Multicoin Led $10M Raise for Crypto-Incentivized Internet Infrastructure Network Pipe

Crypto venture giant Multicoin led a $10 million fundraise for the builders of Pipe, a proposed “content delivery network” (CDN) that uses tokens to incentivize people hosting internet infrastructure.

The startup building Pipe Network, Permissionless Labs, is focusing on one of the unseen but ubiquitous pieces of the modern internet. Many websites cannot afford to let their content lag as it zips long distances from hosting server to end-user. So they rely on networks of relay servers that can be called upon by the end-users to which they’re geographically close.

A handful of powerful internet companies like Cloudflare and Akamai run the CDNs that proliferate the modern internet and keep it moving fast. Their systems work just fine. But Permissionless Labs thinks crypto incentives can prompt regular people to lend their own computing power into a competitive alternative.

Enter the decentralized virtual infrastructure network (or DeVIN), crypto’s head-scratching evolution to the previous craze, decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN). Think: Helium used tokens to prompt people to set up wifi routers in random places. The same basic tokenomics principles apply to Pipe’s DeVIN setup.

In its conception people can rapidly scale up CDN nodes in the places they’re needed most by lending their existing computing power, CEO David Rhodus told CoinDesk. Their computers will then help end-users access cached content that might have otherwise been difficult to quickly deliver because of the distance between them and the servers that content lives on.

The project will rely on the Solana blockchain, according to a press release. It is planning to launch a testnet at the Breakpoint conference in Singapore.