By CCN.com: Most multiplayer games use centralized services to provide “caching” of content, specifically things like graphics and real-time data. Major providers like Azure and Amazon Web Services are the preferred way to ensure a reliable experience for players.

But that might be changing with the advent of a new decentralized protocol called Bluzelle, which uses crypto token incentives and the “BitTorrent model” to create a globally distributed network of caching servers.

20% Faster With Competitive Pricing Model

CCN.com spoke to Pavel Bains, co-founder of Bluzelle, who demonstrated that the system is about 20% faster than Redis, one of its chief competitors.

Bains told CCN.com that Bluzelle began as an attempt to create a new type of database software. While they’re still working on that product, they’re attempting to disrupt the gaming industry.

The key word for Bluzelle and Redis is latency.

The traditional model holds that game providers like DICE and EA need to have several data centers around the world. Bains said that often enough, interest in a game suddenly happens in a region where a company isn’t prepared to operate. Bluzelle’s model would negate the need for large data centers. Game developers can use the Bluzelle network to cache their content and give a much better experience than is possible using traditional data centers.

Bluzelle Potentially a New Avenue of Passive Income for Crypto Lovers

Anyone with a reliable Internet connection and a reasonably-powered computer will be able to run a Bluzelle node, potentially earning a passive income in the process. It’s similar to Storj and Filecoin: it requires excess storage and possibly lots of bandwidth.

Bains said in a press release:

“Currently applications are limited to data caching technologies that require complex configuration and management of 10+ year old technology constrained to a few data centers. These were not designed to handle the ever-increasing volumes of data that new technologies like AI, VR and 4K produce. The pain points and needs are clear — data access needs a simple, secure, cost-effective, and quick-to-implement caching technology to accelerate delivery to the edge, where the customer is. Software developers don’t want to react to where their customers come from. Our architecture is designed to always have the data right where the customer is. This provides a superior consumer experience.”

The way Bluzelle works is easy enough to understand if you already know about the blockchain and distributed ledger models. Nodes provide caching services for Bluzelle’s clients and get compensated in BLZ tokens. Like Storj, Bluzelle clients won’t have to be fully integrated into the crypto economy and versed in the ways of trading cryptocurrency. They can simply pay Bluzelle fiat cash, which Bains told CCN.com will then be dumped into the market for BLZ tokens.

Currently, the network isn’t entirely open, but the beta launched this week. The company is launching its own nodes in an effort to get some clients so that people who later decide to run nodes will be able to do so without potentially operating at a loss. If the demand already exists when the majority of the nodes come online, the incentives will be properly aligned.

Bluzelle tokens were worth about 6 cents at press time. A maximum supply of 500 million tokens will ever exist. The tokens have an inherent utility and demand based on the number of companies that decide to utilize the technology. Bains said that the company is working on integration with important software suites like Unity.