4EVERLAND, a comprehensive cloud service platform for Web3 at a glance

Author: Alex Xu, Mint Ventures Research Partner

1. Introduction

Recently, 4 EVERLAND, a Web3 integrated cloud service provider that has been established and operated for more than 4 years, finally conducted TGE. It started with decentralized front-end hosting services, and gradually expanded to Web3 gateways, custom decentralized storage solutions, RaaS (Rollup as a service), blockchain RPC, and AI RPC services, forming a set of product matrices around Web3 development needs.

In this article, the author will conduct research on some key issues of the project, providing readers with an intuitive impression of the project, including:

• Core products and business content of the project, main customer base
• Business data situation of the project
• Financing, main partners and token model

This article is the author's phased thinking as of the time of publication, which may change in the future. The views are highly subjective and may contain errors in facts, data, and logical reasoning. Criticisms and further discussions from peers and readers are welcome, but this article does not constitute any investment advice.

The following is the main text.

2. 4EVERLAND Business Overview

4EVERLAND is a Web3.0 cloud computing platform that integrates storage, computing, and network core capabilities, and belongs to a typical TOB project.

The underlying layer of 4EVERLAND consists of various computing, storage, bandwidth, and other needs required by developers. It integrates these resources into convenient and usable tools and APIs for developers, greatly reducing the threshold and cost for developers to independently access complex resources.

From the products already launched by 4 EVERLAND, there are Dapp hosting services and storage services built on decentralized infrastructure, as well as AI RPC services based on traditional internet technologies such as AI development. In addition, 4 EVERLAND has also built 4 EVER Network, which coordinates the supply and demand of a series of resources (storage, computing, network bandwidth), specifically:

Dapp Applications and Website Hosting

Websites built on centralized servers face many challenges including resistance to censorship and single point of failure (for example, after Tornado.Cash was sanctioned by OFAC, it was almost impossible to find a frontend that could be accessed directly). The hosting service of 4 EVERLAND can help developers host websites and decentralized applications (DApps) on multiple protocols, including IPFS, Arweave, ICP, and Greenfield of BNBchain. Developers are free to choose which underlying protocol to host on.

In addition, the 4 EVERLAND hosting service also provides some advanced features and capabilities, such as advanced caching (to enhance the performance and response speed of websites or applications) and CDN functionality (to improve the access speed of websites and applications in different regions globally), as well as automatic SSL certificate management and other security features, gateway services compatible with hosting protocols, reducing the maintenance costs for developers on the product frontend.

Currently, Dex syncswap on zkSync, Venus, the top lending platform on BNBchain, Astar, etc. are all using 4 EVERLAND's Hosting service.

Storage

4 EVERLAND can provide distributed storage services based on protocols such as IPFS, Arweave, and Greenfield. Its storage services greatly simplify the way developers adopt distributed storage services, and its 4 EVERLAND API is compatible with the AWS S3 API of traditional cloud services.

Currently, the well-known decentralized voting governance platform snapshot, decentralized identity protocol SpaceID, and Rollup project Taiko all adopt the storage service of 4 EVERLAND.

RPC

RPC services can be understood as the 'bridge' or 'communication interface' between programs (such as wallets and DApps) and the blockchain. Its function is to allow programs to communicate with the blockchain, retrieve data, or send instructions. 4 EVERLAND provides RPC services for most mainstream chains, so Web3 developers no longer need to run their own clients and can interact with various chains directly through the API.

everpay and permaswap, the projects in Arweave ecosystem, currently adopt the RPC service of 4 EVERLAND.

RaaS

The Rollup Stack of 4 EVERLAND uses OP Stack and Polygon CDK, and also introduces Arweave Data Availability (DA) which supports Perma Blobs archival service.

4 EVER Network

Compared to the modular services mentioned above, 4 EVER Network is a system that aggregates resources on the supply side. This system consists of two parts:

One is DePIN Aggregator, which directly targets existing mainstream DePIN networks, such as IO.NET\Akash for computing power, Arweave for storage, and Fleek\Menson for bandwidth, to aggregate these network resources for developers. It is currently online.

Even the top Depin network protocols currently have a large amount of idle network resources, and even among networks that provide similar resources, their standards are not unified. The role of the DePIN Aggregator is to provide a unified Depin resource interface for a large number of developers, enabling them to output custom, low-cost, and instantly available services, while also delivering business demands to various idle Depin networks.

Another part of the 4 EVER Network is 4 EVER Node, which directly aggregates various idle resources of users, including computing power, bandwidth, and storage, to provide resources for developers. This part is still under development.

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AI RPC

4 EVERLAND In addition to hosting, storage, RPC, RaaS, and 4 EVER Network, there is also AI RPC business, which provides a unified interface, accesses major mainstream AI models, and enables developers to access cutting-edge AI models more efficiently in business.

Business Model

4 EVERLAND'S BUSINESS MODEL IS RELATIVELY SIMPLE, THAT IS, USERS PAY FOR THE AGREEMENT BY USING 4 EVERLAND'S VARIOUS SERVICES. Currently, users have a certain amount of free usage quota, after which they need to pay according to the number of resources used.

3. 4EVERLAND Business Situation

3.1 number of users

According to official data, as of now, 4 EVERLAND has registered and generated resource consumption for more than 250,000 users.

In addition, developers will associate their github accounts in the 4 EVERLAND system, and when code updates occur, they will push requests to 4 EVERLAND, and then 4 EVERLAND will automatically help build and deploy the new version of the website.

The current daily active number of updates for 4 EVERLAND's associated accounts on Github is approximately 30000+.

Github developers' update push flow on 4 EVERLAND

3.2 Storage

4 EVERLAND is currently one of the early data storage service providers for Arweave and Greenfield.

In Greenfield, the amount of data stored in the past 7 days is 1.2 GB, ranking 4th.

In Arweave, its 7-day Bundle storage is 397.6 MiB, ranking 8th.

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3.3 Protocol Revenue

The protocol charging situation of 4 EVERLAND has not been open sourced yet. According to the information obtained by the author and the team's verification, the current monthly income of 4 EVERLAND is between $40,000 and $50,000.

4. Financing, Partnerships, and Token Models

4.1 Financing Situation

4 EVERLAND has conducted two rounds of public financing. The first round was in August 2021, with a financing of $1.5 million. Investors include Distributed Capital, FBG Capital, Bixin Ventures, Mint Ventures, etc. The second round of financing was in December 2023, with a financing of $2 million. Investors include Arweave, Waterdrip Capital, Bing Ventures, Arweave SCP Ventures, GTS Ventures, Web3.com Ventures, Hillstone Finance, Forward Research, etc., all of which did not disclose the specific financing valuation.

In addition, 4 EVERLAND has also received multiple official Grants from BNBChain, Polygon, Optimism, IPFS, Arweave, and ICP.

4.2 Partners

In the ecosystem partner map listed by 4 EVERLAND the day before yesterday, in addition to some representative projects mentioned in the business section, many public chains or L2 projects also have in-depth cooperation with 4 EVERLAND. Through the services provided by 4 EVERLAND, developers can develop and maintain projects on public chains more efficiently and conveniently. Some public chains and Rollup ecosystems will also directly purchase services from 4 EVERLAND. For example, Taiko is using 4 EVERLAND's gateway service and using storage services to manage the NFT of the project.

4.3 Token Model

4 EVERLAND announced its token model on December 9th, with the following details:

• The project has dual tokens, with Land as the payment token, priced in USD, used to pay for various resource costs, and for repurchasing the governance token 4 EVER; 4 EVER is the governance and utility token.
• The total supply of 4 EVER tokens is 10 billion, issued on Ethereum.
• The specific token allocation is as follows: Node rewards 40%, community fund 15%, operating fund 10%, user rewards 5%, the remaining portion includes token sales 15%, core team and advisors 12%, as well as initial liquidity and market making funds 3%.

Based on the current secondary market price (December 16th), the corresponding FDV of the 4 EVERLAND project is only about 60 million US dollars, and the current circulating market value is only 4.8 million US dollars.

5. Summary

As a Web3.0 cloud service platform integrating storage, computing, and network core capabilities, 4 EVERLAND aims to provide convenience of resources and tools for Web3 developers. In addition, the built 4 EVER Network is a system that aggregates resources on the supply side, matching various idle Depin network developer needs, and providing developers with more lightweight, affordable, and diverse Web3 comprehensive resources. With the further advancement of the Web3 industry and the expansion of the developer community, the resource demand on the Web3 D side will also expand, from which 4 EVERLAND will benefit.