I. Overview
Fluence is a blockchain-based, decentralized serverless computing platform and marketplace that offers a scalable and secure alternative to centralized cloud computing. It enables developers to build and deploy applications across a network of computing providers, ranging from professional data centers to individual home computers. These providers compete based on price and performance, and they must continually prove that they are effectively servicing applications to receive payment and rewards.
There are 3 main stakeholder groups within Fluence network:
- Compute providers: contribute compute resources, receive rewards for their capacity, and earn USDC or any ERC-20 token for performing valuable compute jobs.
- Delegators/Token Holders: stake their tokens with compute providers, earning staking rewards and having the opportunity to participate in governance decisions.
- Customers/Developers: can deploy serverless and verifiable computing jobs, enjoy cost savings of up to 80%, and have the convenience of paying with USDC or any ERC-20 token.
II. Solutions and products
1. The Protocol
Fluence stands out from traditional serverless platforms with its unique combination of Aqua programming language and Marine tool. This powerful duo caters specifically to the needs of decentralized computing. Developers benefit from a comprehensive solution within the Fluence ecosystem, which includes functionalities like task publication and quality assessment.
Fluence offers two primary types of functions:
- Cloudless Functions: Powered by the Aqua Protocol, these functions seamlessly integrate with the Fluence network, facilitating distributed task execution. Aqua empowers developers to write code that supports decentralized computing.
- Compute Functions: Leveraging the Marine WebAssembly (Wasm) runtime, these functions enable efficient execution of compute-intensive tasks within the Fluence ecosystem. Marine provides the necessary runtime environment for WebAssembly code execution.
2. The Fluence Marketplace
Fluence’s on-chain market brings together computing providers and payment customers to facilitate the utilization of computing resources. Through this market, customers can be matched with computing providers who offer the resources they require. The market operates on Fluence’s proprietary chain, which is supported by IPC (Inter-Planetary Computing) and validated by Fluence compute providers. Additionally, the chain is anchored to Filecoin L1, ensuring the security and reliability of the transactions.
By leveraging its chain, Fluence enables cost-effective and swift transactions. This infrastructure allows for the renting of computing resources at any scale, accommodating both small workloads and large-scale demands.
III. Team
Fluence team was established in 2017 and recently launched their mainnet product.
- Tom Trowbridge: Co-founder of Fluence and Chairman of HBAR, as well as a member of the board of directors at Stronghold Digital Mining (a BTC mining company).
- Evgeny Ponomarev: Co-founder & COO of Fluence. Previously had product management experience at 2GIS (a navigation application).
- Dmitry Kurinskiy: Co-founder & CTO at Fluence Labs. He is the lead software engineer for Whisk.com and worked as a Scala engineer for a stealth algorithmic trading startup, where they handled both real-time and historical data. Dmitry Kurinskiy holds a Master of Business and Technology degree from ITMO University.
- The remaining team members have previous experience working in traditional companies and have transitioned to developing small web3 projects. Currently, they are all involved in the development of Fluence.
IV. Fundraising
The project successfully raised a total of $15 million in funding through various rounds:
- IEO Bybit: $150,000
- IEO Gate: $25,000
- Series A: $9 million, led by MulticoinCapital, along with notable VC firms and angel investors such as Tiger Global Management, Protocol Labs, erictang.eth (Founder of Livepeer),..
- Seed: $6 million from VCs including 1KX, Distributed Global, Blockchange Ventures,…
V. Tokenomics
1. Token allocation
Ticker: $FLT Initial circulating supply: 50,000,000 (5%)
- Year 1 release: 50,000,000 (5%) allocated to a developer rewards program starting on February 27. Tokens are locked for two months from the date of request and will begin to be released on April 27.
- Rewards for storage providers will be paid out starting from the mainnet launch on March 20.
- Incentives are locked for 24 months.
- Team & Advisors: Locked for 12 months, with vesting over the following 12 months.
- Investors: Locked for 12 months, with vesting over the following 12 months.
- Public round: 100% unlocked.
2. Token use case
The $FLT token will serve as the backbone of the Fluence ecosystem, providing incentives for holders/providers and fundamentally supporting the economic aspect of Fluence.
- Staking: Compute providers will earn $FLT as rewards, but before they can start earning rewards, they will need to purchase $FLT and stake it to become providers within the network. This will create a demand for the token.
- Governance: $FLT holders will also have the ability to stake their tokens to receive benefits and vote on governance proposals.
The information provided in this article is for reference only and should not be taken as investment advice. All investment decisions should be based on thorough research and personal evaluation.
