Why bandwidth needs a layer-1 blockchain, explained

Users will be able to tokenize their bandwidth and sell it in a decentralized trading marketplace to help provide low-cost access to the internet.

PKT is the only layer-1 blockchain that is designed to support bandwidth trading marketplaces and high-speed internet service. PKT uses the world’s first bandwidth-hard proof-of-work (PoW) mining solution to create an economic incentive while building a high-speed data network. Forked from Bitcoin (BTC), PKT replaces the SHA-256 PoW standard with the collaborative PacketCrypt mining protocol. 

Within the PKT Network, users with unused bandwidth earn PKT Cash (PKT) coins by directing their excess bandwidth and compute resources to mining. The act of connecting bandwidth to the PKT Network is called announcement mining. Announcement mining utilizes the miner’s CPU to produce small packets of data and uses upload bandwidth to move this data to different PKT mining pools all around the world.

PKT mining pools pay announcement miners because having more announcements allows the pools to mine blocks more efficiently. Initially, miners are just proving they have the bandwidth, but also use cases, such as bandwidth trading marketplaces and bandwidth sharing, are being developed.

Because pools ingest so many announcements from around the world, they require a very high network capacity of at least 40Gb/s internal connections. These infrastructure requirements build and scale the high-speed, high-throughput PKT Network as more people connect their unused bandwidth.

PKT is a completely decentralized blockchain project that follows in the path of Bitcoin, with no company, no investors and no pre-mine. The PKT Network is entirely built by the people who connect to it, with the focus on making use of excess bandwidth that would otherwise go to waste and to help get people access to low-cost, high-speed internet connections worldwide.