# RNP-022: Year 3 of BME Emissions Allocations | **RNP #** | **Title** | **Category** | **Authors** | **Created** | **Status** | |-----------|-----------------------------------------|-------------|---------------------------|--------------------|-----------| | 022 | Year 3 of BME Emissions Allocations | Funding | Render Network Foundation | 2025-12-05 | Implemented | --- ## Overview The purpose of the Render Network Foundation is **maintaining the core Render Network protocol and growing its community**. In **RNP-001**, the Render Network community voted to enact the **Burn Mint Equilibrium (BME)** model, a network economic mechanism. This includes: - Representing the Render Network in commercial contracts on behalf of the community - Overseeing grants designed to promote use of the Network - Overseeing the distribution of node rewards - Maintaining the operations of the Foundation In that proposal, **annual allocations are required**. This document sets forth **Year 3 of BME Emissions Allocations**. --- ## Reasoning It is worth reviewing the accomplishments across the Render Network in the **second year under the BME model** — passed in RNP-001 and revised in RNP-006. Year-to-date in **2025**, the Render Network community saw: - The first customer conference, **RenderCon**, launched and hosted - Network usage (denominated in euros) **+87% vs. 2024 YTD through October** - Note: this gap is anticipated to reduce by year-end, given the significant proportion of work done at the end of Q4 2024 - Supported the launch of a **new VFX workflow**, making the Render Network highly attractive for VFX studios - **377 artist grants** (since inception) - Tokens upgraded from Ethereum (**RNDR**) to Solana (**RENDER**) reached **77%**, with **423M RENDER** upgraded (through October) - Test launch of a dedicated **compute subnet** under **RNP-019** to capture AI growth in computing needs and the shift in compute for graphics rendering - Expanded and refined systems for the Network and Foundation operations - Passed **RNP-021: Expansion of RNP-019 to Include Enterprise-Grade Compute** Several of these developments are discussed in more detail below. --- ## 2025 Overview ### Funded 276 Artist Grants Across 25+ Countries In 2025 to date, the Render Network Foundation received **223 grant applications**. In total, **276 grants** have been issued so far this year, including: - Multi-part grants - Continuations for existing artists - Grants issued based on referrals Since inception, the Foundation has: - Received **331 grant applications** - Funded **377 total grants** The focus of grants has been to **push boundaries** and **integrate deeper into creator workflows**. Key grant recipients in 2025 include: - **Corridor Digital** – Integrated the Render Network into their full production pipeline, powering CG-heavy sequences across weekly online releases and establishing Render as **studio-grade infrastructure** for digital content. - **Samuel Cockings** – Continued a long-running fan film series across the Star Trek, Stargate, Star Wars, and Doctor Who universes, produced independently and rendered through the Render Network. - **Annibale Siconolfi** – Presented a new futuristic installation for W3Curates, expanding his architectural style into large-scale animation, showcasing the scalability of decentralized rendering for digital fine art. - **Blake Kimball / Bureaux** – Produced a cinematic trailer for **Pudgy Penguins**, rendered exclusively on the Render Network across a multi-month production pipeline. - **Woosung Kang / WAI VR** – Continued development of high-resolution immersive experiences for Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest, pioneering **8K stereo VR workflows** on the Render Network. - **Render Royale** – The Render Network’s monthly global art challenge showcasing the creativity and technical power of decentralized rendering. In 2025, Render Royale became a leading platform for emerging and established artists to **experiment, compete, and push the limits of visual storytelling**. - **ARTECHOUSE – SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render** – A landmark immersive exhibition and live demonstration of how decentralized rendering is redefining experiential art. - SUBMERGE transformed **ARTECHOUSE NYC** into a fully enveloping digital environment rendered entirely on the Render Network at resolutions up to **18K**. - Featured a lineup of world-class digital artists, Emmy-winning creators, and pioneers of the immersive medium. - Showcased how the Render Network empowers large-scale, high-fidelity artworks beyond traditional production limits. **Featuring:** - David Ariew & Chelsea Evenstar – *1685: Immersive* - Blake Kathryn & Maalavidaa – *The River Remembers* - Woosung Kang (VJ WOOO) – *Nebula Junkyard* - Maciej Kuciara & Emily Yang (pplpleasr) – *White Rabbit: Immersive Adaptation* - Will Selviz & Manuel Sainsily – *Protopica: Sin Agua, No Hay Tiempo* - Mhx – *LATTICE* - Gavin Shapiro – *Wingin’ It* - Josh Pierce – *Satori: The Infinite Now* - FVCKRENDER – *Infinite Field* - Jess Wiseman – *Cycle Reset* - Saad Moosajee – *Gravity Tomb* - Amrit Pal Singh – *The Adventures of the Toy Maker* --- ### Launched the Compute Subnet to Support AI Workloads The community voted on and passed **RNP-019**, enabling a new **Render Network compute subnet** to meet demand for: - AI workloads - General-purpose compute Key points: - RNP-019 allocates a **rewards pool separate from rendering nodes** - Gives the ecosystem greater flexibility beyond prior external compute partnerships - Positions Render to offer compute **directly** in a rapidly growing market The GPU industry is expected to reach **$353B by 2030**, up from **$83B in 2025**. In **late 2025**: - Operations and product teams developed foundational systems for the compute subnet - An initial cohort of node operators was set up - Customers conducted testing prior to wider release A **wider rollout** is expected in **2026**, targeting use cases including: - Inference - Offline and edge learning - Reinforcement learning - Image and video generation - Agentic AI platform development - Synthetic data generation - Other AI and compute-intensive workflows --- ### 2025 Onchain Network Usage - **+200% YoY** network usage (YTD) in **2024 vs. 2023** - **+87% YoY** network usage (YTD) in **2025 vs. the same period in 2024** Usage reflects: - Continued use from **repeat users** - Growing interest from **new users** discovering the network’s capabilities **OTOY**, a key ecosystem partner, continues to leverage the network, particularly for the **Roddenberry Archive**. The **Artist Grant** program further: - Prioritizes granting credit to render on the Network - Pushes boundaries of what can be achieved - Drives awareness among artists, creators, filmmakers, and other creatives Combined, these efforts: - Directly increase **Network usage** - Ultimately lead to **burning RENDER** as part of the BME process --- ## Foundation Operations In 2025, the Foundation focused on bolstering **growth initiatives and operations**, including improvements to **core network operations** for smoother, more reliable processes. Below are highlights by category. --- ### Communications, Marketing, & BD - Launched **RenderCon**, the inaugural customer and industry conference hosted by the Foundation - Brought together nearly **500** participants from entertainment, motion graphics, immersive media, GPU technology, and AI - Retained **specialist marketing skills in-house** - Empowered moderators/community support and created a **Node Operators Liaison** role - Unveiled **monthly reports** (from April), summarizing activity for the preceding month - Launched the monthly **Render Royale** contest for Octane, Redshift, and Blender Cycles - Launched an experimental collaboration with NYC’s first immersive digital gallery: **SUBMERGE** in January (4 artists) - Expanded **SUBMERGE** in the Fall to **16** top digital artists, with **12 pieces** rendered entirely on the Render Network - Sponsored an extensive **tutorial series** for VFX professionals with **Andrey Lebrov / Lebrov Motion Imagery** (60K YouTube views in first month) - Launched a **bounties program** for community-led content creation - Sponsored / attended major events, including: - Motion Plus Design conferences (multinational) - Christie’s Art+Tech Summit (NYC) - Permissionless (NYC) - ETHDenver - Solana Breakpoint (Abu Dhabi, as headline sponsor) - Collaborated with **80 Level** on a three-part thought leadership campaign with evergreen content and social/newsletter promotion - Launched **AI Spaces** series on X, featuring AI and agentic infra leaders - Resulted in up to **10× audience reach** vs earlier Spaces - Grew **Instagram followers by 21% YTD** - Facilitated **community governance discussions and proposals** --- ### Network / Development - Completed **Year 2** of the BME framework and rolled out operational/process improvements - Continued to support **token upgrades** from RNDR (ETH) to RENDER (Solana): - **49M additional tokens** upgraded in 2025 to date - For a **cumulative total of 423M** - Launched the **Bounties platform** for community contributions - Launched the **Compute Waitlist** platform for the compute subnet - Supported website development across: - RenderCon - Render Royale - Stats - Try Render - Facilitated: - **Transition of RNDR on Polygon → RENDER on Solana** - Deprecation of the legacy Polygon contract - Facilitated **RNP voting** and released a **voting delegation** feature - Launched a **rewards mechanism** for the compute subnet (RNP-019) - Supported an **automated burn process** related to render jobs purchased/performed - Supported a newly formed ecosystem partner, **RenderLabs**, primarily tasked with supporting compute --- ### Core Operations - Bolstered the team across **finance, backend, community, and marketing** - Onboarded new team members and built necessary processes - Managed **treasury and liquidity** - Enhanced **core reporting** around BME activity - Worked with professional advisors on **legal and jurisdictional matters** - Held **regular board meetings** and liaised with the Foundation Board - Reviewed and negotiated contracts supporting overall Network operations --- ## Projected Outgoings to the End of 2025 (~BME Year 2) _All figures in **millions of RENDER**._ ### Node Rewards — BME Year 2 | **Item** | **Amount (M RENDER)** | |-----------------------------------------------|------------------------| | Emissions | 1.48 | | Compute Client Availability & Job Rewards | -0.01 | | Node Operator Job Rewards | -0.80 | | Node Availability Rewards | -0.15 | | **Projected Balance for Future Allocation** | **0.52** | --- ### Grants — BME Year 2 | **Item** | **Amount (M RENDER)** | |---------------------------------------------|------------------------| | Emissions | 1.48 | | Grants | -0.80 | | **Projected Balance for Future Allocation** | **0.67** | **Projected Combined Network Treasury:** **4.91M RENDER** --- ### Foundation Operations — BME Year 2 | **Item** | **Amount (M RENDER)** | |--------------------------|------------------------| | Emissions | 2.95 | | Foundation Operations | -2.24 | | **Projected Balance** | **0.71** | **Projected Foundation Treasury:** **1.98M RENDER** > **Note:** > There is FX exposure in USDC-denominated loans which will impact these numbers as and when the loans are settled. These impacts are not included here, given that the effect will likely continue to change materially. --- ## Year 3 Budget Emissions during **Year 2** were **5.9M RENDER**, as confirmed by **RNP-001**. **Year 3 BME emissions** follow the same schedule: **5.9M RENDER**. Based on stakeholder feedback and a review of Year 2 activities, the proposed allocations for **Year 3** are: 1. **1.5M RENDER** – Artist and AI grants - Efficient and strategic allocation across: - Emerging artists - Big-bet artist-driven efforts - Drive AI and compute-related opportunities that grow awareness and usage - Support community rewards initiatives 2. **1.5M RENDER** – Node rewards across **rendering and compute** subnets 3. **2.9M RENDER** (50% of Year 3 budget) – **Operations, R&D, and growth initiatives** --- ### Node Rewards and Network Growth - Continue render network node operator rewards at current weekly levels: - **15K RENDER per week** for job rewards - **2.8K RENDER per week** for availability - Total: **17.8K RENDER per epoch** - ≈ **71K–90K RENDER per month**, depending on whether a month includes 4 or 5 epochs - Includes both **availability and job rewards** Additional context: - For the first time in years, after some node attrition, **new nodes were onboarded** to the rendering network to improve capacity and stability during spikes. - The **compute network** was developed and launched in a **test phase**. - Based on rapid growth in generative AI in **2025**, the separate **compute subnet** (RNP-019) was proposed, approved, and launched. - **RNP-021** proposed an expansion to include **enterprise-grade compute**, positioning the network competitively in a fast-evolving AI landscape. - An **alpha launch** of the compute subnet rolled out in the **US**, targeting: - Fine-tuning - Inference - Other LLM-related workloads - The **AI Scouts** program (launched 2024) provided positive signals for decentralized compute demand. - A for-profit ecosystem partner **RenderLabs** was established to explore and build products using the Render Network. **RenderLabs remit:** - Evaluate projects for: - Technical feasibility - Business value - Scalability - Alignment with ecosystem objectives **RenderLabs contributions:** - Build and test applications on the compute subnet - Identify commercial opportunities for network compute - Share infrastructure learnings and developments with ecosystem partners --- ### Grants Budget – 2026 Focus Grants in 2026 will be used to: - Increase outreach to: - Design/creative studios - VFX studios and professionals - Production houses - Support large-scale projects, such as **ARTECHOUSE’s SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render**, showcasing: - The network’s ability to process large, complex, multi-part projects at scale - High performance and speed - Leverage increased tool and rendering engine integrations and enhanced time-saving features - Support both individual artists and studios Grants may be used to: - Drive promising growth opportunities - Fund research and development in areas best suited to the Render Network’s capabilities - Evaluate and support **emerging AI builders** to help accelerate compute use cases --- ### 2.9M RENDER for Operations, R&D, and Growth The Foundation’s remit is to **maintain and grow the Network**. In 2025, this included: - Additions to the team across growth, community, and operations - Initiatives to drive: - Brand awareness - Usage growth - Streamlined operational workstreams In 2026, the Foundation will continue to: - Pursue relevant partnerships aligned with strategic awareness and usage goals - Support ongoing and future growth objectives across both rendering and compute subnetworks --- ## Ongoing and Future Objectives - Increase awareness of Render-integrated tools such as: - **Octane** - **Houdini** - **Blender Cycles** - Deliver “big bets” such as **quarterly tentpole events** that raise the profile and visibility of the network - Expand **RenderCon** into a **2-day event**, broadening both rendering and compute outreach - Accelerate business development with: - Dedicated BD talent - Supporting processes - Build out a **BD team for the compute subnet** and align incentives - Onboard **growth marketing** support to unlock and accelerate BD efforts for both rendering and compute - Continue to comply with **jurisdictional reporting requirements** - Support **implementation and funding of approved RNPs** - Continue to steward the **community proposal process**, including: - Encouraging proposals that drive network usage or operational improvements - Using refined processes from 2025 for 2026 proposals and votes - Maintain community communication channels: - Discord - Telegram - X (Twitter) - Use **regular Spaces on X** for: - Governance discussions - Initiative updates - Community engagement --- ## Stakeholders Impacted This proposal affects **all members of the Render Network community**, including: - Node operators - Artists and creators - Compute clients - Token holders - Ecosystem partners --- ## Implementation Plan If this RNP passes: - **Year 3 emissions** will be enacted for the **third year of the Burn Mint Equilibrium**, from: - **20 December 2025 through 19 December 2026** Under the existing process: - The Foundation will **continually review allocations over time** - Adjustments may be made as conditions change - The goal is to ensure **emissions are optimized** for overall Render Network needs --- ## Technical Considerations - None. --- ## Potential Drawbacks As with any **forward-looking budget**, initial allocations—based on estimated community needs—may diverge from evolving ecosystem dynamics or unexpected developments. As per **RNP-013**: - Monitoring for such events will help mitigate this risk - There is an opportunity to make **quarterly adjustments** as the year progresses