Watch out Amazon Web Services: Decentralized rival launches testnet

A decentralized cloud computing network that aims to make the world’s technological resources cheaper and more accessible has launched its private testnet.

Cudos says its infrastructure means laptops, smartphones and company servers that may otherwise lie idle can contribute to exciting projects including DeFi, scientific research, data analytics, artificial intelligence and video rendering — advancing human knowledge.

The project is a layer-one blockchain and layer-two computation and oracle network. It says centralized cloud computing providers attract high costs and waste, and a growing need has formed for decentralized alternatives.

Because of this, it aims to deliver permissionless access to high-performance computing at scale. Not only would this eliminate the need to rely on a dedicated computing supply, but it could also reduce the expense associated with tapping into resources on demand. This is set to be especially advantageous for blockchain developers and ecosystems that need to ramp up their capacity quickly whenever usage peaks.

Cudos says a large number of gaming companies, NFT developers and DeFi data providers are lined up and ready to deploy on the network when it goes live — with its mainnet expected to launch within months.

The platform’s CEO and co-founder Matt Hawkins said: “Our team has been relentlessly planning and building toward this major milestone for the Cudos network.

“The private testnet will provide our team with critical learnings, enabling us to fine tune the network before we launch the public testnet in the coming weeks. This is a hugely exciting moment for us and our community to enable our vision of building the decentralized cloud computing network for everyone.”

A fast, low-cost network

The Cudos team began building their infrastructure in 2017 — and since then, the project has amassed 300,000 users and 35 validators, with 50,000 devices now on the network. They can then become blockchain compute nodes after the mainnet launches.

Built on Tendermint, the platform aims to forge a tangible connection between cloud computing and blockchain. This means that any blockchain that has bridged to Cudos will be able to benefit from the scalability it offers. Ethereum, Algorand and Cosmos are going to be supported initially, and other networks are set to follow in the not-too-distant future.

Given the extreme network congestion that Ethereum has faced in recent months, this could be a welcome solution that keeps DeFi and NFT markets running smoothly in a bull market — especially considering efforts to fix scalability woes using sharding have been slow to say the least, with no end in sight.

It isn’t just blockchain projects and businesses that stand to benefit from the rollout of low-latency cloud computing worldwide. Everyday users have an opportunity to monetize their hardware’s idle time, while data centers and mining farms can maximize the use of resources that may otherwise have gone unused.

More insights from Cudos here

Kudos to Cudos

Cudos says one of its biggest achievements this year was its oversubscribed, successful token sale, which led to the CUDOS token being listed on a number of exchanges. The platform has also secured investment from Borderless Capital, which focuses on the growth and development of Algorand. The founder, David Garcia, recently joined as an advisor with a view to accelerating the partnership between both ecosystems. Additional backers include the likes of Moonrock Capital, Outlier Ventures and GBV.

Garcia has joined a number of other high-profile advisors, including former Sony Entertainment Europe president Chris Deering, AMD’s blockchain director Joerg Roskowetz, and Maggie Fang, an early major investor in Uber and Alibaba.

Cudos says it has the potential to be a game changer in an increasingly digitized world — making smart contracts and DApps far more efficient, and enabling NFTs and assets to be created with ease. Consumers, hardware owners and businesses all have the potential to gain something from its ecosystem — and help the environment in the process.

Learn more about Cudos

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