DPIN stands for Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network.
In the deepest roots of human history, infrastructure was pretty decentralized. If you lived in a house or a cave, it was because you built it or found it. If you drank from a well, it was because you or someone in your small community dug it. If you ate dinner, it was because you grew it or found it in your close proximity. While perfectly decentralized, living this way was inefficient and precarious. Beyond calling on a neighbor for a cup of sugar, it made no use of the power of the collective!
With the rise of civilizations, humans started to leverage their resources collectively. By organizing, specializing, planning, and delegating, we could do far more than we could as individuals. We could build large, permanent structures connected by networks of roads. Water could be distributed far and wide through aqueducts or copper pipes. Intelligence could be captured, copied, and shared in scrolls, books, and letters that eventually circumnavigated the globe.
The organization that drove this work was largely through centralized bodies, fueled by power and money: Emperors. Governments. Chieftains. Business Tycoons. Presidents. CEOs.
- The government with the most money could build the best roads and armies.
- The telecom company with the longest phone lines could dominate a national market.
- The hotel chain with the best accommodations could become a global cornerstone for travelers.
So how and why would we now suggest a return to decentralized infrastructure?
Lest you think that blockchain-enabled DPIN is something out of far left field, let me remind you how our notions of centralized infrastructure have already started to shift in recent decades:
Collective Economy In the late 1900s, powerful companies needed large and expensive local computer servers to hold and process their data. Any young company that wished to scale beyond paper filing cabinets had to invest in their own machines. In the internet age, this computing power has in many cases moved off-site and into shared resources, poetically known as “the cloud”. Instead of a hot server room powering one company, vast data centers serve thousands of companies of all sizes.
The part about “all sizes” is super important: shared infrastructure means that tiny startups can leverage the same computing power available to global enterprises, at a fraction of the historical cost. We are all using cheap cloud services instead of expensive legacy systems every day. I’m doing it right now as I type this article in a cheap google doc, instead of a Microsoft Word software program from Best Buy. I’m also leveraging the collective economy with my physical office space. Located in a beautiful old building and surrounded by marble and gleaming old wood, my office is an affordable coworking space.
Sharing Economy Airbnb revolutionized the travel market by allowing anyone with a spare bedroom or vacant cabin to rent it out and earn extra income. Airbnb as a central agency still sets the ground rules and provides the trust layer, and the software. However the most elemental infrastructure of the service, in the form of rooms, beds, and amenities, is provided by a distributed and unrelated network of homeowners. Turo has done the same thing with cars. This new type of infrastructure has been so successful that it has made significant inroads against the legacy hospitality market.
Gig Economy The gig economy is defining the work experience of a whole generation. Uber and Lyft are a familiar example. Anyone with a car can sign up and earn a living. Like Airbnb, these services rely on a centralized company to structure the service itself, and build the software apps that make it work – in return for a cut of the profits. On the plus side, aspiring drivers can just follow the rules and start making money. On the other hand, those rules, and how the money is shared, are still pretty much decided behind closed doors at the services’ central office.
These examples show that while the idea of distributed infrastructure is still new, it has clearly caught fire. DPIN is simply adding fuel to the flame: What if there is more?
What if Amazon Web Services didn’t get to unilaterally set the prices and policies around the storage and processing of our most vital and personal data?
What if Airbnb, Uber, and other valuable networks of shared infrastructure weren’t entirely controlled by centralized decision makers – whose priorities might tend not to be aligned with all the people providing the resources?
For decentralized infrastructure to work, there still has to be a way to provide trust and transparency. If you get scammed by a terrible Airbnb, what recourse do you have? That trust is provided by the Airbnb company itself, who will likely refund your money, and make sure a bad host is removed from the network. In DPIN, that trust layer is provided by blockchain. Rules about how the network is governed can be made by the stakeholders (ie infrastructure providers) themselves, via blockchain tokens and voting. The rules and policies that are established can be automatically enforced and enacted with smart contracts.
It’s already here
It’s not just a utopian idea, DPIN is already here.
Arweave and IPFS both provided distributed file storage. This is a lot like storing your files “in the cloud”, but in these systems the cloud isn’t a data center owned by Google or Amazon. Instead, it is thousands of personal computers around the globe, each lending a portion of their available storage capacity to hold your files, in exchange for blockchain tokens.
Distributed computing power might be the most well-developed case of DPIN so far, but others are trying it.
World Mobile is trying to solve the problem of centralized Internet service providers by allowing individuals to own parts of wireless infrastructure, in exchange for network tokens.
Silencio is a distributed public data collection project. Global citizens can use the Silencio mobile app on their phone to measure hyper-local noise pollution levels. When their data is sold, they earn tokens.
The vision is that any piece of sharing economy infrastructure could be built on a decentralized blockchain trust layer, instead of on the slippery backs of VC-funded entrepreneurs. Imagine a future where individuals and communities can own and control their infrastructure, aligning incentives and fostering innovation.
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