Introduction

The advent of the internet in 1991 ushered in a new form of interaction. Any person from any country could host content and attract visitors from across the globe. The internet allowed a great way of communication transcending physical and geographical boundaries. The world was truly the content creators’ oyster!

The communication and interaction era also offered an unlimited source of audience for companies seeking to sell products or services. Thus, the logical next step was to advertise to these audiences. It worked well, and the result was advertising across domains and sites to lure readers into buying a particular product or service. So, the late twentieth century and the dawn of the twenty-first century only saw digital advertising growing in leaps and bounds. The revenue earned was so good that the advertisers were ready to share this revenue with the content creators. Thus started an association between advertisers and content creators.

Most of the digital advertising world follows this model of association, and it continues to prosper as we speak. However, not everything is rosy about this picture. The internet is still a great avenue for reading, learning, and sharing, but the same cannot be said about advertising. Advertisements have started to grow intrusive and spoil the reading experience. This statement is not very difficult to cross-check. Readers just have to count the ads placed on a page that they are reading. They would be lucky if no pop-ups are appearing all of a sudden. But this is a Catch 22 situation. Why, you ask?

Well, content creators would be happy to have their content monetized by having ads on their site. However, readers who are the reason for the website’s views have a tough time with the ads placed. This leads to the site views to fall. And what should the website (or content) owner do to get back the views? Well, remove the ads. See my point?

But there is a way out of this vicious cycle. If the content creators can monetize in ways other than ads, then the readers will continue to get a non-intrusive way of reading their favorite content, while the content creator makes money.

The question is – do we have such a model?

Turns out, we do.

Introducing Gath3r!

Gath3r is the newest solution on the block for website owners, content readers, and developers. In fact, it offers a whole new way of monetizing the content. Gath3r is a blockchain solution envisaged with the aspect of mining the Gath3r coin with the consent of content readers visiting a particular site.

Here’s how the whitepaper talks about the Gath3r solution:

Gath3r provides website and application owners an alternate/additional form of non-intrusive monetization. The core revenue model proposed to websites is to earn simple commissions from the pool fees, and computational power of their visitors. Website and application owners can integrate the Gath3r code with their respective platform(s) to earn additional revenue via their users’ CPU and GPU computational power to mine cryptocurrencies.

The platform uses a percentage of the user’s unused CPU and GPU power if it is fine with the user. The aspect of taking the consent of the user or reader visiting the site allays any fear of illegal usage. If this is not enough, the adoption by sites like UNICEF and Pirate Bay should be enough to corroborate the legitimacy of the offering, and there are 50,000 sites already using the solution.

But Gath3r goes further than just being an alternate way of monetizing content. Gath3r supports merged mining through auxiliary chains. New coins and existing coins involved in the merged mining can utilize Gath3r’s hash rate. This allows smaller blockchain projects to tap into Gath3r’s parent blockchain hashing power. Also, miners would be happy since they realize more benefits for doing the same amount of work.

Let’s get to know more about Gath3r Blockchain. But before that watch this introductory video:

So, how does Gath3r work?

Website and App owners can use Gath3r to monetize their content and provide a non-intrusive and user-friendly experience to their readers and users. The Gath3r code needs to be installed in the app or website, and a mandatory opt-in option is provided to the users to allow the usage of their CPU and GPU power. The opt-in option brings in the transparency aspect and undoes any unscrupulous use of a reader’s assets. The CPU and GPU power is used to mine the Gath3r coin. Based on the mining, the publisher or the website owner gets rewarded by Gath3r coin, BTC, or cash, where possible. The reward comes from simple commission from the pool and the visitors (or users) computational power. The rewards are shared with the publishers as per their classification as small, medium or large. The classification allows fair remuneration based on their mining speed. The benefit to the user, on the other hand, is the fuss-free reading experience.

Website owners can also extend a loyalty program to their users where part of their earnings can be shared with the users as an additional benefit. The users who are willing to share their resources (CPU + GPU) for a longer period can be allowed a part of the earning. The program, therefore, acts as an added incentive for them to share resources. Whenever the user shuts the website window, the mining stops.

Wallet Based Staking (Web/Mobile)

Gath3r allows an added loyalty program which is over and above that we have discussed so far. The idea is to have the coins earned by the publisher and visitors to be moved directly to a staking wallet where it would accrue interest. So the parties involved will earn different coins, interest on those coins, and the ability to convert as desired. What this also does is brings in the sense of ownership, and the user community takes charge of their private keys than leaving it at the hands of a third party.

Merged Mining and Auxiliary Chain

One of the uniqueness of Gath3r chain is the concept of merged mining. The concept is simple and revolves around the aspect of allowing smaller blockchains to benefit from the hash rate of the much larger Gath3r blockchain.

The smaller chains can fork and grow from the parent Gath3r chain, thereby, disallowing centralization or slow hash rate, a hallmark of smaller chains. This kind of merged mining, therefore, offers better profitability for web-miners as they are getting more for the same amount of work. It becomes a potential win-win for all involved.

Gath3r will also deploy smart-contracts to enable the unification of Gath3r chain and private master nodes. The smart contract will be available for all chains forking from the parent. Such availability of smart contract across chains will also enable interoperability between those chains.

The concept of merged mining should also work well with Enterprises looking at blockchain solutions. Enterprises can make their solutions over the Gath3r blockchain, and all the services like launch, development, and mining will stand covered. The payment for mining can be paid out to the enterprises in USD.

How does Gath3r play into the evolution of online monetization overall?

We started this discussion on the back of the benefit that the Gath3r blockchain offers to the internet world, or online world, to be precise. One of the fuel for the online business model is still advertisements, though the intensity and spread are decreasing. Statistics state that more than 3 billion users are coming on to the net and are served by roughly 2.5 billion websites worldwide; also, these numbers are growing. The only means to reach the user community is through these websites. And how do we make the online ecosystem sustainable so as to survive? By giving the website owners an avenue for earning income. And the major portion of this income is advertising. The spend of almost USD 23 billion for online advertisement in 2014 in the US alone corroborates the fact that advertisement is the major form of income for majority websites (to be honest, all websites worth their salt) in the online ecosystem.

So, any source of income which can displace advertisement can do a good job in improving user experience as much as the site loading speed in a few cases. Here’s where web mining comes as a solution.

Gath3r is one of the foremost solutions using the concept of web mining which allows publishers to earn revenues in Gath3r coins, Bitcoins, or local currency (if possible) by letting go of intrusive ads. Since they are structured to ask for an opt-in makes them a better solution than CoinHive, which faces blocking by many sites as well as malware blockers. Similarly, they are better than JSE Coin, which has a challenge of conversion into other crypto-coins or FIAT currency.

Gath3r is well placed to become the new fuel powering the internet, and not only individual publishers but also enterprises and other blockchain solutions may find them to be able partners. The merged mining concept allows other forks on auxiliary chains to work in tandem with the Gath3r main chain’s hash rate. Merged mining, in turn, benefits the miners by allowing them to mine more coins for the same effort. These aspects, coupled with the loyalty encouraged by staked wallets, make Gath3r an effective solution for content creators, and at the same time, encourage blockchain adoption by enterprises. In doing so, Gath3r is clearly in a position to pioneer the evolution of a new blockchain based online monetary system.

Benefits Summarized

Gath3r Foundation and Governance

Much like any enterprise on the growth path, Gath3r has taken a few decisive steps in the right direction. Gath3r foundation is set up to look over and govern Gath3r.io. Part of the proceeds from the token sale will be allocated for Gath3r foundation. Gath3r foundation is envisaged to be made up of external stakeholders and a minority of Gath3r founders and advisors.

The objective is to allocate funds for promising projects on the Gath3r blockchain and to deploy funds where necessary. As such, the foundation would ensure a free, fair, transparent, and objective working of the Gath3r blockchain.

Chain Governance

The chain governance would be basis the voting of four stakeholder community. These are Publishers, Masternodes, Auxiliary Chains (Other coins) and Gath3r Team.

Here is a pictorial overview of the ecosystem:

Use Cases

Geology Website

Clara is the owner of a geology website and has spent a good amount of money on keeping it up and running. Her visitors are usually researchers or those that have a keen interest in well-written studies. As such, these visitors spend hours on her site going through the reading materials. She is quite proud of her website.

However, the upkeep and maintenance of the website is a huge cost, and somebody recommended her to get ads on her site and earn from it. However, she is not convinced to get ads on the site as that would disrupt her readers’ experience. Besides, hers is a niche site with a specific kind of readers, and ads would not make sense. She was disheartened.

One of her friends suggested to try out Gath3r. She heard the concept and was elated. This was just what she wanted - a way of monetizing her site without disturbing her readers. The Gath3r code was added to her site, and the opt-in option of mining was made known to the readers. Clara’s readers immediately jumped on to the concept and thus started a great association.

But the best part was when the readers came to know that they could also earn from the site and the entire proposition just skyrocketed. All visitors were happy to mine and keep the page open for the mining to continue. As such, the readers and publisher, Clara, in this case, benefited, while the reading experience continued to stay immaculate!

Gath3r Roadmap

Here is the Gath3r Roadmap showing what has happened so far and what is planned till 2020:

Gath3r Partners

Here’s a look at the Gath3r Partners:

Now, the team behind Gath3r

And Gath3r Advisors

Summary

Gath3r is a timely intervention to arrest the deteriorating experience on the net due to advertisements. Not to mention, many of the ads are disliked by the site owners themselves. In such a state, the online world requires a solution which liberates the reading experience back to its glory days and yet provides an opportunity for content creators to monetize their content.

Gath3r effectively comes through with a bold tick mark on both counts!!

It is also recommended that readers understand more about Gath3r through any of the following informative resources.

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This article is in response to cateredcontent’s call on the authors’ thoughts on Gath3r. If you fancy participating, you can do so here.