A decentralised digital content distribution protocol

Mission Statement

Society is becoming ever more dependent on content, however a small handful of gatekeepers control the distribution. These dominant powers have monopolised what we see, hear, play and buy.

Catalyst presents a paradigm shift in the way we consume, creating tens of thousands of promotors, and uniting the worlds developers to break the frightening dominance of the current monopoly.

This will be done through the creation of an open source distributed trust content protocol, with incentivised rewards for the promoters that drive its adoption.

Creators

Be featured in more places

Cut out the middleman

Unlock resale revenue

Promoters

Get paid for promoting content

Consumers

Purchase, rent, stream or re-sell PC Games, Movies, Music & eBooks

What is Catalyst?

Catalyst is an ecosystem for the distribution and consumption of digital content. It uses 'distributed trust' to cut out the middleman and a tangle structure to approve transactions.

Catalyst gives content producers absolute confidence to release their IP into the world and unite tens of thousands of promoters to consumers.

How Catalyst Works

Our technology does not rely on an underlying Blockchain support network. Instead we make use of directed acyclic graph (DAG) technology to keeps all transactions free - unlike Ethereum. It also gets faster as you scale, and has an unlimited number of transactions, theoretically.

NetworkTransactions/secondAverage Cost
Ethereum20$0.05
IOTA800Free

Roadmap

2017 Q4
2018 Q1
2018 Q2
2018 Q3
2018 Q4
2019 Q1
2019 Q2

Funding
Marketplace framework
Protocol development
Client demo
White paper released
Open beta
Launch

Dev
Team assembles
Corporate formation
Pre-seed round
'Friends & Family' raise up to $3M
$30M Private sale
$30M Public sale close

Funding

Dev

Marketplace framework
2017 Q4
Team assembles
Protocol development
2018 Q1
Corporate formation
Client demo
2018 Q2
Pre-seed round
White paper released
2018 Q3
Open beta
2018 Q4
'Friends & Family' raise up to $3M
Launch
2019 Q1
$30M Private sale
2019 Q2
$30M Public sale close

Learn how Catalyst works

Executive Summary

A one page executive summary of the Catalyst Protocol.

Business Whitepaper

More detail from both a product and technical standpoint, containing details on our ICO and how you can participate.

The size of the problem

In 2017

0+ PC games yet

4

shopfronts make
0%
of the sales
0+ movies but

2

platforms make
0%
of the streams
0+ million songs exist yet

3

platforms have
0%
of the streams

This is a broken system!

A lack of trust keeps the content locked up within closed platforms

  • Platforms should be rewarded for selling content, not stocking it
  • A lack of transparency and control of onward content resale has suffocated a huge potential market
  • Limited incentives exist for influencers and consumers to distribute content

True decentralisation is held back by content's reliance on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud

  • Our peer-to-peer network's efficiency increases as we scale and reduces hosting costs to zero
  • All Catalyst users are P2P hosts and are paid in CAT tokens for being so
  • We unite consumers to participate in our ecosystem to break the dominant hegemonies

In a tangle-powered, decentralised, truly open peer-to-peer marketplace all goods can be traded

  • In a system where trust is established through the wisdom of the crowd, you can scale any marketplace
  • The wisdom of the crowd, through distributed approval, you can massively mitigate fraud and dissatisfaction rates
  • A decentralised ledger can revolutionise fulfillment process through accelerated marketplace efficiencies

Use Cases

  • Powered by Catalyst
  • A decentralized gaming platform which allows for the rental, purchase and onward sale of games
  • It provides multiplayer gaming, video streaming and social networking services
  • Promoters rewarded for generating sales
  • Powered by Catalyst
  • A decentralised movie streaming service which allows for the rental, purchase and onward resale of video content
  • It provides free and unfettered access to all video content hosted on Catalyst
  • A place to earn crypto through hosting, sharing, and trading video content
  • Powered by Catalyst
  • A global app-based trading platform for CDs, Blu-Rays, Console Games and Books
  • Crowd-sourced fulfillment across 5 million + SKUs
  • Cheapest buy and trade-in prices through crypto-based ecosystem

Team

Ben Hardyment

A recognized and accomplished entrepreneur with 16 years of experience building and exiting platforms. He founded Zapper in 2009 which is still one of the leading re-commerce sites for DVDs, CDs, Games & Tech products. He previously founded Webflix in 2002, the first online DVD rental business in the UK with a successful exit to LoveFilm in 2005. He received a series record offer on BBCs Dragons’ Den.

Kasper Hunt

Veteran software engineer, Kasper led the engineering teams at PlayJam - a revolutionary TV games network - and was responsible for the design and delivery of the PlayJam Platform. With a strong background in embedded systems, having previously run worldwide R&D for an industry leading PCB/ATE manufacturer working with high profile customers including Apple, Raytheon, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, Foxconn and Cisco.

Barn Cleave

Fifteen years games and mobile experience – content and developer relationships, deep games market understanding. Experience with: Big Data, Corporate Business Development & Strategy, Digital Content & Electronic Distribution, Freemium, In-Game & Mobile Advertising, Micropayments, ODP (On Device Portal), Programatic Advertising and Web/Mobile Commerce.

Jasper Smith

During a career spanning 30 years, Smith has founded, co-founded and developed a number of highly successful businesses in the media, games, technology and engineering sectors Fantastic Corporation, The Optimistic Network, Static, PlayJam, Arksen, PlayStack and PlayWorks. PlayJam, initially backed by BSkyB, HSBC, Cazenove, became the world’s largest TV games network before being acquired by Open TV in 2001. Numerous of his other ventures have either listed or exited through trade sales generating in excess of $500m of shareholder value. He currently operates Vala Capital, a private investment firm.

Articles

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Frequently Asked Questions

Overview

What is Catalyst?

Catalyst is an open source distributed trust protocol built to facilitate and incentivize secure peer-to-peer distribution of digital content and assets.

What problem does it solve?

Currently, legal distribution of content is locked into closed systems such as iTunes, Netflix, Steam, Google Play and Spotify. It favours the big producers, all of whom compete for the coveted front pages. The system is a broken one as millions of products are ‘throttled’ by having a mere handful of gatekeepers.

How does Catalyst solve this problem?

Catalyst “cuts out the middleman” and diverts the 30% levied by the incumbent closed platforms and instead uses it to incentivize distribution via influencers and the consumers themselves via their own ‘stores’ which they can share to their own social network. They earn CAT cryptocurrency by doing so, and by convincing others to do so too. This top-down system has powerful network effects as by sharing content in this way, users will benefit from the activity of other users much further down the chain.

How does Catalyst work?

Catalyst is at once a business, and a technical and governance framework bound together which will allow content to be freely traded and distributed in an open decentralised way. Catalyst stores metadata, provides a licensing system and commission structure such that producers can release their IP into the ecosystem. A multitude of third party developers can build their own dApps to run on the Catalyst Protocol.

Who are the stakeholders in the ecosystem?

They are the creators of the content, the influencers that distribute it, the consumers that purchase it and critically, also the third-party developers that build dApps and versions of the universal Catalyst ‘Client’.

Can content be resold?

Indeed, and, within the commission structures built into the protocol, the original license holders will be remunerated such that they are equally motivated by the sale of a ‘second-hand’ product as they would be with a ‘new’ product, bought from the original ‘factory’. The content can be sold at any price, and on aggregate the market will dictate appropriate levels.

Organizational

What is the Catalyst Protocol Foundation?

It will be a Jersey-based non-profit entity and will operate as a democratic governance body for members of the Catalyst ecosystem.

Is this an open-source project?

Emphatically, yes, and we encourage others to build their own implementations.

Where is the development roadmap?

Please consult the White Paper where you will find details.

Is there going to be a Catalyst token launch?

Yes, please follow us on Twitter or read our blog to keep up with developments and the timing of this.

Business

Who are Catalysts partners and initial customers?

Via our first major “use case” – games.network – we have interest from a broad base of small and mid sized game developers keen to release their IP into the protocol. Additionally, we have a pool of many thousands of gaming Influencers, all keen to publicise games within the protocol itself.

Who are Catalyst’s main competitors?

Setting aside the big platforms such as Steam and Netflix, there are a number of examples of players entering the crypto arena. Some, such as LivePeer, built on the Steem blockchain and Viuly, built on Ethereum, compress content to make it available. Others are application level tokens for influencers and consumers such as PROPS, and the ill-fated Stream, both on Ethereum. Finally LBRY and Theta Labs, which are both new protocols which, like Catalyst, support third party dApps for video content.

What is the relationship between Catalyst and PlayJam?

A number of the founders were originally part of PlayJam, which is a business with a significant audience of both consumers, via their OTT platforms, and game developers. The original technology for Catalyst was incubated by PlayJam, and was built on $12M of investment into their marketplace platforms from Adobe Ventures and GameStop. PlayJam will provide, through its’ network, a multitude of developers and consumers to adopt the platform at launch.

Where can I go for more information?

You can follow us on Twitter and Medium, subscribe to our newsletter and keep an eye on this website.

Our White Paper gives you the full story on Catalyst and our plans.

Token and Distribution

Is Catalyst currently running an ICO?

Yes, and we are at the pre-ICO stage, raising up to $3M now, in order to most effectively launch our own public TGE in Q2 2019.

What is the target fundraise for the 2019 ICO?

The target fundraise is currently $30M with a soft cap of $5M.

What is the Catalyst Token?

Catalyst tokens are the native internal currency of the protocol and network. They are used to buy, sell and trade content, as well as used as commissions for hosting and recommending content to others.

Why is there more than one token sale?

The pre-ICO funds are necessary to further develop the protocol, use cases and ecosystem such that sufficient creators can be attracted to the project and strategic partnerships developed. We intend to build a community of motivated developers and creators to support the protocol and increase the likelihood of being embraced by the crypto community, and thereby giving our TGE a greater chance of success.

Does Catalyst have a demo?

We will shortly be releasing a demo games client called games.network - stay tuned to our newsletter and Twitter feed for details of it's release.

Are there discounts?

Yes, but only in this pre-ICO phase. The details of the ICO are in the White Paper. The intention is thereafter that all tokens will be offered at the same deal to all.

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