Full description of iExec RLC
Fueled by a native utility
Token (?) RLC, the blockchain-based platform iExec represents the first
Decentralized (?) marketplace for buying and selling computing resources. As the project targets the market of high-performance applications that require significant resources for smooth execution, its key goal is to create the infrastructure that would be secure, transparent and resilient. It also helps data providers monetize their datasets, apps and cloud computing resources.
The users of the platform who contribute their resources to the network are named “‘iExec Workers” and are rewarded with RLC tokens for their efforts. Application and data providers can monetize their apps, algorithms, and datasets through the iExec platform. The target industries that can win with the help of the new decentralized approach include Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, healthcare providers, big data companies, rendering services, and FinTech.
The trusted off-chain computing technologies that iExec relies upon has drawn the attention of many big companies. As iExec’s representative leads the “Trusted Compute Working” group within the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, the project has managed to set up partnerships with some of the world’s leading IT giants. The list of iExec’s partners impresses as it includes IBM, Alibaba Cloud, Genesis Cloud, Intel, Ubisoft, EDF Electrical Utility Company and some other companies. In addition to that, in October 2019, Hyperledger named iExec one of its key contributors developing Ethereum smart contracts along with Baidu, Chainlink, ConsenSys, Microsoft, Oracle, and others.
Decentralizing the market of Cloud Computing
Used by such enterprises as Apple, Netflix, and Xerox, and backed by IT giants such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM, Cloud Computing services are now widely used by businesses of all sizes all over the world. The reason for such high popularity is simple. It’s much easier and cost-effective to give away your data for safekeeping to the third-party storage provider that has all the necessary resources rather than to set up the whole infrastructure yourself.
In 2019, the capitalization of this market counted more than 200 billion USD with all the forecasts showing that it only tends to grow exponentially. As it is mostly represented by big centralized services, iExec doesn’t aim to disrupt the industry by offering a decentralized solution to the same target audience. Instead, it turns its attention towards the new sub-industry of decentralized applications and offers dApp developers a solution for cloud computing that would be similar to those offered by Amazon and Microsoft.
Ethereum platform being the pioneer of this area already has a working platform, but during the dApps’ boom in 2017, it proved to be inefficient due to its low throughput indices. The more participants join the network, the more sluggish it becomes which prevents it from being adopted at the mass scale. Also, Ethereum’s virtual machine (EVM) where all the smart contracts are executed is not capable of performing heavy computational tasks quickly and cost-efficiently. Thus, iExec aims to create such a network of computing resources that would help to overcome the scalability issue.
The iExec technology
The iExec platform covers under its hood numerous providers that form a Virtual Cloud Infrastructure where the participants can either rent their storage space or make use of shared computing resources to run their applications. There are no entry barriers as anyone can join the network regardless of the scale of tasks they need to resolve. This is possible thanks to XtremWeb-HEP, an open-sourced Desktop Grid software provided by iExec. Whether you own a small home laptop or a big data center, you are free to contribute to the network and earn
Cryptocurrency (?) for that.
The core technology developed by iExec is the Proof of Contribution (PoC) protocol used for managing all the parties of the network. This protocol is designed for certifying resources and linking them to external providers with all the records being stored on the
Blockchain (?) in a fair and immutable manner. This is the key technology that allows such flexibility and scalability.
iExec is not the only project in the blockchain industry that focuses on decentralizing computing resources. Among its closest competitors are Golem and SONM. However, these two aim to build a decentralized supercomputer while iExec targets dApps’ development. Decentralized storage providers such as Storj, Siacoin, and Filecoin can also be considered part of the same league.
The RLC token
RLC is the utility token that is used primarily on the iExec platform to access the services represented in its infrastructure. This is the abbreviation that stands for “Run on Lots of Computers”.
The
ICO (Initial Coin Offering) (?) started on April 18th, 2017. The 10,000 BTC objective (~12 million USD at that time) was reached in less than 3 hours making it one of the most successful ICOs of all time. The maximum token supply roughly equals 87 million RLC. 60 million of RLC were distributed via the crowdsale.
The RLC team
Headquartered in Lyon, France, the project was founded by Gilles Fedak (CEO) and Haiwu He (Head of Asian-Pacific Region). The CTO of iExec is Oleg Lodygensky.
iExec team members have a strong scientific background. There are six PhDs, four of which have been involved in cloud computing since the 2000s. Gilles Fedak graduated from the University of Paris Sud in 2003 and received his PhD in Computer Science. Prior to launching iExec, he had worked for 13+ years as a Research Scientist at INRIA (Inventeurs du Monde Numerique), the French national research institute for digital science and technology. His colleague and partner Haiwu He also has a PhD in Computer Science and has been involved in different research projects all throughout his career.
- Exchange symbol (?): RLC
- Cryptocurrency type (?): Token (?)
iExec RLC for developers
iExec RLC social sites
Source: NOMICS
