We covered Render Network just last week, but given some significant events recently occuring involving the protocol as well as some debate around the AI crypto narrative as a whole, it’s worth including the decentralized GPU play in our coverage this weekend yet again.
There has been a bit of a bursting of the AI bubble recently, with Eric Wall sharing his criticisms of the Bittensor protocol and how it goes about providing AI utility. The crypto markets have been starved of explicit ways to bet on the AI narrative, and thus, have been more or less forced to use protocols which indirectly use AI, or newly launched and unproven AI protocols to gain exposure to the narrative.
One project that falls into the bucket is Render; Render is a NVIDIA adjacent sort of play, providing decentralized GPU services. The link between GPUs and AI has strengthened over the past months, in both traditional markets and crypto. As it stands, Render may
Stay vigilant in these markets ⬇
Just earlier this week, Emad Mostaque, Founder of StabilityAI, resigned from his CEO position at the company. This is notable as Stability stands as one of the largest players in the AI space, with Emad particularly emphasizing the importance of decentralized AI efforts. Turmoil seems to be a common theme in the AI space, as high-profile Founders in Sam Altman and Mad Mostaque alike have had their fair share of trouble involving corporate boards.
What makes Emad’s case interesting is that he has a background in crypto, and now he is returning to the space as an advisor to the Render Network. Previously,
This is representative of how AI and crypto talent sometimes intertwine; NEAR protocol also has an AI background, before pivoting to crypto as the founders realized it is a more immature market which can enable a greater competitive advantage. AI and crypto alike serve as industries where talented individuals can contribute and emphasize their ideals, sometimes crossing paths.
A few days as officially becoming an advisor to Render, Emad drafted up a proposal in '“RNP-011: Piwa - Creating Millions of 3D Training Assets”. RNP-011 outlines a few key initiatives, namely the introduction of $RENDER staking, collaboration between Render and StabilityAI, and the development of an AI training dataset.
While the proposals’ title outlines the “millions of 3D training assets”, the proposal itself specifically calls for one billion 3D assets to be created for StabilityAI, by the Render Network. This will be an exclusive development with Render as the only provider, meaning all of this will be facilitated by the native $RENDER token. $RENDER is basically used as the currency on the platform that allows a marketplace for the buying and selling of idle GPU space, so this proposal could potentially put a significant amount of buy pressure on the token. Users have to pay in $RENDER, with revenue flowing back to nodes (stakers) as well as the users who participated in the generation of the specific dataset being paid for. Buyers will be able access this data after paying and license it for a set amount of time.
“Stability AI will work with the Render Network to create a dataset for 3D asset training. Leveraging the multi-actor composition of the Render Network, nodes, users, and community members will be able to participate in the creation (and benefits) of this dataset. To train models using this dataset, Buyers will need to license the dataset with $RENDER tokens.”
-Emad Mosteque as per RNP-011
This proposal also outlines a change to the infrastructure of the Render Network itself, via staking. The two primary reasons justifying the potential implementation of staking are
Reward and incentivzie users who contribute to the Render Dataset initiative
Encourage nodes to act in good faith by giving users the choice to delegate to specific nodes based on priority
Also worth noting is the protocol’s use of the Solana network. Provenance information and metadata for generated 3D data will be recorded as compressed Solana NFTs. More details around staking as well as public goods initiatives, distribution, and more are expected to come soon.
Important Links
Become a Premium member to unlock all our research & reports including access to our members-only discord server
Join thousands of sharp crypto investors & traders by becoming a Premium Member & gain an edge in the markets. For just $116.58/month you’ll get:
Premium access to the entire Revelo Intel platform
Market Intel - actionable investment reports
Industry Intel - highlighting important narratives/ trends
Sector Overviews - 90-day Reports with data and insights on key sectors
Launch Alpha - Weekly report highlighting new projects
Airdrop Guides - Reports on airdrop opportunities
Members Only Discord server
Project Snapshots - Monthly protocol-specific performance reports
Project Breakdowns & Timelines - Deep dive 50+ page protocol-specific reports
Notes - Summaries of your favorite podcasts & AMAs