DECENT, a peer-to-peer content distribution platform, has received over $3.5 million in investment since its Initial Coin Offering went live on September 11. Powered by blockchain technology and torrent-like seeding protocols, DECENT is designed to remove third party manipulation, protect user privacy and prevent content piracy. DECENT’s network has the potential to benefit the storage, publishing, and distribution of digital files like movies, photos, music, blogs and articles. The Swiss-based start-up has so far raised funds of its digital currency, called DCT, during an ICO that concludes on November 6th.
Co-founder of DECENT, Matej Boda said: “We are thrilled that so many people around the world are seeing such value in our platform because the content distribution industry has been encumbered with catastrophic problems for years. In particular, maintaining and policing Digital Rights Management and Intellectual Property has become extremely difficult, even as access to content has become easier. Our technology makes it possible to track and secure each piece of content on the network from the moment it is created and uploaded, because it is timestamped and immutable. We can effectively eliminate piracy and at the same time, maintain user privacy through data encryption.”
Planning to launch in the first half of 2017, DECENT will allow users and media creators to publish content on the platform for a small DCT fee while enjoying 100% of the revenue. The platform differs from Torrent streaming sites in two ways: firstly, copyright infringement is nullified by the content owner’s willingness and permission to upload the work, and secondly, seeders are rewarded in DCT for providing computational power to distribute networked content.
Boda added: “Unlike Amazon, Shutterstock, and iTunes, who share almost a third or more of revenue on works hosted on their platforms, we aim to free media creators from middlemen and manipulation by sharing and selling content at almost zero cost, but with maximum reward. Our technology is based on Proof of Custody, a concept where the seeder, or data storage server, proves that he is in possession of a given data. Due to the nature of DECENT blockchain technology, the proof must be verifiable by the miners, who don’t actually see the data due to encryption, but provide the server power and therefore contribute to the efficiency of the network,”
Backers of the DECENT ICO will be issued with DCT tokens at its close. DCT distributed in the ICO will be 70% of the total DCT volume, with the other 30% dedicated to mining rewards. Public investors can use bitcoin or fiat as payment options to join the DECENT ICO.
