Whitepaper


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01 Legal Disclaimer

This whitepaper is for information purposes only and may be subject to change. Gather cannot guarantee the accuracy of the statements made or conclusions reached in this whitepaper. Gather does not make and expressly disclaims all representations and warranties (whether express or implied by statute or otherwise) whatsoever, including but not limited to: - any representations or warranties relating to merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, description, suitability or noninfringement; - that the contents of this document are accurate and free from any errors; and - that such contents do not infringe any third party rights. Gather shall have no liability for damages of any kind arising out of the use, reference to or reliance on the contents of this whitepaper. This whitepaper may contain references to third-party data and industry publications. As far as Gather is aware, the information reproduced in this Whitepaper is accurate and that its estimates and assumptions are reasonable. However, there are no assurances as to the accuracy or completeness of this information. Although information and data reproduced in this Whitepaper are believed to have been obtained from reliable sources, we have not independently verified any of the information or data from third party sources referred to in this whitepaper or ascertained the underlying assumptions relied upon by such sources. This whitepaper does not constitute advice nor a recommendation by Gather, its officers, directors, managers, employees, agents, advisors or consultants, or any other person to any recipient of this paper on the merits of participation in the Gather Token Sale. Participation in the Gather Token Sale carries substantial risk that could lead to a loss of all or a substantial portion of funds contributed. No promises of future performance or value are or will be made with respect to Tokens, including no promise of inherent value, no promise of continuing payments, and no guarantee that Gather (GTH) Tokens will hold any particular value. Gather (GTH) Tokens should not be acquired for speculative or investment purposes with the expectation of making an investment return. No regulatory authority has examined or approved any of the information set out in this Whitepaper. No such action has been or will be taken under the laws, regulatory requirements or rules of any jurisdiction. The publication, distribution or dissemination of this Whitepaper does not imply that applicable laws, regulatory requirements or rules have been complied with. Gather (GTH) Tokens could be impacted by regulatory action, including potential restrictions on the ownership, use, or possession of such tokens. Regulators or other competent authorities may demand that Gather revises the mechanics and functionality of Gather (GTH) Tokens to comply with regulatory requirements or other governmental or business obligations. Nevertheless, Gather believe they have taken commercially reasonable steps to ensure that its planned mechanics are proper and in compliance with currently considered regulations.

02 Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This whitepaper contains forward-looking statements or information (collectively “forward- looking statements”) that relate to Gather’s current expectations and views of future events. CAUTION REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS In some cases, these forward-looking statements can be identified by words or phrases such as “may”, “will”, “expect”, “anticipate”, “aim”, “estimate”, “intend”, “plan”, “seek”, “believe”, “potential”, “continue”, “is/are likely to” or the negative of these terms, or other similar expressions intended to identify forward-looking statements. Gather has based these forward-looking statements on its current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that it believes may affect its financial condition, results of operations, business strategy, financial needs, or the results of the token sale or the value or price stability of Gather (GTH) Tokens. In addition to statements relating to the matters set out here, this whitepaper contains forward-looking statements related to Gath- 3r’s proposed operating model. The model speaks to its objectives only, and is not a forecast, projection or prediction of future results of operations. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and analysis made by Gather in light of its experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments and other factors it believes are appropriate, and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this whitepaper are based upon what Gather believes are reasonable assumptions, these risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors could cause Gather’s actual results, performance, achievements, and experience to differ materially from its expectations which are expressed, implied, or perceived in forward-looking statements. Given such risks, prospective participants in this token sale should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

03 Contents

04Introduction
05Solution - A Multi Layered Structure
06Gather Online
07Gather Network
08Gather Cloud
09Gather Enterprise
10Gather Foundation
11Token Utility
12Token Economics
13Current use + Limitation

04 Introduction

Digital Advertising

Advertising revenue is extremely important to the Internet sector. Advertising generates the vast majority of revenue in the search and social media portions of the Internet industry. Google, Yahoo and Baidu all rely heavily on income from advertising with Google and Facebook earning more than half of all advertising revenue.

TThat being said, sales of dead-tree media have fallen dramatically over the past 20 years, but as of 2011, a print reader was worth 228x more than an online reader in terms of revenue generated per-reader. Premium postings, banner spaces, pop-up and sidebar ads generate commissions from sales or click-through rates that websites often depend on for their very survival. At least, the ones that want to stay away from the subscription- based model and still maintain unique, high-quality content.

However, this is not without its drawbacks. The revenue-from-ad model is considered intrusive and can adversely affect user experience, which can result in higher bounce and dropout rates. As a result, websites that become too dependent on advertising can actually be losing visitors and customers. The rise of ad blockers, intrusive pop-ups, privacy and data breaches, discriminatory payouts, fraud, censorship and increasing user resentment have left publishers, website and applications owners looking for alternative solutions. With increase in privacy breaches, users are opting for ad blockers which in turn incurs huge losses for advertising industries.

Cloud Computing

The practice of using a network of remote servers to host, manage, and process data is defining what we know today as Cloud Computing. The Cloud offers countless benefits from cost effectiveness, to operational agility to reliability. According to a report published by Gartner, the Cloud Computing Market has grown from 197 Billion USD to 228 Billion USD with a 16% compound annual rate growth (CAGR) from 2018 to 2019. By 2020, the market size is expected to reach 266 Billion with a 17% CAGR. The market is dominated by major players such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, IBM, Alibaba Cloud.

As the market keeps growing, the cost of computing is increasing as there are very few select companies providing these services; compute tasks & data are controlled and dependent on these centralized entities, creating a single point of failure while millions of machines have idle resources waiting to be utilized.

Source: Gartner (November 2019)

Cryptocurrency Mining

The usual cryptocurrency mining requires too much computing power and expensive data-processing centers, which consume enormous amounts of electricity. This model is also susceptible to a malicious threat called “cryptojacking” as evidenced by the recent 51% attack suffered by Verge, formerly known as DogecoinDark.

In 2018 51% attacks costed blockchains 28 million USD in losses. Blockchain startups are the major focus of 51% attacks which stops them from growing. These attacks need to be prevented beforehand.

Based on a report published by Market Reports World, in 2018, the global Cryptocurrency Mining market size was 790 million US$ and it is expected to reach 6.35 billion US$ by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of 29.7% during 2019-2025.

05 Solution - A Multi Layered Protocol

Three layers build the backbone of the Gather Ecosystem:

Layer 0: Gather Online - The hardware layer, where processing power is collected from publishers.

Layer 1: Gather Network - The protocol layer, a hybrid proof of work and proof of stake blockchain, where stakeholders are incentivized to maintain transparency and security.

Layer 2: Gather Cloud - The application layer, where processing power is redistributed to enterprises at lower costs and to blockchain developers to secure their networks without sourcing miners.

Our Ecosystem is derived from processing power generated by the hardware layer and flowing securely back to the application layer, via the protocol layer.

The stakeholders are incentivized with Gather ($GTH) coin to generate revenue by providing processing power for the hardware layer and to maintain a healthy network for the application layer.

06 Gather Online - The Next Step In Digital Monetization

When we take a look at the in-browser/in-app miners to date, several have been deployed to use the visitors’ extensive computing power to create new coins in exchange for an ad-free browsing experience. The technology in question essentially takes over users’ web browsers to mine cryptocurrency, thus making money by using the site's visitors’ computers to mine cryptocurrency. The cryptocurrency miners were adopted by the likes of The Pirate Bay, UNICEF, Alluc and others. Other sites like Clean Water have also turned to cryptocurrency miners to raise funds for charitable causes like disaster relief. This has allowed these sites to offer users an ad-free browsing experience with an opt-out option and rewarding the user if he chooses to let the miner run while providing a stable revenue source for the website.

In-browser miners are increasingly seen as a potential supplement or alternative to digital ads, which are notorious for being disruptive and insecure. Many others have followed in the footsteps of early adopters like The Pirate Bay in supporting in-browser mining to reduce ads. Rather than having pictures and videos spread across a website, users can offer the computing power of their PC or mobile and mine cryptocurrency for the website owner. The implications of this are huge!

Given the size of the total addressable market (TAM) of live websites, which is 2,500,000,000 there is a lot of potential for this mining technology in the future. Especially if websites were to offer it as an optional alternative to traditional advertising. If users were willing to offer their computing power to replace adverts, and if the website owner could be trusted to limit the computing power requested, the technology could be added into websites safely and effectively for everyone involved.

Because cryptocurrency is “the internet of money,” it is proving to be a better way to monetize the internet. An in-browser cryptocurrency miner provides a more straightforward approach to content monetization. When you integrate a script into your website, you are effectively using the processing power of cooperative visitors to mine any cryptocurrency. All proceeds are split between a chosen crypto address and the script’s creators, who receive a share. Depending on the number of visitors your site receives and the time those visitors spend on the site profits from an in-browser miner may allow you to forego or supplement other monetization options such as ads, paywalls, donations, and subscriptions. If the level of processing power usage is customizable and set at a reasonable level, it will not affect users’ devices and cause them to blacklist your site. Maintaining a transparent policy about using visitors’ processing power for web mining will prevent any backlash or malware accusations. Ideally, web mining should be an opt-in process. This way a large number of new users are introduced to cryptocurrency and incentivized to generate revenue for websites. These are the essential points that will be addressed by Gather Online.

Gather adopts a new approach to in-browser mining with the introduction of a versatile native coin along with merged mining. The GTH coin works well with both browsers and apps, and has no UI issues, thus allowing new and existing coins to use Gather’s hashrate. Ultimately, this new model provides better profitability for web-miners, less centralization and a solution to a host of other issues commonly associated with new coins and low hash rates.

Gather provides website and application owners an alternate/additional form of non-intrusive monetization. The core revenue model proposed to websites is to earn simple commissions from the pool fees, and computational power of their visitors. Website and application owners can integrate the Gather code with their respective platform(s) to earn additional revenue via their users’ CPU and GPU computational power to mine cryptocurrencies.

A CPU and GPU web-based miner that can pay out in Gather coins, BTC or local currency where supported. The script can handle large loads of websites and/or applications and their users. Mandatory consent is built in to ensure transparency and user privacy protection. Webmasters will be able to choose to let users browse for free a portion of their website(s) while visiting other sections will prompt a pop-up for opting in. Once the Gather code is installed on a site by integrating a code or in an app via SDK, website visitors and application users can elect to provide their processing power to Gather Online.

Employing the POS model in combination with our own blockchain will reduce operational costs and introduce staking will help add value to the coin and further secure the network. If the website submits the correct hash, the webmaster enables the block, grows our ecosystem, and adds value to the Gather coin. The system then rewards the webmaster with a payout, which can be in crypto currency, BTC or, where permitted, in cash. Publishers would be split into different mining pools, based on their hashrate i.e. Small, Medium and Large. Each of them would have a separate pool so that each of the publishers would be rewarded fairly. Based on the network load, Gather Cloud services will also be able to utilize the said processing power to supply affordable processing power to enterprises and to other crypto networks for security.

Gather’s payout system is developed to support payouts in Bitcoin, Gather coins or, where permissible, in local fiat currency.

We will continue to develop and expand Gather’s functionality with additional features in the future, such as a Paywall Program that will allow webmasters to collect payments in Gather coins in lieu of website mining. This feature will be optional - the webmaster can choose whether to make it mandatory or not.

There will also be a loyalty program where the rewards for mining will promote user loyalty and incentivize more time spent on participating websites, which can be added into a web based staking wallet, earning users interest.

The market for in-browser mining is in desperate need of a new, improved and secure solution like Gather that will excel where existing miners failed. As of March 2019, one of our main competitors, Coinhive, has shut down services due to the drop in the hash rate following the hard fork and algorithm update of the Monero network. Compared to remaining crypto miners, Gather has the basis to become the next dominant force on the legal in-browser mining scene with the innovative extension to the Gather Cloud services.

07 Gather Network

Gather Network is the underlying protocol layer of the marketplace based platform where publishers meet with enterprises and developers, aiming to bring the usage of blockchain to the mainstream by bridging the gap between websites and normal users, promoting transparency, security and rewarding all participants.

Web Staking Wallet

As an addition to our loyalty program, Gather will introduce a web based staking wallet. The benefits are that any coins that are earned by visitors can then be automatically sent to a web based staking wallet, allowing both the user and publisher to earn interest on their stake with ease. This encourages people to take control of their finances rather than leaving their private keys in the hands of third party services. The more cryptocoins miners stake, the higher their power to validate transactions on the Gather blockchain will be.

Masternodes & Lite Nodes

Gather will use a web lite chain with a compressed web-lite blockchain node that is locally stored on the browser for very specific purposes only, leaving out much of the heavy data - thus making it feasible. The rest of the data will be on Masternodes which host the full blockchain - the web lite server syncs with the masternode - Masternodes are mandatory and web-lite chains will not work without them. This model promotes simplicity as it lowers barriers of entry by orders of magnitudes and will foster mass-adoption of cryptocurrencies. The main purpose is to establish consensus quickly to prove their accounts’ balances and send transactions into the network.

A Gather Masternode is a 24/7/365 dedicated server connected to the blockchain network which adds an additional layer of stability and two additional levels of functionality to the network. The additional functions are increased transaction speed and enablement of Gather’s services. The masternodes feature is built to enhance Gather’s security capability and will be available to verified and vetted business and government institutions and will act as a secure information gateway on the blockchain. Any wallet or transaction on the Masternode will be encrypted with the IP addresses auto-changed. These wallets and transactions are invisible to prying eyes to meet institutional security pre-requisites.

Merged Mining And Auxiliary Chains

Gather’s blockchain will support merged mining via auxiliary chains. The parent Gather chain is better suited for browsers and apps, allowing new and existing coins to use its hashrate. By doing this, at scale we would be able to provide better profitability for web-miners and more importantly stop centralization and a host of other issues commonly associated with new coins and low hash rate. The parent chain needs no additional work to participate in merged mining. And the only additions to its blockchain are the auxiliary chain hashes that are added to its transaction tree. Smaller blockchain projects can use merged mining to tap into the hashing power of Gather’s larger parent chain. Ideally, miners would have no issue in switching to merged mining because they receive increased rewards for the same amount of work.

Smart Contracts

Gather will introduce Smart Contract capabilities that will enable the unification of blockchains through Gather and private masternode networks.

Every auxiliary chain that forks/clones off Gather will inherit Gather’s built-in smart contracts functionality. The more auxiliary chains, the more interoperability there will be between different chains which are part of the Gather ecosystem.

Gather Block Details

The chain itself starts as an unlimited supply blockchain that then transitions into a limited supply blockchain based on the below trigger factors:
1) Sustained volume over time
2) Processing power sustained over time
3) Number of top end participants (Publishers & Applications)
4) Number of active forks of a predefined chain size

Coins mined in a day ~115,200

Coins mined in a year ~42,048,000

Once the initiation of trigger events only 1,314,000 new blocks will be made, which is approximately 60,000,000, coins which takes about 5 years to mine.

08 Gather Cloud

A unique solution offered by our platform to take advantage of the processing power gained from publishers and applications to the benefit of businesses by reducing the costs of processing data both on-premise and in the Cloud and to the benefit of crypto networks by allowing Proof of Work blockchains seamlessly integrate with Gather chain without the need to find a new community of miners.

Gather Cloud provides an alternate mechanism/source of processing power obtained at a significantly lower cost and higher flexibility in use, coming from Gather’s network of publishers. This will essentially lower operational costs incurred by enterprises from processing said data and allow Proof of Work blockchain developers to initiate their chains without the miners.

By integrating merged mining – the mining of two coins simultaneously from a similar algorithm – Gather Cloud offers additional benefits to miners, publishers will end up earning more coins as an addition to the coins they mine. New coins looking to launch could fork off Gather into XYZ-G, which effectively allows them to utilize the hashrate of Gather Network. Thus solving the issues of low hash rate.

Giving lesser-known cryptocurrencies the chance to have their coins merge mined with the Gather blockchain will help secure the newer and less popular blockchain. It’s about making things easier and more rewarding for miners by increasing their chances of gaining a reward for their work without much added cost.

Our vision for Gather is a new in-browser/in-app miner that provides more utility to both miners and website owners alongside enhanced security, user experience and functionality.

09 Gather Enterprise

Gather will integrate a one stop shop for all related crypto issuance needs of companies. This will give enterprises the option to develop and launch their product/service on the GTH chain payable in USD. The chain launch, development, and mining (since the coin would be merge mined with GTH, and GTH would be mined by websites and applications) are all covered under the service. capabilities.

10 Gather Foundation

The Gather Foundation is the governing body of Gather Network. Part of the capital raised during the token sale will be allocated to the Gather Foundation.

The purpose of the Gather Foundation is to help grow our community initially through rewarding grants ( both in GTH and FIAT ) from the treasury to promising ecosystem builders.

The Foundation is an independent entity made up of 12 members. In order to remain integral to our ecosystem, only two members from Gather’s operating entity (Gather Enterprise) have a seat at the Foundation. The rest of the members comprise of third-party stakeholders.

11 $GTH Token Utility

12 Token Economics

Gather will use the ERC-20 standard for the token sale. Once the native Gather blockchain is ready we will transfer over to our own chain. ERC-20 GTH holders will go through a coin swap process at the ratio of 1:1.

13 Current Uses & Limitations

Although the idea of browser mining is attractive to people who find adverts disruptive on websites, it has received mixed feedback as a potential alternative to their traditional ad banners. The concept is still in an early adoption stage and there were only a handful of mining scripts till now. As a first mover, CoinHive was the leader on the market, controlling the majority of websites & apps (approximately 32,000) but the Javascript-based miner has also become a favourite among malware developers. The other major player – JSE Coin – was limited by the lack of a way to exchange JSECoins for other crypto or fiat currencies as well as its lottery-based model, which made payouts less predictable. The rise of these in-browser miners and their associated problems are keeping the technology from evolving to a place that’s more secure. On top of that, more malware scanners are on the alert and rolling out features capable of detecting and blocking unauthorised crypto mining scripts. At least two ad blockers have added support for blocking Coinhive's JS library — AdBlock Plus and AdGuard. In addition, developers have also put together Chrome extensions that scan a user’s browser and terminate anything that looks like Coinhive's mining script — AntiMiner, No Coin, and minerBlock. This will require a new and improved method for mining cryptocurrencies with the user’s consent introduced to offset the damage that has already been done. But according to a report published by security firm Malwarebytes, the AuthedMine code is “barely used” compared to the use of Coinhive’s mining code that does not seek permission from website visitors. At the time of writing, with 32,000 sites running the original Coinhive mining script, just under 1,200 sites were running AuthedMine. Since actual malware such as cryptojacking scripts are viewed as less of a threat than trojans or other viruses people are less likely to install blocking scripts. This is in part due to the fact there is no real damage to a system other than slowing it down.

With regards to cloud computing, although costs can be reduced drastically with the serverless approach, the application has to be use case-specific and there is no one size fits all solution for the time being. Application portability is the ability to migrate an application across cloud platforms and usually once applications go live in production, the developers as well as procurement teams do not tend to move them to avoid service disruptions, lengthy sales cycles for integration which can cause companies to spend additional manpower for certain periods of time. On the other hand, using external sources such as public cloud services is a major consideration for enterprise firewall and security protocols, limiting choices to top tier companies offering higher costs over new players with alternate affordable solutions.