Render: Network, Architecture, Ecosystem, History, and Management

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Render:
Network, Architecture, Ecosystem, History, and Management

Source: Render Network $RNDR. Democratizing GPU rendering through blockchain technology | by Xavi Roland Ksantini | Medium

Overview

The surge in sectors adopting virtual products or services is on an exponential rise, yet the availability of computational resources lags behind. It's evident that the current centralized infrastructures offering rendering resources are struggling to keep up with the escalating demand. Scaling to meet this demand seems unfeasible within this framework. However, a promising solution emerges: a global distributed rendering platform. This is where Render steps in.

Render represents a decentralized network of GPUs tailored for rendering, a pivotal process in generating virtual images and animations from 3D models. GPU owners are provided with incentives to capitalize on surplus processing power, enabling parties in need of rendering resources to pay using RNDR, Render's native token 2.

History

Jules Urbach, the CEO of Render's parent company, OTOY Inc., conceived the idea for Render back in 2009. OTOY Inc., headquartered in Los Angeles, specializes in GPU-centric software solutions. Urbach's vision was to harness blockchain technology to optimize global GPU utilization for purposes beyond proof-of-work (PoW), which is the process of adding new transactional blocks to the blockchain. In PoW, miners generate hashes to match the target hash of an existing block. Successful attempts yield rewards and the ability to integrate the block into the blockchain.

Render's initial coin offering (ICO) took place from October 6, 2017, to October 12, 2017. During this period, 4,650,922 RNDR tokens were sold at a price of $0.25 each. In March 2018, the team announced that the total number of minted tokens within the ecosystem would be 536,870,912 RNDR. Concurrently, the migration process between old and new contracts commenced with a ratio of 1:1. The Genesis Mainnet was launched on June 24, 2019, following the project's migration from the Ropsten Testnet to the Ethereum mainnet. Capitalizing on market conditions in March 2020, the team announced a plan to purchase 4.5 million RNDR tokens on the Probit cryptocurrency exchange. [3][4]

Architecture and Ecosystem
The current configuration of the Render Network consists of two main layers: the off-chain rendering layer and the blockchain layer. The off-chain rendering layer encompasses node operators, creators, and vendors of rendering applications. Node operators serve as the backbone of the network, providing computational power through GPU nodes. On the other hand, the blockchain layer manages payments via escrow contracts and RNDR tokens.

Utilizing the transparency of the blockchain's public ledger, every interaction between node operators and creators undergoes public verification. This level of transparency empowers both parties, as well as the Foundation Team, to ensure the accuracy of every transaction and facilitates easy tracking when needed.

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OctaneBench

OctaneBench is used to assure creators of consistent performance-based pricing whenever they request node operators for work.[5] It is thus a GPU Render Benchmark, which the Octane Render powers, and is designed to evaluate a hardware's rendering capabilities. Depending on the overall rendering performance, OctaneBench points are assigned after various pre-packaged scenes are rendered. For instance, 100 OB points represent a rendering speed equal to that of the NVIDIA GTX 980.

Moreover, OB points scale linearly, which simply implies that a 200 OB point GPU, such as the Nvidia TitanXp, can render any given scene twice as quickly as a GTX 980. It's essential to highlight that Octane Render only supports CUDA GPUs. CUDA is a software framework that NVIDIA developed to extend GPU acceleration capabilities, so compatibility is hence limited to NVIDIA GPUs. OctaneBench also grants the option of running all built-in GPUs, specific ones, or a selected number, which helps with analyzing multi-GPU scaling.

Throughout OctaneBench's evolution, it has witnessed four versions, including 2.17, 3.06.2, 4.00, and now the recent 2020.1. They represent attempts at refining the benchmarking process, offering users a reliable measurement of their rendering abilities.[6]

Reputation Scores

Render employs a robust system of user scoring based on past performance and success rates to effectively coordinate network activities. Users' actions, such as processing or submitting jobs, are evaluated, resulting in either positive or negative reputational outcomes depending on compliance with smart contract conditions. For instance, creators face a decrease in reputation scores if they reject properly rendered work, while node operators see their scores affected if they fail to successfully process tasks. These measures constitute the essence of proof-of-render (PoR), combining algorithmic rendering checks with human job confirmation to verify work authenticity.

Reputation scores play a pivotal role in advancing PoR by promoting desirable behavior among operators and creators, thereby enhancing productivity within the network. For creators, reputation scores dictate access to concurrent mining nodes, allowing those with higher scores to process work more efficiently. This incentivizes creators to maintain positive success rates by meticulously examining scenes before submission. Additionally, creator-side reputation scores serve as a safeguard against requestors with inadequate histories, preventing network congestion caused by the need for re-rendering.

Similarly, node operators must meet reputation score requirements to process higher-tier work and earn greater token rewards. Higher scores also facilitate quicker job assignment, motivating operators to uphold successful performance rates. Through these mechanisms, reputation scores serve as a dual-purpose tool for incentivization and coordination within the Render ecosystem. [7]

RNDR Token

The RNDR token is currently valued at approximately $4.91, implying a market capitalization of more than $2.55 billion and a diluted valuation of over $2.62 billion. The daily trading volume is over $192 million, and its total and maximum supply are both over 530 million tokens. Finally, its circulating supply is more than 517.46 million tokens.

RNDR’s previous all-time high was in late 2021, like many cryptocurrencies, and lately it has seen a resurgence in interest, resulting in its price breaking that earlier all-time high of $8.78 and setting a new high of around $13.50 in March 2024. So, from an investment perspective, it has been a market leader this cycle, at least for the time being.[8]

Moving on to token allocation, 55% has been allocated to the Render User Development Fund, 10% to the team, 25% to token sales, and 10% to Reserve.[9]

Burn and Mint Equilibrium Model

After a community vote, the Render Network Foundation, a non-profit organization that's dedicated to advancing the Render Network, integrated a new Burn and Mint Equilibrium (BME) model. The upgrade allows for on-chain payments for AI jobs and rendering in RNDR, now transacted, and emitted on Solana.

This new model will allow the network to sustainably price services through a supply-and-demand equilibrium model, enabling creators to forecast AI job and rendering expenses while supporting node operators to effectively offer computational services. With this, Render seeks to strike a suitable balance between demand, supply, and infrastructure within GPU processing, and at the center of it all is the RNDR token. Key aspects include predictable fiat pricing, incentives and emissions for network participants, epoch-based allocation, and token burning and emissions.[10]

Additional Stats

According to CoinMarketCap, the RNDR token is ranked 33 in terms of market capitalization and 63 in terms of daily trading volume.[11] RNDR can be found on numerous exchanges, including Gate.io, Binance, OKX, Coinbase, and many more, with popular cross-pairs such as USDC, USDT, BTC, ETH, SOL, BNB, etc.[12] As for utility, besides being a medium of exchange for buying and selling GPU services, like many other tokens, it's utilized within governance too, which itself is split into several phases, serving an instrumental role in shaping the network's future.[13]

Open interest for RNDR is more than $143 million.[14] The daily real volume is $340 million.[15] The number of token holders is approximately 81.689k, its treasury is valued at over $1.4 billion, and the core developers (30d) sit at 1.[16] In 2023, the frames rendered totaled over 9.9 million, with the jobs totaling over 179,000; both metrics are substantially higher compared to the previous year.[17]

For the term "Render Network," the Google Trends data chart suggests an overall rise in interest, and the current reading is at 58. Interest has generally been range bound, oscillating between 40 and 100. The last time it hit the top reading of 100 was in late March 2024. Note that these readings represent the interest over time over the previous 12 months.[18]

Use Cases or Applications

Artists, designers, developers, and engineers can use Render for various GPU applications and workloads, allowing for novel forms of scientific, creative, and industrial production that would otherwise be costly on centralized services or local infrastructure.

Motion Graphics and Visual Effects

With Render, independent studios and artists can make large-scale 3D visual effects that would incur significant costs otherwise within pre-reserved GPU cloud instances or on-premise render farm infrastructures. Artists utilizing Render may leverage numerous on-demand GPU resources for rendering scenes at better resolutions or in several output formats, allowing for more latitude within the post-production process for digital camera movements, pans, and tracking shots, among other effects.

Virtual Assets or Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)

Through Render, 3D artists can make NFTs or other virtual assets with deeper levels of provenance. Artists may produce and tokenize next-generation digital assets, such as interactive ORBX files, enabling monetization for portable 3D virtual assets.

Virtual Production

Cinematographers and directors may blend live-action and large-scale rendered 3D environments in their transformative attempts at filmmaking, enabling numerous takes to be tested and pushing the limits of what they can do with virtually crafted cinematic worlds.[19]

Architecture

With scalable decentralized rendering, immersive 3D visualizations along with virtual reality renders for architectural designs can be created, allowing designers, clients, or even architects to virtually experience lifelike immersion of architectural concepts and renders, transforming architectural visualization processes.

Gaming and Augmented Reality

Render's GPU real-time streaming and pre-rendering allow artists to share real-time interactive or immersive experiences for cloud-streamed augmented reality (AR) and other immersive content. Artists can stream real-time, live interactive 3D experiences with virtual streams through Render Network technology or implement hybrid real-time and pre-rendered graphics to generate sophisticated cinematic AR and gaming.

Artificial intelligence

Developers can create a plethora of AI applications through Render, whether it be AI-accelerated holographic rendering, prompt-based AI-assisted 3D content, or new types of AI training and inference, all while leveraging Render's 3D scene graph data with complete Digital Rights Management (DRM) features, including traceability and attribution.[20]

Ecosystem and Network Updates

Render was at the NFT movement's forefront, experiencing an enormous influx of artists using it to render NFTs, including popular artists like Beeple. The summer and spring of 2021 alone witnessed rapid growth in NFTs, with sales generating more than half a billion dollars from Render artists and almost a quarter-million jobs processed.

Commercial projects have been leveraging Render for quite a while now. Popular examples include Deadmau5's music video, FIFA FIFPRO's World 11 player reveal, Robinhood's cryptocurrency advertisement, and even Apple's M1 event, which featured Jules Urbach.[21]

Metaplex and Solana Integration

In November 2021, during the Solana Breakpoint conference, Urbach announced plans to migrate Render to Solana in the first and second quarters of 2022. Render also announced its partnership with Metaplex, a platform enabling creators on Solana to set up mintable NFTs. With such changes, Render became a platform for artists to instantly produce valuable IPs and art that's monetizable and distributable through Metaplex with a single click. [22]

Strategic Partnership with OTOY, Endeavor, and Stability AI Revealed at Nvidia Conference

This recent partnership employs Render's decentralized GPU network, enormously scaling inference power and AI training at cost, to aid in democratizing open-source, generative, and transparent provenance systems and AI technology that'll soon affect VFX, media, and 3D production workflows.

Such a collaboration will thus entail the strategic allocation of various tasks between these organizations. For instance, Stability AI will be joining OTOY as a member of IDEA, short for the Immersive Digital Experiences Alliance, to aid with the evolution of protocols and open standards for the ingestion of Gen AI models within 3D workflows, like motion graphics, product design, VFX, composition, and more. Another example would be Endeavor working with Stability AI, OTOY, and the Render Network to help emerging ML models by developing transparent IP tracking mechanisms.[23]

Management

Jules Urbach, Co-Founder and CEO of OTOY

Jules Urbach is the CEO and founder of OTOY, Render's parent company. The company itself is a bit old; it was founded in 2018, with its primary focus on software, including cloud graphics, rendering technology, and streaming.

Raised and born west of Paris (close to Versailles), within the French countryside, Urbach moved to LA when he was 9. There, he went to Harvard Westlake High School and was later accepted by Harvard University. But he ended up deferring his acceptance indefinitely to develop video games. The first game he worked on was Hell Cab, published by Time Warner Interactive, when he was only 18. Six years later, he founded Groove Alliance, which ended up making Shockwave.com's first ever game, Real Pool.[24]

Ryan Shea, Advisor at the Foundation

Ryan Shea worked at Solana Labs for three years, launching both the Solana ecosystem and network. Prior, he partnered with firms building on Ethereum, including Decentraland and Gitcoin. He's now leading NATION.io, a business creating tools for on-chain ecosystems, while serving within the Render Network Foundation in an advisory capacity. Ryan's played an instrumental role in guiding the foundation during several major updates.

Andrew Hyde, Head of Communications at the Foundation

Andrew Hyde's passions lie in travel, startups, community, writing, and travel. He's helped found Ignite Boulder along with Startup Weekend, Startup Week, TEDx Boulder, and several other smaller events. His work has extended to a couple of other Web3 startups as well, such as Crypto.com and Solana. He's the director at Glider.com, a 501(c)3 nonprofit focusing on community events and is now helping build up community and communications at the Render Network Foundation.

Tristan Relly, Head of Operations at the Foundation

Following two decades of financial advisory roles among leading blue-chip companies and financial service providers, Tristan Relly, taking his skills from his life-long career, took them in new directions. Prior to Render, he spent considerable time in the DeFi space as the Balancer Foundation's (the servicers behind the Balancer ecosystem and Protocol) CEO. Before even that, he aided in leading a team to establish an NPO, aiming to enhance and protect the natural heritage within Cayman Brac, the least safeguarded and most eco-diverse island inside the Cayman Islands chain.

Trevor Harries-Jones, COO of OTOY

Trevor Harries-Jones has much experience as a financial manager, leader, and director within several industries throughout the previous 25+ years. With a beginning in financial management among the Big 4 firms, he started his journey in media by working at OpenTV, swiftly ascending to the position of SVP of Finance, overseeing global accounting, oversight, and treasury allocation. After that, he headed over to Yola.com, a top SAAS website-creation firm, serving several C-level positions as COO, President, Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors, and CEO, guiding Yola.com towards rapid growth as an easily accessible and affordable service.

Bringing that same experience and mentality to Render, he's now serving as OTOY's COO, helping usher in the next stage of the Render Network's development.[25]

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[1] Rendering the Last Frontier _ Messari.pdf

[2] Render Network_ Democratizing GPU Access for Rendering.pdf

[3] What is Render? | Messari

[4] What Is Proof of Work (PoW)? | The Motley Fool

[5] Render Network Whitepaper v4.0 (framerusercontent.com)

[6] OctaneBench: A Popular GPU Rendering Benchmark | Chip Render Farm

[7] J) Reputation Score - Render Network Knowledge Base

[8] Render Price: RNDR Live Price Chart, Market Cap & News Today | CoinGecko

[9] Render Token (RNDR) ICO & Tokenomics | CoinLore

[10] Render Network Upgrades to On-Chain Emissions Via Burn and Mint Equilibrium Model (aithority.com)

[11] Render price today, RNDR to USD live price, marketcap and chart | CoinMarketCap