The basic economic design of the Depin track is actually very easy to understand. It is to build a supply and demand market based on a certain energy (narrative).
For example, WiFi, electricity, or even GPS information, as long as the protocol can find out the market demand further downstream, it can be built around a certain point.
With the rise of AI, building a computing power market around GPU is the mainstream paradigm in the current DePin track.
(In fact, DePIN and RWA are very similar in some aspects. In the eyes of some people, they are just a PONZI with a different concept.)
"Creating a decentralized GPU market" is the slogan of most protocols doing GPU business.
The Spheron @SpheronFDN in this article is no exception, but there are certain differences in some solution details.
1. DePin track segmentation🔻
There are many types of DePins on the market, which are divided into storage, GPU, GPS, WiFi, etc. according to different resource requirements. The corresponding representative projects are FIL, IO and GRASS.
The original intention of DePin’s design was not to decentralize for the sake of decentralization, but to further improve resource efficiency, allowing providers with underutilized resources to “rent” these resources to other consumers, ensuring that idle resources are not wasted.
The nodes in the DePin protocol are also different from the blockchain nodes we know. In addition to running the consensus mechanism, they are also mainly responsible for resource contribution, that is, IoT devices, wireless network equipment, distributed storage hard drives, etc. Some protocols even sell their own hardware.
FIL in the storage track in the last cycle is a good example. Outside the secondary market, the mining machine market has made many agents earn a lot of money.
➠However, if we look back at the development of the distributed storage market and mining machines, we will find that there is a trend of [equipment specialization] in this physical mining machine track.
The fierce competition in the same track will require higher and higher funds from you. The more you want to gain, the more you have to contribute. To some extent, this is also a disguised combination of POW and POS mechanisms.
At the end of the competition, the supply of resources is no longer a problem, but the entry threshold has also become higher. Therefore, providing a community channel with lower entry barriers can ensure the continuous supply of resources in the market while enabling the token economy.
Moreover, in the early stages when demand is not met, it is also necessary to design checks and balances mechanisms such as production reduction. Otherwise, uncontrolled token distribution can easily bring excessive pressure to the secondary market after TGE.
2. Spheron node types 🔻
Spheron adopts two node thresholds to supply this GPU rental market. I divide them into: supply nodes and light nodes
(1) Supply Node: This is the main core of Spheron resource supply and the backbone of the network, with basic hardware requirements.
➠It needs to initiate a governance proposal first, and then be approved to run the node after the hardware qualification is reviewed and passed. And like most POS networks, it is required to stake a certain amount of native tokens, that is, $SPON, to participate in the network's resource supply;
According to the different performance of GPU, Spheron is divided into 5 levels, from entry-level to the highest level.
(2) Light node: This is a lower version of the node, which allows our personal devices to participate in the network's resource supply, even a laptop.
At this stage, because the token has not yet been launched, there is no staking requirement for participating in light nodes. You only need to pay a very small network fee to create a node;
Like light nodes, rewards are given at different levels based on CPU performance. It supports MacOS and Linux systems, and Windows will be launched in the future.
In general, rewards are proportional to performance and resource contribution. The reason for distinguishing between supply nodes and light nodes is to further lower the threshold to expand the scale of resources, while also allowing the community to participate in the network in a deeper role and further improve the accessibility of the network.
At the same time, Spheron, like all POS networks, also allows token holders to delegate $SPON tokens to supply nodes to strengthen network security.
In general, by supplying computing power from two types of nodes and connecting GPU resources to a decentralized network, Spheron has built a GPU computing power market that connects upstream and downstream.
Not only is the network populated with GPU resources from a vast global network of providers, but underutilized GPU hardware is now available, enabling providers to monetize idle resources while ensuring maximum resource utilization.
Based on such a computing power supply market, startups and developers can access reasonably priced and scalable GPU resources to accelerate the advancement of their projects!
3. Token value capture 🔻
Under different node models, because Spheron is based on Arbitrum’s DePIN ecosystem, a very important question for these chains, especially the Layer2 ecosystem, is how to bind the value of the native token (plus the value capture of ARB itself is not good enough)
Thanks to this, Spheron has also adopted a more flexible payment system. When the supply node reaches a leasing agreement with the demand order:
(1) If you use other tokens as a means of payment, you will need to pay an additional 2% handling fee
(2) If you choose the native token $SPON as payment, you do not need to pay additional fees
This strategic choice allows the network's payments to maintain a certain degree of flexibility while also enhancing the rights and interests of the native token.
Compared with other DePIN networks that are also in the GPU market, Spheron nodes adopt resource supply strategies of different specifications, which makes them highly scalable and flexible, and can be applied to AI training and other high-performance computing needs.
Currently, there is not much news about Spheron in the Chinese market, and token economics has not been fully launched at this stage. However, the trend of integrating AI with Web3 is sweeping the current market. Spheron will connect the two markets as its strategic direction, and the mainnet and TGE will also be launched.
Note 1: Spheron recently launched the second phase of the node plan, providing additional rewards to encourage users to become nodes and supply computing power for the network. You can visit the official @SpheronFDN pinned tweet to view the event details.
Note 2: Although this track may seem narrative to many people, as I said when analyzing other DePIN cases before, Web3 gives market participants the opportunity to join the emerging supply and demand market through the token economy.