Useful compute, proven.
Cloudana is a decentralized datacenter. For matrix jobs, the work that earns a provider's CLD is the user's computation.
Independent providers contribute CPUs, GPUs, and servers. One orchestrator assigns all the work and sets the price — users never pick a node, and providers don't compete on price. Three roles: users pay for work, providers do it, and verifiers re-check it in public. For matrix jobs, Cloudana's Proof of Useful Work makes the proof and the useful result the same operation.
How it works
Flash and go. A provider installs the node agent once. It detects CPU, RAM, disk, and GPU, runs a benchmark, and binds to the provider's wallet with a one-time code. No spec forms, no price lists.
You say what to run; the orchestrator places it. Submit a job or a site. The orchestrator picks a node that fits by a random draw, sets the price, and handles placement. You never choose a provider.
Proof = product. For matrix jobs, the provider proves the work by computing it. The proof is the full transcript of the computation, and the decoded result is the answer you paid for. The orchestrator re-executes the σ-bound transcript and checks the answer with Freivalds.
Why the transcript is the proof
Cloudana's proof is the full transcript of intermediate computation blocks — not just the answer. In the construction it comes from, the answer can be shortcut with low-rank tricks; the transcript cannot. Here the orchestrator re-executes the transcript and checks the answer before anything mints, so a node that skipped the work is refused.
And that work is the user's matrix multiply — so the same operation yields the proof and a result somebody actually wanted. A seed issued at assignment binds each transcript to its job and node, and the orchestrator assigns paid inputs, so the provider can't precompute, copy, or swap in matrices of its own choosing. Only the orchestrator checks the transcript today; nobody else can check it more cheaply than by redoing the multiply.
After Komargodski & Weinstein, Proofs of Useful Work from Arbitrary Matrix Multiplication (2025). Our construction is cuPOW; the module is public in the repository.
Anatomy of a certificate
What runs today
- Live on testnet: GPU / CPU compute (verified matrix jobs) and static hosting — node agents serve your site through a Cloudana gateway and the orchestrator probes its content hash every minute. Hosting is paid by fees only, with no subsidy.
- Early access: containers (hardened fleet nodes only), AI inference, storage.
- Planned: CDN, DNS, TLS, DDoS shielding, WAF, edge functions, object storage, KV & queues, tunnels, zero-trust access, databases, confidential VMs, a website builder, an AI gateway, and desktops for agents.
How CLD is issued
Prices are in US dollars. You pay in CLD at the rate on your quote. When a verified job is paid for, the fee is burned and the provider who did the work is minted most of it — so new CLD exists only because someone paid for real, verified computation:
- Burn the fee, mint for the verified job. The whole fee is burned at settlement; the provider is minted 95 % of it and the treasury 3 %. A small, capped, declining subsidy of up to 4 % of the fee is added, for proven work only, when the orchestrator's random draw picked a provider in a genuinely independent cluster — so routing a job to yourself doesn't pay. If a settlement period's budget runs short, it is shared pro rata.
- Priced in US dollars, settled in CLD. The rate is a fixed $0.10 per CLD on testnet and, after listing, a one-hour average of the public CLD/USDC pool. Compute jobs are priced per tera-multiply-add plus a small base fee, moving with utilization; hosting, containers, workstations and GPUs have hourly prices. There is no oracle in settlement. Testnet prices are shown in dollars for reference; test CLD has no value.
- Minted per verified job, settled on Base in batches. Each epoch (hourly on testnet, daily at mainnet) is posted as a Merkle root, with a veto window and a guardian before claims open.
- Paying. If you hold another asset, your own wallet can swap it into CLD at the moment you pay; Cloudana never holds it. Cards are off during testnet. One static site per verified identity is free, paid for by the ecosystem treasury at normal fees.
- No stake to lose. A misbehaving node is unbound and banned. Verifier credits are points, not CLD.
Mainnet genesis is 100M CLD with on-chain vesting (whitepaper §6); testnet uses a fresh 1M token. Testnet CLD has no monetary value and there is no points or airdrop formula (see Terms §2). Supply depends on usage; see the 20-year simulation (a simulation, not a forecast). Nothing about CLD is a promise of price or return.
Status, stated plainly
Cloudana today is an orchestrator-coordinated testnet. Verification is the orchestrator's re-execution of each matrix job plus a Freivalds check of its answer; hosting and containers are probed. Browser verifiers can re-check public jobs, but their verdicts don't change outcomes. The planned trustless path is an on-chain Freivalds challenge against a bonded poster; until it ships, the orchestrator stays in the critical path, and we say so.
We'll claim decentralized verification when it's true, not before. Before CLD carries value, the contracts, the issuance rules, and these pages will be reviewed and versioned in the public repository.
What's different
- Proof of Useful Work for matrix jobs — proof and product coincide.
- One orchestrator, one price — prices in US dollars, paid in CLD, and placement is a random draw.
- Fee-first issuance — every fee burned, CLD minted per verified job.
- Plug-and-play onboarding — hardware detection, not configuration.