FASE: Decentralized Compute & Market Structure
Session Overview
Between 2022 and 2026, blockchain-based networks that buy and sell compute (GPU time, inference, model training, rendering) moved from concept to revenue, with named enterprise and AI-laboratory customers, and operators of AI infrastructure increasingly describe compute itself as a commodity. This session asks whether decentralised compute networks can be considered commodity markets, and what would follow if they were, starting from the FASE study report "Compute-as-Commodity: Observable Flows in Decentralised AI Infrastructure". It connects to the concentration-of-computing-resources challenge raised in the Industrial Structure session earlier the same morning.
Agenda
- The study report: six criteria drawn from commodity-market thinking — fungibility, price discovery, settlement and clearing, storage or its substitutes, differentiated counterparty roles, and regulatory recognition — applied to four networks: Akash, Bittensor, Render and Aethir
- Does the blockchain layer do real work or is it decorative? Separating productive flows, where tokens meet real external demand, from circular flows that recycle tokens internally
- The business models behind these networks, and where they meet or miss the criteria
- Gaps in current regulatory and policy treatment, and opportunities for standard-setting
- Review of a draft policymaker checklist: could a given network fall within commodity-market regulation or similar regimes?
- Link to the concentration-of-computing-resources challenge raised in the Industrial Structure session (2-3)
Session Chair & Speakers
Session Chair
Joseph Beverley (Co-Chair, FASE)
Speakers
Joseph Beverley (Co-Chair, FASE), James Angel (Professor, Georgetown University)
Venue
Location: Capitol Campus — Room A (2416)
Address: 111 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20001, United States
Georgetown University Capitol Campus · Washington, D.C.
Access & venue details →Working Group
Financial Applications & Social Economics
Examines financial applications, stablecoins, and socio-economic impacts of blockchain technology
- Chloe White
- Joseph Beverley
Related Projects
Register
Contributors who submit written work and present may qualify for a registration fee waiver.
Contribution process →