How are STORE markets formed?

01. App Proposal Submission

App developers submit proposals to the Storecloud platform, these are similar to pitches that startups make to venture capitalists or angel investors:

02. Proposal is reviewed by miners

App proposals are reviewed by miners individually or in groups. Miners verify the claims made by the developers, running their cost models, talking to developers, etc. Developers are also likely pitch their startups to Miners in the traditional form:

03. Proposal Approved or Rejected

Proposals compete with other proposals for the chance to be hosted by a group of miners:

04. App can be hosted by multiple groups of miners

t is possible that multiple groups compete to host a particular app. In this case, two groups agree to host the app for the same proposal P1. Depending on the terms of hosting — % of revenue sharing or cost in STORE and other conditions — developers will choose one group over another:

05. Miners form groups informally

Miners form groups to fulfill the needs of the apps or to address certain markets — such as location-based ads, patient data, etc.

The groups may also be formed to provide specialized resources such as real-time database support, serverless infrastructure, etc. There is no predefined structure or requirements for a group, except for minimum number of nodes to ensure Byzantine tolerance.

06. Groups become sub-networks

Once a group of Miners agrees to host an app, the group is contractually obligated to provide the promised resources to the app, in exchange for revenue either in datacoins or in STORE. These contracts can be viewed as a standard set of contracts drawn between a startup and its investors.

A contractually obligated group becomes a sub-network:

07. Sub-networks become Markets:

Over time, certain sub-networks specialize in serving certain markets or providing specialized services and become markets when data trading takes place.

A combination of a sub-network, app developers, the app, app users who create the data, and data buyers, who are interested in the data form a market. It is possible that a mature market can contain multiple of these combinations.

08. Miners can leave sub-networks

Miners can leave their sub-networks for any reason after satisfying any contractual obligations (such as minimum period to serve, etc.)

Similarly, new Miners can join existing sub-networks either to fill a vacancy, or to meet new capacity requirements.