Research Summary
This report provides an overview of the latest developments in decentralized physical infrastructure networks. It covers five key projects: Hivemapper, Filecoin, Akash Network, Render, and Livepeer. The report discusses their recent achievements, such as Hivemapper’s global reach, Filecoin’s growth in deposits, Akash Network’s utilization of Nvidia GPUs, Render’s GPU-intensive rendering jobs, and Livepeer’s video streaming infrastructure.
Key Takeaways
Hivemapper’s Global Reach
- Global Coverage: Hivemapper, a decentralized network for street-level imagery, has extended its reach to over 90 countries, mapping 8% of global roads in just 8 months.
- Community Engagement: The platform has fostered a vibrant international community that contributes to the collection of map data, outpacing early days of Google Street View.
- Increased Adoption: The adoption rate has surged tenfold since early 2023, thanks to gig drivers and truckers, with contributors submitting an average of over 900 km of road data weekly.
Filecoin’s Growth
- Increased Deposits: Deposits into the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) have steadily grown since its launch in March, currently standing at over 7M FIL ($22M).
- Liquid Staking Market: The Filecoin liquid staking market has nearly doubled since June, with three separate staking providers each controlling 25%+ of the market.
- Emergence of Saturn: Saturn, an open-source content delivery network (CDN) built on Filecoin, has been growing quickly and is at almost 5K nodes.
Akash Network’s Utilization of Nvidia GPUs
- High Utilization: Akash, a decentralized Supercloud, exceeded 50% utilization of Nvidia GPUs just 13 days after launching GPU support.
- Unique Offering: Akash is the only network to offer high-density chipsets such as NVIDIA H100s, A100s, and V100s for general-purpose computing.
- Network Expansion: The network has 66 active GPU providers and growing, indicating a robust and healthy expansion of the network.
Actionable Insights
- Investigate the Potential of Hivemapper: Given its rapid global expansion and community engagement, Hivemapper presents a unique opportunity for those interested in decentralized mapping solutions.
- Explore Filecoin’s Growth: The steady growth in deposits and the emergence of a competitive staking market suggest that Filecoin’s decentralized storage network is gaining traction.
- Consider Akash Network’s GPU Utilization: Akash Network’s high utilization of Nvidia GPUs and its unique offering of high-density chipsets present an interesting case for decentralized cloud computing.
