The distribution of digital content on the internet has always been a terrain dominated by the large corporations, but the incorporation of the blockchain technology is changing the rules of the games in this dynamic sector, just like it revolutionized the financial world.
It is not that simple to take away the dominance from the big corporations, but when a platform is based on the blockchain technology, such as the platform created by DECENT, a startup company from Switzerland, we are witnesses of a true revolution in the distribution of all types of data online, including the digital content.
DECENT was founded by Matej Michalko and Matej Boda and its goal and mission is to justly revolutionize the distribution of content and data online, with the integration of the blockchain technology into a new distribution platform.
Michalko and Boda, the co-founders of the company, are dealing with bitcoin since 2011, but their collaboration is a consequence of the enormous potential of the blockchain technology, beyond the cryptocurrencies, in an ample field that could relate to the everyday life of the people. This is how the idea to launch DECENT was born, the goal was to create an open and decentralized platform for distribution of content.
Since its beginnings in back in 2015, DECENT attracted numerous members from the blockchain community due to its focus on the construction of a tool against the censure and filtering of information. This led to a successful initial coin offering held in September, 2016. The ICO lasted eight weeks during which almost 6000 bitcoins were raised, with the total value of around 38 million US dollars.
DECENT points out that the individual investors who participated in the ICO with less than five bitcoins per person, represent almost 95% of all the investors in the company.
In January last year, DECENT initiated a pre-launch strategy for its content distribution network based on the blockchain. First, a prototype of the network was launched and it was soon followed by a blogging platform. The launch of Mainnet DECENT happened in June last year, after it had been tested through four testnets to ensure the network could meet the requirements of the most demanding users once it was officially launched.
DECENT presented its content distribution platform with the promise to offer a more attractive opportunity to the content creators than Apple or Amazon. DECENT gives more freedom to the artists and more control over the intellectual ownership of the content, its distribution and prices, since these properties are not controlled by third parties.
Matej Michalko, one of the co-founders of DECENT said: “The DECENT network represents a reaction to the difficulties that the content creators are facing in the entertainment industry.”
The company estimates that the writers lose between 30% and 75% of their earnings when they publish on Amazon, just like a musician loses 30% of the earnings when selling a song on iTunes.
Mihalko pointed out that while DECENT has competitors that also use the blockchain technology for content distribution, those solutions are directed to specific categories. For example, SingularDTV is focused on the cinema industry, UjoMusic on the music industry and DNN.media is a decentralized news network.
On the other hand, DECENT developed its own blockchain network to incorporate all the possible formats. One of the first third-party applications designed to be executed in the DECENT network is called PUBLIQ and it is used to distribute rewards based on the reputation of the authors. The reputation derives from the evaluations given by the members of the audience.
The application also provides opportunities for the advertisers, thanks to an algorithm that guarantees optimized ad placement in the PUBLIQ ecosystem.
Other applications have been announced in the meantime, which increases the value of the DECENT network. We have even seen the appearance of some open platforms based on the blockchain network developed by DECENT, such as the ATMChain platform that used the DCT token as a method of payment during its initial coin offering held last August.
The DECENT blockchain network experienced a gradual name change. Originally, the name of the company and its blockchain network were the same, but in the second half of 2017 the network was referred to as DECENT Core and an important update was announced last October under this name.
Many of the new functionalities of DECENT Core comes from the capacity to create and distribute new assets called User Issued Assets (UIA). These assets can have prices in fiat currencies, which gives the users the opportunity to issue their own currencies for a specific event.
For example, in the case of tokens created for events, they are similar to tickets, but with some important advantages – there are no printing costs and they cannot be forged. This allows the tickets to be sold in batches and in case the events is cancelled or postponed, the ticket can be received at a later point in time.
Retailers can use the tokens to distribute rewards and can replace the printed coupons as a way of gaining customer loyalty, since the tokens are flexible and more easily managed. They can also be used in crowdfunding initiatives.
Finally in November last year, when another update of the DECENT blockchain network was introduced, the company started calling the network DCore.
At the beginning of February this year an important alliance between DECENT and Dragonfly was announced. Dragonfly is a company that distributes video games and has more than 100 million active users every month.
The two companies announced the launch of ALAX, an application that changes the payment system on the digital games market. The users buy games or applications with ALAX tokens, which reduces the costs of the purchasing process and makes it more efficient at the same time.
Together with the publication of DCore Development Roadmap in February this year, DECENT published an important set of technical documents destined to the developers. These documents were updated this month with two new aspects of the roadmap.
Even though many of the documents require high technical level of knowledge, it is possible to go through the characteristics of DCore without going too much into its technical details. For example, you can see that DCore uses a consensus algorithm called Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) and the main points of this algorithm are explained in the document as well. Furthermore, the document uses simple examples to explain the difference between the consensus algorithm used by DCore and the consensus algorithm called Proof-of-Work (PoW) used by the Bitcoin blockchain network.
