The world according to Edge

60 and counting. That’s the number of countries Edge Network covers – so far. We have nodes scattered across the globe from Australia to Zambia; in cities from Amsterdam to Xi’an.

We call this our ‘global reach’. It’s an important feature of our project as it grows to challenge established, traditional cloud services. Regular listeners will know why: Edge is the future not only because it decentralises web infrastructure (sharing the revenue it creates with the community that supports it) but also for the fact that it localises the Internet.

Traditional cloud infrastructure is made up of a network of server farms – large, dedicated facilities sparsely distributed around the world. Edge sprinkles the internet among us all by utilising spare capacity in the devices we use every day. This reduces the distance between the point of storage and consumption, speeding up services while making them greener and more cost effective too.

The architecture of Edge around the world is made up of three different tiers of computing power: Stargates, Gateways and Hosts. The Stargates orchestrate network operations; they provide DNS, intelligent routing and telemetry services. Gateways are the entry point to network services, handling service requests and managing delivery resources. Hosts, meanwhile, perform the heavy lifting in the network – they are the devices that provide the delivery capacity and are operational in 51 countries so far.

Growth, as you can imagine, is important to Edge – and that’s where you can help. You can earn revenue in $EDGE tokens by connecting your device to the network and contributing spare capacity – by becoming a Host. Think about it: instead of the world handing over millions to large corporations such as Google, Amazon or Microsoft, it pays you to host the digital services we use (and the rest of us of course).

It begins by registering at edge.network, where you’ll also find step-by-step instructions on how to get yourself up and running. May we also recommend Episode 20 of Conversations on the Edge? It’s the one where I tell you all about staking and how to acquire the $EDGE tokens you need to start your revenue generation. Find it – along with all audio editions – via our channel on YouTube.