Author: Alex Xu, Mint Ventures Research Partner
1. Introduction
Recently, 4 EVERLAND, a comprehensive Web3 cloud service provider that has been in operation for over 4 years, finally conducted its TGE. Starting with decentralized front-end hosting services, it has gradually expanded to Web3 gateways, custom decentralized storage solutions, RaaS (Rollup as a service), blockchain RPC, and AI RPC services, forming a product matrix around Web3 development needs.
In this article, the author will conduct research on some key issues of the project to provide readers with an intuitive impression of the project, including:
Core products and business content of the project, main customer groups
Business data situation of the project
Financing, main partners, and token model
This article represents the author's phase of thinking as of the publication date, which may change in the future, and the opinions are highly subjective. There may also be errors in facts, data, and logical reasoning. Criticism and further discussion from peers and readers are welcome, but this article does not constitute any investment advice.
The following is the main text.
2. Overview of 4EVERLAND's Business
4EVERLAND is a Web3.0 cloud computing platform that integrates core capabilities of storage, computation, and networking, and is a typical TOB project.
The foundation of 4EVERLAND is the computation, storage, and bandwidth needs of various developers, integrating these resources into convenient tools and APIs for developers, significantly lowering the barriers and costs for developers to independently connect to complex resources.
From the products launched by 4 EVERLAND, there are decentralized application hosting services and storage services built on decentralized infrastructure, as well as AI RPC services developed with traditional internet technologies like AI. In addition, 4 EVERLAND has built 4 EVER Network, coordinating the supply and demand of a range of resources (storage, computation, network bandwidth), specifically:
Dapp application and website hosting
Websites built on centralized servers face many challenges, including censorship resistance and single points of failure (for example, after Tornado.Cash was sanctioned by OFAC, it was almost impossible to find a front end that could be directly accessed). 4 EVERLAND's hosting services can help developers host websites and decentralized applications (DApps) on multiple protocols, including IPFS, Arweave, ICP, and the Greenfield of BNBchain, allowing developers to freely choose which underlying protocol to host.
In addition, 4 EVERLAND's hosting services also provide some advanced features and capabilities, such as advanced caching (to improve the performance and response speed of websites or applications) and CDN capabilities (to enhance the access speed of websites and applications in different regions globally), as well as automatic SSL certificate management and other security features, adapting to the gateway services of hosting protocols, thereby reducing developers' maintenance costs on the product front end.
Currently, Dex syncswap on zkSync and top lending platforms such as Venus and Astar on BNBchain are using 4 EVERLAND's hosting services.
Storage
4 EVERLAND can provide distributed storage services based on protocols such as IPFS, Arweave, and Greenfield. Its storage service greatly simplifies the way developers adopt distributed storage services, and the 4 EVERLAND API is compatible with traditional cloud service AWS S3 API.
Currently, well-known decentralized voting governance platforms such as snapshot, decentralized identity protocol SpaceID, and Rollup project Taiko are using 4 EVERLAND's storage services.
RPC
RPC services can be simply understood as the 'bridge' or 'communication interface' between programs (such as wallets, DApps) and the blockchain. Its role is to allow programs to communicate with the blockchain, retrieve data, or send instructions. 4 EVERLAND provides RPC services for most mainstream chains, so Web3 developers no longer need to run their own clients and can directly request interaction with various chains via APIs.
The Arweave ecosystem’s everpay and permaswap currently use 4 EVERLAND's RPC services.
RaaS
4 EVERLAND's Rollup Stack uses OP Stack and Polygon CDK, and also introduces Arweave data availability (DA) to support Perma Blobs archiving services.
4 EVER Network
Compared to the above modular services, 4 EVER Network is a system that aggregates resources on the supply side, consisting of two parts:
One is the DePIN Aggregator, which directly targets existing mainstream Depin networks, such as IO.NET\Akash for computing, Arweave for storage, and Fleek\Menson for bandwidth, aggregating these network resources for developers, which is already online.
Currently, even the leading Depin network protocols have a large amount of idle network resources, and even among networks providing similar resources, their standards are not unified. The role of the DePIN Aggregator is to provide a unified Depin resource interface for the vast number of developers, delivering custom, low-cost, and instantly available services, while supplying business demands to the various idle Depin networks.
Another part of the 4 EVER Network is 4 EVER Node, which directly aggregates various idle resources from users, including computing power, bandwidth, and storage, providing resources for developers; this part is still under development.
AI RPC
In addition to hosting, storage, RPC, RaaS, and 4 EVER Network, 4 EVERLAND also has AI RPC business, providing a unified interface that connects major mainstream AI models, making it easier for developers to efficiently access cutting-edge AI models in their business.
Business Model
The business model of 4 EVERLAND is quite simple, which is that users pay for the protocol by using various services of 4 EVERLAND. Currently, users have a certain free usage quota, and after exceeding that quota, they need to pay according to the amount of resources used.
3. Overview of 4EVERLAND’s Business
3.1 Number of Users
According to official disclosed data, as of now, 4 EVERLAND has registered and generated resource consumption for over 250,000 users.
In addition, developers will associate their GitHub accounts within the 4 EVERLAND system. When code updates occur, requests will be pushed to 4 EVERLAND, and then 4 EVERLAND will automatically help build and deploy the new version of the website.
Currently, the daily active number of associated accounts on Github for 4 EVERLAND is approximately 30,000+.
Github developer's update push flow on 4 EVERLAND
3.2 Storage
4 EVERLAND is currently one of the top data storage service providers for Arweave and Greenfield.
In Greenfield, the amount of data stored in the last 7 days is 1.2 GB, ranking 4th.
https://dappbay.bnbchain.org/ranking/chain/greenfield?sort=totalStorageSize
In Arweave, its 7-day Bundle storage amount is 397.6 MiB, ranking 8th.
https://viewblock.io/arweave/topStats?tab=bundlestime=seven
3.3 Protocol Revenue
The protocol fee situation of 4 EVERLAND has not been made open source. According to the information obtained through verification with the team, 4 EVERLAND's monthly revenue is currently between 40,000 to 50,000 USD.
4. Financing, Partners, and Token Model
4.1 Financing Situation
4 EVERLAND has conducted two rounds of public financing. The first round was in August 2021, raising 1.5 million USD, with investors including Distributed Capital, FBG Capital, Bixin Ventures, Mint Ventures, etc.; the second round of financing was in December 2023, raising 2 million USD, with investors including Arweave, Waterdrip Capital, Bing Ventures, Arweave SCP Ventures, GTS Ventures, Web3.com Ventures, Hillstone Finance, Forward Research, etc., with no specific financing valuation disclosed.
In addition, 4 EVERLAND has also received multiple official grants from BNBChain, Polygon, Optimism, IPFS, Arweave, and ICP.
4.2 Partners
In the ecological partner map listed by 4 EVERLAND the day before yesterday, in addition to some representative projects mentioned in the business section, many public chains or L2 projects also have in-depth cooperation with 4 EVERLAND. Through the services provided by 4 EVERLAND, developers can more efficiently and conveniently develop and maintain projects on public chains. Some public chains and Rollup ecological parties also directly purchase 4 EVERLAND's services, for example, Taiko is using 4 EVERLAND's gateway services and managing project NFTs with storage services.
4.3 Token Model
4 EVERLAND announced its token model on December 9, with the specific details as follows:
The project has a dual-token system, where Land is the payment token, priced in dollars, used to pay for various resource fees and to repurchase the governance token 4 EVER; 4 EVER is the governance and utility token.
The total supply of 4 EVER tokens is 10 billion, issued on Ethereum.
The specific token distribution is as follows:
Node rewards 40%, community funds 15%, operational funds 10%, user rewards 5%, the remaining includes token sales 15%, core team and advisors 12%, and initial liquidity and market-making funds 3%.
According to the current secondary market price (December 16), the FDV of the 4 EVERLAND project is only about 60 million USD, and the current circulating market value is only 4.8 million USD.
5. Summary
As a Web3.0 cloud service platform that integrates core capabilities of storage, computation, and networking, 4 EVERLAND aims to provide convenience of resources and tools for Web3 developers. Additionally, the built 4 EVER Network is a system that aggregates resources on the supply side, matching the developer needs with the various types of Depin networks that are currently severely underutilized, and providing developers with lighter, cheaper, and diverse comprehensive Web3 resources. With the further advancement of the Web3 industry and the expansion of the developer community, the resource demand on the Web3 D end will also expand, benefiting 4 EVERLAND.
