The creation and development of the Render Network Foundation

Author: Render

Compiled by: ChainCatcher

As part of the creation of the Render Network Foundation, the founding team has transferred control of the core Render Network repository and the Render Network brand to the foundation, marking an important step towards decentralization and giving governance and control to the community. The Render Network protocol was originally established by OTOY, but its development has now surpassed the leadership of the core team through many newly proposed network protocols.

In response to community requests, the launch of the Render Network Foundation has brought a wave of transparency to the project. In this article, we aim to introduce some history, explaining what led to the creation of the Render Network, the push for decentralization, and how RNP-003 will assist future efforts to decentralize and develop the network.

The Render Network uses a decentralized GPU processing model to provide near real-time rendering to meet the growing GPU computing demands of users—suitable for both current 3D rendering tasks and emerging 3D applications. The network allows for a model that increases artists' rendering speed while reducing costs and scaling. It enhances capital efficiency by utilizing idle GPU computing power and rewarding GPU providers for their services. It also creates opportunities for open access to an increasing number of rendering and rendering-related software providers.

The network is still in its infancy, with decades of use cases to enable real-time fully immersive and interactive streaming experiences, providing a platform for the next generation of holographic virtual assets. Early incubation work has made the Render Network one of the most widely used decentralized GPU computing platforms in the world, capable of accessing greater 3D rendering task GPU capacity than centralized GPU clouds.

The current RNP is key to transitioning the project from being core team-led to community-operated. While OTOY intends to continue as a significant participant and contribute resources, it is now time for the project to take proactive steps towards independent viability. The project has evolved beyond just OTOY.

With the formalization of the foundation, the network can now expand to have its own independent resources to begin leveraging additional independent opportunities. It enables the network to grow and diversify its service offerings beyond OTOY and further realize the vision described in the white paper.

OTOY retains its Treasury Wallet (holding about 23% of the total supply after RNP-001 emissions minting), which will allow OTOY to continue participating as the primary corporate sponsor of the Render Network, enabling it to advance emerging technologies such as holographic computing, immersive streaming, artificial intelligence, and light field rendering. Participation will take the form of mediated voting and leveraging or operating demands to drive emerging technologies on the network. It will also provide advance notice to the community and foundation regarding the usage of operational purposes, thereby reducing total ownership. OTOY has agreed to fund the foundation through loans. In the long term, it is expected that the foundation will generate sufficient funds from a percentage of usage fees from all transactions.

Some community feedback regarding the Treasury Wallet is that it holds too much voting power, which does not encourage community participation. To address this issue, the foundation has expanded the available voting options, now also including the right to "abstain," which will still be counted for quorum calculations.

The emission resource grant proposed in RNP-003 is an important step towards expanding the network. It equally dilutes all parties, including OTOY's own RNDR holdings—thereby increasing the decentralization of network ownership. The community approved this approach by voting on the BME proposal RNP-001. As stated in the proposal, if the proposal is approved by the community, OTOY will lend assets to the foundation to achieve this goal.

Some community members are concerned that this may reduce the rewards available for providing liquidity, which is an important consideration. This element should be balanced against the benefits that the grants will provide to the network, accelerating the release of the BME model and the start of such rewards, as well as driving additional usage of the network beyond OTOY's 3D workflow investment plan.

Further RNPs proposed and voted on by the community could introduce mechanisms to increase liquidity provider rewards. As the network expands its usage through the mechanisms proposed in the BME, it would be best to introduce these rewards, thereby increasing transaction speed; the liquidity services provided by the community are crucial for the operation of the network. Therefore, the emission allocation grant in RNP-003 should not be viewed as a zero-sum reduction of liquidity provider rewards, but rather as an important prioritization of network demand for providing a multi-sided decentralized market.