The Gutenberg Protocol
Johannes Gutenberg
A Bitcoin-Native Distributed Compute and Storage Protocol
License Notice
This document (text) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).
The OCSL protocol specification, message formats, and algorithms described herein are licensed under the MIT License.
Abstract
A method is described for coordinating compute and storage resources among peers. Participants provide CPU, GPU, and storage. Compensation is streamed in Bitcoin using Lightning. Verification is achieved by deterministic redundant execution and Merkle commitments. No alternative tokens are required. No trusted central coordinator is required.
1. Introduction
General-purpose remote computation is dominated by centralized service operators. These systems require identity, billing accounts, and trust in the service provider. They also hold control over censorship and data inspection. A decentralized alternative can remove these trust requirements.
This protocol allows peers to advertise and consume computational work using Bitcoin as the medium of settlement. Workloads are executed in isolated environments. Outputs are verified by content-hash matching across multiple independent providers.
2. Identity
Nodes are identified by their Lightning public key. No accounts or personal identity are required. Optional on-chain fidelity bonds may be used to increase selection probability.
3. Resource Advertisement
Nodes broadcast simple capability messages over a distributed routing layer. Fields include CPU count, GPU availability, memory, storage size, price in satoshis per second, and maximum concurrent workloads.
4. Job Submission
The client selects one or more providers and transmits encrypted job input. Providers execute the job inside isolated virtual machines. Outputs are represented as Merkle roots.
5. Verification
For deterministic workloads, two or more providers must produce identical Merkle root outputs. If results match, the computation is considered valid. If results differ, no provider is paid for that slice.
6. Payment
Payment is streamed in Bitcoin via Lightning in fixed-time slices. If a slice is not paid, the provider halts work. No credit or post-settlement is required.
7. Storage
Storage providers return proofs of retrievability for requested chunks. Content is addressed by Merkle root. No trusted replication claims are assumed.
8. Security
Isolation is enforced by minimal virtual machine environments. Default outbound traffic is denied. Providers do not see plaintext workloads.
9. Comparison
Systems that rely on shitcoins require speculative asset exposure and inflationary subsidy models. This system requires none of these. It functions using Bitcoin alone.
10. Conclusion
A minimal system for decentralized compute and storage is described. Payments are native to Bitcoin. Verification is cryptographic and redundant. No external trust anchoring is needed.
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