DECENT Prototype Demonstrating Main Features of the P2P Network

The potential of blockchain application has been an often discussed topic recently. Since the very begin DECENT wanted to be a crucial part of the future; dreams comes true when you work hard: they officially announced that the prototype of blockchain based content distribution platform DECENT is finalized.

Their vision to reinvent the process of digital content publishing reached the point of realization. During the last couple of months their main aim was to create a tool in which they could clearly demonstrate the most important features of DECENT network. While including content uploading and downloading, price stamp creating, content rating and blockchain utilization they wanted to show the very basis of DECENT protocol and its capabilities.

The following demo video shows the basic GUI and API in which you can see a step-by-step guide for content sharing and buying, rating the author and checking whether the transactions have been securely saved in the blockchain.

Are you wondering what exactly can be DECENT protocol used for? To begin, it’s important to remind that DECENT is an Open Source protocol allowing app builders to create various applications with the functionalities and design specifications according to their needs. From many possible use cases let me mention a few of them, that demonstrate which of today’s famous services could be innovated with DECENT platform:

• Medium like blogging and publishing;
• Soundcloud like music publishing;
• Amazon like e-book publishing;
• Software sale;
• Shutterstock like photo sharing;
• Electronic newspaper publishing;
• Cost-effective academic paper publishing;
• Video streaming / audio streaming.

Content Distribution and Payments:

The author divides content into the public and encrypted part, specifies the number of publishers (miners) and key particles needed to restore the decryption key, sets the prize and submits the content. The torrent file is created and shared with publishers who store the content and distribute it to the consumers. When the content consumer chooses the content, the particular amount of DCT tokens is blocked from his account (promise-to-pay) and he can download the content and the
decryption key.

The payment layer of DECENT protocol ensures that the whole amount of money paid by the consumer goes to the author, while the author’s fee for publishing goes to the publishers. DECENT founder Matej Michalko said in an interview for NewsBTC:

The Author pays the Publisher for acting as a storage and content distribution network. The
payment will be released over time to motivate the publisher to keep the content as long as
required. The payment for network storage is also an effective anti-spam mechanism.

The peer-to-peer transaction system eliminates third party fees and data storage fees and therefore it makes the online content sharing cheaper and easier to use.

Blockchain Transactions:

To secure all the transactions and content distribution DECENT platform utilizes blockchain. When creating their own blockchain they were inspired by the Bitcoin blockchain technology to which they added several features to make it work according to their needs. While the content distribution itself is running on separated off-chain layer, DECENT protocol has 6 basic transaction types that enable secure content buying, sharing and rating:

• ready_to_publish
• content_submit
• proof_of_custody
• request_to_buy
• deliver_keys
• leave_rating

Recommendations and Rating:

DECENT’s recommendation engine allows authors to build lifetime reputation within the platform. When the author uses the same ID for every content upload, its rating will become permanently connected to him. The content consumers (readers, viewers, listeners etc.) rate the content in two ways. Firstly, they express their interest when buying the content and therefore recommending it. Secondly, after purchase, they leave rating for the content itself. This data are used for creating the recommended content for other users, while the process combines their personal interests and popularity of the author or the content.

More detailed technical description of DECENT protocol can be found in the preliminary version of DECENT paper.