Morpheus, a blockchain project developing a decentralized artificial intelligence compute network, announced Monday on X that it has launched its platform for empowering AI smart agents.
The project’s network is designed as an open-source peer-to-peer platform for general-purpose “personal” generative AI run using blockchain technology. The company said that it intends to use the decentralized nature of blockchain technology to combat the dangers of centralized AI technologies that can be censored, controlled and operated as walled gardens, putting the power back into the hands of users and developers.
Web3, or blockchain technology, operates peer-to-peer and uses smart contracts to execute logic where operations self-execute when certain conditions are met on the network. That means software can be written without the need for centralized corporations or middlemen. Morpheus seeks to provide interfaces to run open-source large language models as part of a decentralized cloud to allow developers to take advantage of this new model.
In a whitepaper written about the project, Morpheus calls itself a “Linux-type alternative for developers.” It allows developers to spin up LLMs quickly at no cost and allows users to maintain control over their own business and personal data. That helps avoid data leaks, hacks and potential losses of sensitive information to competitors that can happen when using centralized models controlled by other services.
Morpheus is Web3-native, meaning that people can use their access to AI models to connect cryptocurrency and blockchain infrastructure directly. As a result, developers can use their LLM to buy and sell crypto tokens and stablecoins and interact with decentralized finance. That’s something that only specialized AI systems built for particular blockchains can currently do.
The platform was developed using the codebase for Lumerin, a protocol that runs on the Arbitrium blockchain. Arbitrium is one of the largest Ethereum layer 2 blockchain scaling solutions that includes smart contract capabilities.
“The world’s most powerful AI systems are being controlled by a handful of companies,” said Ryan Condron, Lumerin’s co-founder and project leader. “At Lumerin, we’re on a mission to decentralize AI compute, breaking down these walls to make AI accessible and equitable. Morpheus represents a future where everyone has control over their data and privacy, free from censorship or corporate interference.”
Morpheus initially launched a public testnet in July. This is an experimental preview for developers to prepare and test applications before launching its main service. Today’s announcement brings its mainnet online, which is where LLM compute and storage will be deployed.
As a blockchain-based project, Morpheus provides an incentive for developers and users — crypto token rewards called MOR. Builders working on applications for end users, including smart agents, front ends, decentralized apps and tools can receive MOR as rewards. The network can also be strengthened by users supplying compute power through running nodes to process user queries and be rewarded with MOR based on demand and performance.
