It is difficult to imagine a world without computers. From directing science missions to celestial bodies billions of miles away to help us keep up with our grocery shopping, we use them every day. Today’s average phones are millions of times more powerful than Apollo 11’s guidance computer and they can still struggle to perform certain tasks. With so much processing power in the palm of our hands, underestimating the value of processing power is an easy thing to do.
Wasted Potential
The term “processing power” is used to describe a computational platform’s capacity to manipulate data, which can range from printing “Hello world” on your screen to running simulations of the universe. Not only has this capacity gone through a trillion-fold increase in performance over the past 65 years but computational devices are widely accessible around the world.
Unfortunately, much of the world’s processing power is being wasted in today’s world. We are not referring to people using their phones or computers to scroll through their favorite social media platforms, streaming services, or entertainment websites. Today, most computers, IoT, phones, and similar devices are only using a fraction of their computing power regularly.
With processing power being either used or entirely lost, many experts have started pointing out the inherent value such a resource has. While it would have been impossible to give use to that power by sharing it with third parties in the past, network computing has made this a possibility over the past years. Today, you can share your device’s idle processing power with scientists, companies, and individuals, helping all sorts of efforts thrive.
Over the past decade, blockchain has become one of the most important and disruptive technologies in the world, with its core concept relying on the communal use of CPU power. While it is true that most projects will incentivize users to acquire new equipment instead of relying on idle processing power, this reality is changing. As blockchain becomes less about speculation and more about real life and everyday applications, projects like Massive are changing the paradigm.
Meet Massive
Massive, a tech startup founded in 2018 by former TechStars mentee-turned-mentor, Jason Grad, is allowing people around the world to share their spare computing power in exchange for premium features, content, and services. This is possible by offering developers a one-of-a-kind app monetization SDK that allows them to generate $0.25 per user per month while also facilitating the decentralization of their services.
Back in December of 2021, the startup announced it had raised $11 million in seed funding from investors like Point72 Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Kraken Ventures, BlockTower Capital, and CoinShares Ventures. With some of the most important firms in the blockchain space supporting it, Massive has not only grown rapidly over the past 8 months but also become one of the biggest names and disruptors in the industry.
“Massive is pioneering a new way to monetize users to complement existing business models of paywalls, in-app payments, and advertising.” Said Point72 Venture’s Crypto Investing Lead, upon investing. “We are thrilled to support their vision of bringing Massive to billions of users around the globe.”
Massive’s SDK generates revenue by mining cryptocurrencies, hosting decentralized infrastructure, and performing complex computational tasks using idle computational power. In exchange, users get to enjoy an ad-free experience while also helping their favorite brands, creators, and projects to become more efficient and sustainable.
With the traditional monetization method growing increasingly frustrating to users around the internet, 42% of them are using ad blockers. Massive’s approach offers an alternative that is not only less disruptive and more efficient but also more sustainable in the long term but it could also alleviate concerns around the processing shortage announced.
