Dispatch Labs
Enabling the Decentralization of Data-driven Applications

Known as “DJ Eth Ledger” in the musical world, Zane Witherspoon has a real passion for music. “But that doesn’t overpower my exuberance for blockchain,” says Witherspoon, the co-founder and CTO of Dispatch Labs. And that’s how it all started. While having a conversation with his long-time friends— Matthew McGraw, and Patrik Wijkstrom— Witherspoon hit upon a brainwave: “how cool would it be to connect fans and musicians through blockchain, as it’ll completely change an artist’s life by cutting out the middleman.” iTunes typically takes about 30 percent of the cost at which each song is sold for. Instantly intrigued by Witherspoon’s idea, the trio started looking for answers and soon realized that data on shared ledgers was a massive pain point for anyone in the industry. Most business applications use way more data than could reasonably be put into a shared ledger. With an aim to enable business applications to easily migrate to the blockchain without sacrificing speed or functionality, Witherspoon, McGraw, and Wijkstrom founded Dispatch Labs, a distributed network for programmable information.

The trio looked at the music industry first where their technology could help artists to keep 100 percent of their sale. Over the next months, Dispatch devised solutions for Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems, IOT data collection systems, and AI/Machine Learning training data.

The firm is the first distributed ledger protocol to leverage on-chain smart contracts for managing the storage and utilization of distributed application off-chain data. The Dispatch protocol extends the functionality of existing Dapp platforms by integrating the management and distribution of off-chain artifacts, or programmable data, on the Dispatch Artifact Network (DAN). “The Dispatch protocol is a shared ledger that grows linearly while the data it manages grows exponentially,” explains Witherspoon.

Content Delivery Networks, streaming services, peer-to-peer marketplaces, and big data analytics are just a few of the use cases which will now be able to decentralize with Dispatch

By moving to a distributed architecture, these business applications become much less susceptible to hacking or security breaches and cost-effective to deploy and manage.

The Dispatch network is a combination of new innovative protocols as well as existing ones that are widely adopted in current distributed systems. Witherspoon himself invented the new Delegated Asynchronous Proof-of-Stake (DAPoS) consensus algorithm utilized by the Dispatch protocol. The new consensus means Dispatch isn’t exactly a blockchain, but still a distributed ledger that can process several orders of magnitude more transactions per second than Ethereum or Bitcoin. This consensus works together with off-chain operability protocols developed by the Dispatch Labs to create a system with a more extensive Dapp functionality with zero transaction costs. Dispatch’s architecture facilitates many use cases which seems like unrealistic projects on existing blockchains. “Content Delivery Networks, streaming services, peer-to-peer marketplaces, and big data analytics are just a few of the use cases which will now be able to decentralize with Dispatch,” says Witherspoon.

As Dispatch enables a new ecosystem, it is the goal of the team to create and support the growing Dapp ecosystem. This support and development will focus on three main areas: education, community, and financial support. As such, the firm’s roadmap will address not just the technical development, but the additional ecosystem support needed for Dispatch to thrive. With the acceleration of the blockchain technology into the business world, Dispatch Labs will support, fund, and incubate external projects which will benefit the overall ecosystem, and provide value to end users and business clients. Additionally, Witherspoon informs that as Dispatch Labs grows in size, technology, and personnel, extra resources will be made available by the company to benefit all of the above directives, including assisting with education, community, and third-party projects as needed.