a relay network that operates point-to-point, thereby reducing the burden on traditional core networks and last-mile access networks.
As mentioned earlier, another example is the delivery of pay-per-view (PPV) content via Blockcast. For large live events, such as UFC or boxing matches, or other major sporting events, a lot of content is now distributed digitally over fiber, but this large amount of simultaneous load can easily clog the system. Delivering this content via Blockcast can save a lot of money for the CDN and free up fiber/broadband capacity.
Blockcast is essentially a distribution system that can deliver the same data to a large number of devices at a low cost. This is exactly what the PPV example mentioned above means. When the required data is synchronous and consistent, Blockcast may be the best solution.
Node operators are incentivized to broadcast continuously and earn tokens for doing so, while the protocol earns fiat currency through contracts with content providers, which can be used to purchase and destroy network tokens and create a self-sustaining system.
in conclusion
Despite past challenges, DePin has demonstrated why as an abstract idea it can build a strong network quickly. The demand side has been tough, but good execution and a useful product can solve this problem in a meaningful way. Leveraging the unique properties of cryptocurrency to repurpose old ideas into new use cases and new behaviors is something we love to support.
