DePIN has been one of the main driving narratives in web3 over the past years. It’s the thesis that everyday people can supply the storage, bandwidth, and compute that modern apps need, at the edge, via peer‑to‑peer networks. In an exclusive conversation with BeInCrypto, AIOZ Network founder and CEO Erman Tjiputra explains the idea, why it matters for regular users, and how AIOZ Network aims to be the application‑first DePIN stack for AI, streaming, and storage.
The project frames itself as community‑powered internet infrastructure for the AI era, unifying distributed storage, AI compute, and media streaming under one network.
“Call it what it is,” Tjiputra tells BeInCrypto.
“Neighbors helping neighbors run the internet. If you’ve got home Wi‑Fi, a gaming PC with a GPU, or a spare hard drive, you can contribute resources and unlock the potential for token rewards. No single choke point, and services sit closer to users at the edge, so it’s faster and fairer.”
What “People‑Powered Internet” Means
Tjiputra’s simplest example starts at home.
“You install our lightweight app. Your home Wi‑Fi becomes an on‑ramp. Your gaming PC can transcode video, run AI inference tasks, or pin files. Your SSD/HDD stores content shards. When someone nearby watches a stream or calls an AI model, the network routes it peer‑to‑peer from the closest contributors. You unlock potential token rewards. They get speed.”
AIOZ Network says the point isn’t to mimic a tokenized data center; it’s to make participation useful on day one because users can immediately stream, store, or run AI, application‑first by design.
AIOZ Network position itself as blockchain‑agnostic (Cosmos/EVM), purpose‑built DePIN for AI + media + storage, and already tapping a global base of contributors that AIOZ Network counts in the hundreds of thousands of devices.
AIOZ Network is a unified stack, AI compute (AIOZ AI), storage (AIOZ Storage, S3‑compatible), streaming (AIOZ Stream), and IPFS pinning (AIOZ Pin), all powered by DePIN. Exposed as composable primitives, these services let Web3 apps tap edge, peer‑to‑peer infrastructure from day one.
Why This Amplifies Today’s Internet for Regular People
For creators, Tjiputra says:
“Keep ownership and get transparent, on‑chain payouts. Sell subscriptions, pay‑per‑view, tips, or run ad‑supported channels where revenue sharing is on‑chain.”
AIOZ Stream’s model explicitly supports SVOD, TVOD, AVOD, and tipping, with an optional watch‑to‑earn incentive that can credit viewers from ad auctions.
On the viewer side, he emphasizes a frictionless experience: “Watch with great quality and privacy, even without a wallet,” he adds, pointing to AIOZ Stream’s wallet‑free onboarding for casual users while still preserving on‑chain transparency behind the scenes.
And for builders, the pitch is zero gatekeepers: “Open SDKs and APIs across storage, streaming, and AI, so devs can ship fast,” he says.
The Simple Flywheel
Devices contribute resources → contributors unlock the potential for token rewards → creators publish and get paid → viewers watch and can support directly → developers deploy AI tools and apps → all usage fuels the network.
In practice, anyone can onboard a home PC or NAS to supply storage, bandwidth, or GPU cycles. The network measures uptime, proximity, and quality, allocating work accordingly so contributors unlock the potential for token rewards tied to verified delivery and compute.
Those tokens originate from real usage: SVOD/TVOD, AVOD with on‑chain splits, tips, and developer spend for inference and datasets. As activity grows, more devices join, latency drops, and costs fall, pulling in more creators and apps and compounding the loop.
“It’s one network where AI, streaming, and storage reinforce each other. Every viewer session, every model call, and every file read‑write strengthens the DePIN layer underneath,” Tjiputra says.
Not a Tokenized Data Center: What Makes AIOZ Network Different
In a field where many DePIN projects look like “tokenized data centers,” AIOZ Network insists it’s people‑powered and application‑first.
“We built the apps that make participating useful on day one,” Tjiputra says. “Creators can go live, viewers can click play, and builders can deploy models, all on a peer‑to‑peer edge that users themselves provide.”
AIOZ’s Stream Vision Paper describes a decentralized content delivery stack that routes video/audio through contributors and pays everyone, creators, contributors, and even viewers (when enabled), via the same token rails, including ad auctions (AVOD), subscriptions (SVOD), and transactional (TVOD). UX principles emphasize speed and wallet‑free onboarding for mainstream users.
“Put a Mini‑CDN in Every Home”
Tjiputra’s long‑term vision is blunt:
“Put a mini‑CDN in every home. If millions of everyday devices quietly power the internet, it becomes faster, cheaper, and more resilient for everyone,” he says. AIOZ Network wants to provide the people‑cloud that serves media, AI, and storage from the edge, owned by users and interoperable across chains people already use.
Power the Next ChatGPT From Your Living Room
“Power the next ChatGPT from your home, as a contributor and a consumer,” Tjiputra adds. “If you’ve got a GPU, inference tasks can run on your box. You are rewarded via DePIN; a neighbor calls the model with sub‑second latency because it’s edge‑served, not halfway across the world.”
AIOZ AI is described as a distributed compute and marketplace layer where models/datasets can be deployed, licensed, and monetized on‑chain, bridging AI workloads with DePIN incentives.
DePIN Powering Web3
AIOZ Network frames participation as more than perks for passive viewers—it’s a path from watch‑to‑earn toward a true build‑to‑earn economy. “Watch‑to‑earn is a tactic.
The bigger step is build‑to‑earn,” Tjiputra says.
“Host a DePIN app, moderate a channel, transcode a stream, pin content, run model inference, contribute useful work and unlock the potential for token rewards. That’s the broader participation economy we’re after.”
Asked for the endgame, Tjiputra returns to first principles:
“It’s Internet infrastructure for Web3, a mainstream people‑cloud for media, AI, and storage. Peer‑to‑peer at the edge; open, verifiable, and owned by the users who power it.”
AIOZ Network enables a merit‑based contribution model across a multi‑chain stack, aiming to make AI compute, storage, and streaming community‑powered and interoperable.
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