DAWN: Closed-loop network system
DAWN is a decentralized wireless network protocol. Its business logic is that nodes purchase DAWN hardware antennas to build wireless networks offline and provide users with the opportunity to trade network bandwidth with each other. Finally, it is verified and processed by the validator and the Solana network, thus forming a complete closed-loop network system.
Financing: Dragonfly provides strong support
DAWN has made significant progress in raising capital. The project has completed two rounds of financing, raising a total of $33 million.
Among them, a financing amount of US$18 million was completed on August 7, 2024, led by Dragonfly, with participation from CMT Digital, Castle Island Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, 6th Man Ventures and ParaFi.
In addition, on February 28 last year, it raised US$15 million in a Series A round of financing, also led by Dragonfly, with other participating investors including Castle Island and Blockchange Ventures.
DAWN investment and financing records Source: 10xWolfDAO
Main team members
Neil Chatterjee served as Vice President of Engineering at Dentboard from January 2014 to December 2016. He has served as CEO of Andrena since 2016. Neil studied electrical engineering at Princeton University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Montclair State University.
James Smits is the co-founder and COO of Andrena. James has also worked as a venture partner at KohFounders and Beta Bridge Capital. Prior to that they worked as a business development associate at Banyan Water and a mentor at the University of Melbourne's accelerator program. James attended Princeton University, where he received a bachelor's degree in economics and environmental studies.
DAWN Quick Participation Method
First, add the DAWN extension app to Google Extensions, open the app, and then log in or register a DAWN account;
DAWN Participation Tutorial: Log in or register a DAWN account Source: 10xWolfDAO
After logging in, you will automatically connect to the DAWN network and start earning points. You can view the current connection status, connection quality and score. You can also earn more points by following X, joining Discord and TG.
DAWN Participation Tutorial: Node Rewards Source: 10xWolfDAO
Validator nodes will be launched in the future, so stay tuned.
DAWN Project Mechanism
DAWN is a decentralized network protocol designed to guide and orchestrate user-driven multi-gigabit mesh networks to provide users with fast, convenient, and cheap wireless Internet. Its vision is as follows:
Turn Internet bandwidth into a commodity, breaking corporate monopoly, so that anyone can use and buy and sell it;
Shifting from a few large data centers to thousands of small data centers (homes), thereby distributing and shifting the wealth of cloud infrastructure to homes.
DAWN project operation mechanism (Made by Cage) Source: 10xWolfDAO
In the DAWN network, there are multiple participants:
Bandwidth Node (BN): has resaleable Internet capacity and wholesale IP transmission.
Distribution Node (DN): A DWAN robotic antenna system deployed in commercial or residential areas.
End User (EU): A user who uses wireless bandwidth through DWAN.
DAWN Foundation: Responsible for the multi-signature control of smart contracts, regulating the interactions between all nodes, and the aggregation, review and settlement of all information.
Validation Network (VN): An independent validator outside the DAWN network system, responsible for verifying the authenticity and validity of DAWN internal network transmissions.
Solana: Responsible for receiving and providing feedback on Proof and Service contracts from VN and protocols.
Protocol Core - Tradable Network Bandwidth
In the traditional world, Internet bandwidth has always been managed and allocated by large Internet service providers (ISPs), and consumers have no say in its allocation and pricing. DAWN attempts to use point-to-multipoint (P2MP) wireless technology to enable the network services provided by nodes to be comparable to optical fiber and communicate efficiently among nodes.
DAWN enables users to purchase their own Internet bandwidth and sell the remaining bandwidth back to the public network. Through the bandwidth allocation system formed by many users in the network, the centralized ISP is split into several small ISPs, and each user/node assumes its role, thereby providing a more decentralized Internet service.
hardware
The DAWN hardware part consists of RAS and CNHR, which is designed to enhance network coverage and stability, while also simplifying the user experience and laying the foundation for the construction of future cloud applications.
BN and DN will use a point-to-multipoint radio antenna combination. DAWN calls this hardware and software combination the Robot-Antenna System (RAS).
RAS automates wireless configuration and radio tuning, requiring no technical expertise from the user, making it easy to deploy.
Dynamic antennas allow the network to continuously correct positioning to find the best data transmission path.
On the terminal, users use the x86-based Cloud Native Home Router (CNHR) provided by the team to access the DWAN network. This router uses two breakthrough technologies:
DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit): Enhances network performance by allowing the processor to directly access the NIC (Network Interface Card), thereby facilitating efficient packet processing for user space applications. It is managed by the Linux Foundation.
VPP (Vector Packet Processing): Dramatically improves router performance by leveraging DPDK to centralize batching and processing of packets, developed by Cisco.
In addition, CNHR also attempts to achieve seamless gigabit network sharing among neighbors based on Frequency-Division Duplexing.
Infrastructure costs
There are two important metrics for measuring the cost of building any telecommunications network:
Cost to pass a home: The cost of network coverage passing through the end user, measured in dollars per home. Reflects the cost of laying fiber along the street and deploying provider towers.
Cost to activate a home: The cost of actually connecting to and starting up a network service.
While decentralized fixed wireless is more expensive to activate in-home (around $1000) than fiber ($2-400), the cost to get it through the home is much lower ($10-15 for fixed wireless, $750-1100 for fiber).
Higher coverage creation efficiency makes DAWN feasible, enabling widespread and cost-effective wireless coverage. Despite the higher activation fee, it includes benefits such as ownership, passive income potential, and access to cheaper bandwidth, making it viable.
Bandwidth and economic effects
Bandwidth costs are split into two areas: wholesale IP transit and Internet exchange, and are critical to achieving cost-effective Internet access.
Wholesale IP Transit: refers to services where ISPs, content delivery networks (CDNs), and large enterprises purchase bulk Internet connections from Tier 1 networks that can route data globally. These wholesale providers have extensive network infrastructure that connects multiple regions and continents, ensuring that data can flow efficiently and at high speeds across the Internet.
Internet Exchanges (IXs) are critical physical infrastructure in the Internet ecosystem where different networks (such as ISPs, CDNs, and large enterprises) come together to exchange traffic directly between their networks. This direct exchange is called peering.
DAWN’s price per unit of bandwidth will be even cheaper with both traffic sources combined: residential gigabit service will cost $0.45 for low volume and $40 for dedicated gigabit connections.
Therefore, DWAN's solution provides a very cost-effective way to provide coverage. For users, the bandwidth cost of accessing under the DAWN network coverage will be very cheap, and the main cost is the initial activation cost of the residence.
Consensus Mechanism
DAWN uses three consensus mechanisms to keep the network robust and transparent:
Proof of Backhaul: A measurement of the throughput of each node, intended to verify the transparency of service delivery.
For example, if a node claims to provide 1Gbps, but fails to do so and only provides 400Mbps, PoB will be used to adjust the payment and delivery mechanism according to an automatic/smart contract service level agreement (SLA) and compensate the user for the lower performance. This ensures that users receive the service they pay for and that providers get paid, while completely eliminating the need for trust.
Proof of Location: Ensures that the physical location of each node is accurately reported.
The accuracy of geolocation is critical to planning the deployment of assets and resources in a network, and PoL holds nodes accountable for accurately reporting their stated locations by tying network rewards to locations that can be verified by other trusted nodes.
Proof of Frequency: Confirms that each node is using unlimited spectrum.
Given the finite nature of the wireless spectrum, effective management is critical to preventing pollution and interference. When nodes use whatever frequencies they want, the noise floor of the wireless channel increases, providing poorer wireless performance.
PoF ensures that each node automatically uses the appropriate channel, which is especially important for the 60GHz and 6GHz bands used by DAWN, maintaining high-quality network performance while avoiding any of the congestion problem mechanisms common to traditional 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi networks.
Token Economics
Token Allocation
DAWN Token Economics Distribution Plan
Token Utility
Incentivize stakeholders in the Internet (BN, DN, EU, etc.);
As a currency for trading network bandwidth for front-end applications (to be launched in the future);
Reward Details
Bandwidth Seeding: BN that provides bandwidth to EUs.
Initial Activation: Users who activate RAS will receive a certain amount of tokens per month calculated as a percentage of various costs.
Geographical location: Users in highly strategic areas will receive a certain percentage of rewards, calculated as a multiple of the initial node activation reward.
Performance Verification: Provide rewards to all parties who provide data and verification.
DNs: DNs that provide services to EUs are rewarded based on the cumulative value of transactions/connections ultimately provided to users.
Badge System
The Medallion system is a very important part of the DAWN economic model, aiming to ensure long-term network coverage.
It is a mechanism where any token holder can incentivize the development of a high potential region within the network by prepaying DAWN tokens in exchange for a percentage of the region’s future revenue.
Users need to stake 100,000 DAWN tokens to obtain a badge. The price curve of badges increases linearly, meaning that after the initial phase, each subsequent badge within the same region will be progressively more expensive than the previous one.
Badge holders can activate some rewards in the badge region by assigning badges to specific mechanisms, and can increase the reward multiplier to attract node operators to deploy in this region.
To prevent excessive inflation, DAWN implements a revenue burning mechanism:
Badge income ≤ 50%, no burning
Badge income = 50 - 100%, burn 10%
Badge income＞100%, burn 30%
If the 100,000 prepaid tokens are not fully distributed due to insufficient node and network activity, the remaining tokens will not be in circulation and will be burned.
Summarize
DAWN is a decentralized wireless network that provides all users with the opportunity to buy and sell network bandwidth. It aims to return the bargaining power from ISPs to users through decentralized network deployment.
Since it has been favored by many investors such as Dragonfly, and its internal economic model has a potential Ponzi flywheel effect, coupled with the fact that the DePIN track is expected to have more applications in the future, the DAWN protocol is worthy of participation and attention.