Render Network Foundation Monthly Report — August 2025
Overview of the Render Network ecosystem for August 2025, including a peek at largest ever art showcase rendered on a decentralized network, plus key metrics, Render Royale August winners, ecosystem partner highlights, and more.
The Render Network, in collaboration with ARTECHOUSE NYC, presents SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render
On August 21st, the Render Network Foundation announced SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render, the largest of its kind showcase of rendered immersive digital art. Bringing together 16 leading 3D artists, the show opens to the public on September 19th.
This first-of-its-kind exhibition is powered entirely by the Render Network’s decentralized GPU infrastructure. The decentralized network of idle GPUs makes it possible for independent artists to produce their work at speeds and scale previously only available to major studios. Artists are able to significantly cut both cost and production time using the Render Network.
Below is an overview of the artists participating in the exhibition, including legendary artists who’ve used the Render Network for years as well as newcomers and two 2025 Emmy winners.
Amrit Pal Singh is an independent visual artist and designer known for his unique 3D toy-like illustration style. His acclaimed series Toy Faces & Toy Room has been exhibited worldwide. He has been interviewed and featured by CNBC, Business Insider, Forbes, Daily Mail, Mid-Day, etc.
Blake Kathryn, a Los Angeles based visual artist working fluidly across the digital landscape. Fusing vibrant palettes with ethereal undertones, Blake creates dreamlike experiences across various subject matter and forms of media. Her work includes influences of art deco x nouveau, cinematography, science fiction, and solar punk.
Blake is joined by Maalavidaa, a French graphic designer and digital artist based in Montreal, Canada whose highly saturated, abstract aesthetic draws inspiration from Jungian therapy, color therapy, and meditation. Her work aims to explore the complexity of emotions through creative introspection as a path to increase emotional intelligence and mental health sensitivity.
Chelsea Evenstar is a digital artist creating dreamy, emotional landscapes rooted in celestial imagery and feeling whose work has been collected by Paris Hilton, auctioned at Sotheby’s, and featured at Beeple Studios’ grand opening.
Chelsea is joined by David Ariew, a renowned 3D artist known for his hypnotic infinite mirror animations and whose work has been showcased at global institutions including Sotheby’s, The Sphere, Artechouse, and Beeple’s grand opening exhibition. Chelsea and David collaborated on a massive digital stained glass installation for ZEDD’s Clarity encore at Coachella 2025.
FVCKRENDER, aka Frédéric Duquette, is a Montreal-based artist who pushes the boundaries of imagination and technology while blurring the lines between the physical and virtual worlds through his ambitious experiential art. His work, self-described as his therapy, has been featured in esteemed auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Notable clients include Ledger, Supreme, Hypebeast, The Hundreds, Swarovski, Dior, Avant Arte, Spotify, and TIME.
Gavin Shapiro is a digital artist whose ultimate goal is to produce work that makes you smile. He focuses primarily on playful conceptual artworks that explore how we can use digital tools to confront our expectations of what’s possible in a traditionally physical art world. He works on a large variety of projects including tv shows, commercials, outdoor displays, large-format stage visuals, and animations for casino games.
Jess Wiseman, a 24 year old 3D artist, creative technologist, and founder of the lifestyle brand Figuregot brings to her work self-taught experience across animation, design, and physical painting. Jess has built an audience by pushing the boundaries of what a solo creator can achieve. Known for her hyper-real textures and surreal product design, Jess has created work for the likes of: Samsung, KSI, Lil Nas X, Reebok, Clarks, Doja Cat, Snoop Dogg etc.
Josh Pierce is a digital artist known for his surreal landscapes and visionary imagery that blend natural environments with luminous, abstract energy forms. Using Cinema 4D, Octane, and original sound design, Pierce creates ethereal worlds that suggest the presence of the beyond in the here and now. His practice is rooted in a desire to translate moments of stillness and awakening into large-scale immersive environments, inviting audiences to step outside the noise of daily life and into a state of presence and wonder. Exhibited internationally and celebrated for his unique synthesis of spirituality and digital craft, Pierce’s work has become emblematic of a new era of visionary digital art.
Maciej Kuciara is a Polish artist and director who made his professional debut in 2004 whose signature artistic style merges cutting-edge technology and 3D graphics with traditional art and animation aesthetics to create a distinct visual experience.
Collaborating with Maciej for this show is Emily Yang (aka pplpleasr) a multidisciplinary artist and pioneering creative technologist shaping the future of entertainment. Blending art, storytelling, and technology, her work draws from anime, video games, and traditional Chinese and Japanese art to build cultural bridges and expand creative boundaries. Maciej and Emily are 2025 Emmy winners for their anime short film, White Rabbit.
MHX is a self-taught visual artist and generalist based in Istanbul. His work focuses on 3D generative art and experimental motion design, built through procedural systems and simulations.
Saad Moosajee is a visual artist and director who crafts dreamlike worlds characterized by intricate and emotional images. Moosajee’s collaborators include grammy nominated artists such as The Wu–Tang Clan, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Sampha, and Woodkid, among others. His work has exhibited and screened at The Hammer Museum, LA, Sharjah Art Museum, UAE, and Museum of Moving Image, NY.
Will Selviz is a Venezuelan-born, Canada-based immersive media designer and Afro‑Caribbean creative technologist. He co-founded Protopica and RENDRD Media, blending AI, XR, neuroscience, and culturally rooted storytelling. He directed Protopica, a generative short film using OpenAI’s Sora model that was selected for Sora Selects.
For this exhibition, Will is joined by Manuel Sansily, a TEDx Speaker, lecturer at Universities worldwide such as Harvard, Oxford & MIT, and one of the instructors behind the first-ever GenAI course on MasterClass (awarded a members favorite in 2024).
Woosung Kang is an art director and motion designer based in Los Angeles. He draws inspiration from sound to craft impactful visuals that merge cinematography and design. His work spans TV shows, music videos, commercials, and games, and has earned him recognition including an Emmy nomination and awards such as D&AD and CLIO. Notable projects include visualizers and concert visuals for ODESZA’s The Last Goodbye and Behind the Sun. Currently, he is expanding into XR as part of Apple’s Vision Pro team, focusing on the development of immersive content.
SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render runs September 19th through December 14, 2025. Tickets are available now. Save 25% on opening weekend (9/19–9/21) with code FIRSTLOOK.
Ecosystem metrics
The Render Network Foundation tracks various metrics on its network. Below is the aggregate view of the month’s activity, previous month’s activity, and month-over-month change for a few key metrics. Much of this information is found at stats.renderfoundation.com.
Glossary
Frames rendered — number of frames rendered by the network.
Burns — the USDC equivalent of RENDER tokens burned on the network. Additional burn and mint data and details of the burn and mint equilibrium model (BME).
Emissions — RENDER tokens minted for the month per the emissions schedule for BME.
Rewards to Foundation rendering node (RENDER) — RENDER token rewards issued (both for rendering jobs and availability) to the rendering node operated on behalf of the Foundation. The Foundation’s rendering node Solana wallet address is: AAHwFzKj8U1E7JyNBz2v561eXCz41Uv123xzjAYo3GdT
Foundation rendering node cost to operate (USD) — Cost, in USD, of running the Foundation rendering node in its geographic location. The price of running a node on the Render Network varies depending on geography, local energy market, local utility service and other factors.
Foundation rendering node kilo-watt hours (kWh) — Amount of energy consumed by the Foundation rendering node during the reported period.
Rewards for jobs — rewards sent, in RENDER tokens, to render node operators on the network whose machines were used to complete rendering jobs. Rewards are issued by epoch, which occur weekly.
Rewards for availability — rewards sent, in RENDER tokens, to render node operators who made their machines available to the network. Rewards are issued by epoch, which occur weekly.
Total rewards to nodes — the sum of rewards sent to render node operators for rendering and availability.
Governance updates
RNP-019 — The Render Network compute subnet trial underway with US customers
In August we started onboarding US customers during the trial rollout phase. As we continue to onboard the first few US customers, we still have spots open for US based node operators.
Node operators in the first cohort receive a one-time 20 RENDER bonus for helping us build and test the initial trial infrastructure.
Availability rewards as well as job completion rewards are issued per epoch to node operators, similar to the Render Network rendering subnet.
As a reminder, the Render Network compute subnet was approved in late April 2025. Development got underway in May to start designing and building the network specifically to handle AI workloads for customers. Recruiting of nodes began, and continues, with an initial US-based geographic rollout.
Community proposed RNP-020 — Node Operator Forward Guidance Policy
In August, a community member shared their proposal for adjusting the model of node operator rewards. The draft was shared in the Render Network Discord and a dedicated channel was created to encourage community discussion on the proposal.
While the community discusses and provides feedback, the Foundation will also assess the proposal from a technical implementation perspective and provide recommendations or feedback to the proposer as applicable.
To view the proposal, head to the Official Render Network Discord, and find the dedicated proposal discussion forum in the #rnp-020-node-operator-forward-guidance-policy channel.
If and when the proposal is moved into the voting phase, upon direction from the proposer, instructions for the voting process will be shared in the Discord channel as well as other official Render Network social media channels. Always refer to renderfoundation.com for links to official Render Network Foundation channels.
Who is behind the Render Network Foundation? An overview.
Managing the governance, product, security, and strategic initiatives behind the Render Network is a multi-team effort. While the work is led by a team of 15 dedicated staff who directly work for the Render Network Foundation, the efforts are substantially supported by teams of external resources, including service providers like OTOY.
The 14-person staff at the Render Network Foundation consists of four different groups:
- Operations
- Product/engineering
- Marketing and communications
- Community management
External resources include:
- Legal counsel
- Accounting and tax service providers
- Strategic support agencies (for example, public relations, content creators, event support vendors, designers, security auditors, etc)
Ecosystem partners and service providers also provide a significant amount of resources, including developers dedicated to building and maintaining the technology infrastructure that makes it possible for end-users to access and use the Render Network. That also includes product managers, data analysts, marketing support, and other functional teams.
Product updates
The Render Network expands rendering nodes
In August, the Foundation invited additional node operators to join the Render Network rendering subnet in order to add capacity to the network.
Did you know? The last time a large batch of new node operators were onboarded to the network, ETH wallet addresses were still required to onboard node operators for whitelisting wallets and syncing with the software client. Today, that is no longer necessary.
Next month we expect to have more data on network utilization and added capacity to share.
The Render Network Subnets: how we’re referring to each (sub)network
Now that the Render Network has two distinct and separate networks — one that has been the ongoing network dedicated to serving rendering needs, and the newly launched compute network — we are moving towards nomenclature that clarifies each of them:
- The Render Network rendering subnet (with rendering node operators)
- The Render Network compute subnet (with compute node operators)
The rendering subnet is the one most people are familiar with: it has been operating in its current format since 2020, enabling more than 58 million frames rendered.
The compute subnet refers to the recently approved and launched compute network serving the AI workloads and general compute use case. It is highlighted above under governance updates on RNP-019. We had previously been calling the Render Compute Network.
The subnet naming distinction makes it clear which network is which while retaining the Render Network name in a way that is recognizable to everyone.
Ecosystem Partners
This section highlights the Render Network ecosystem partners.
RenderLabs
RenderLabs, an ecosystem partner of the Render Network, recently announced their upcoming launch of Once Upon, a fully agentic way to create a personalized bedtime story for your child. Powered by the Render Network. We got a chance to take it for a test run and were impressed by the simplicity, speed, and quality of output.
Beta testing is opening soon so stay tuned.
About RenderLabs: created as a resource for builders looking for the best AI tools and agentic workflows, RenderLabs aims to help builders identify the best tools and agents to integrate into their specific projects. The team at RenderLabs evaluates tools best suited for developers’ specific needs based on quality, speed, accuracy, and ease of integration.
If you haven’t already, catch their demo from this year’s RenderCon.
OTOY — Artist spotlight: Yeti Pictures
Founded in 2018, Athens-based Yeti Pictures has grown from a three-person team into a 10-artist studio known for blending photorealism, storytelling, and experimentation. Their portfolio spans global campaigns for brands like Netflix, Nestlé, and Fiji Water, alongside ambitious personal projects such as SINS.
By balancing commercial work with R&D-driven explorations, Yeti continues to refine its craft while leveraging tools like Octane and the Render Network to push the boundaries of design, lighting, and visual narrative.
Read the full interview with Tony Zagoraios, founder of Yeti Pictures.
OTOY’s Jules Urbach shared his vision of the future of rendering at SIGGRAPH 2025
Jules Urbach, founder of the Render Network and CEO of OTOY, spoke about the future of rendering at SIGGRAPH 2025, the premier annual conference & exhibition on computer graphics & interactive techniques. The conference took place August 10–14 in Vancouver, Canada. Jules spoke on August 12th, at the NVIDIA RTX Rendering Day industry session.
From AI world models to decentralized inference and the path to the holodeck, watch Jules’ talk here:
In the News
NASDAQ Trade Talks on DePIN with Helium and Hivemapper
Trevor Harries-Jones, on the board of directors for the Render Network Foundation, talked with Jill Malandrino of NASDAQ Trade Talks, alongside Helium and Hivemapper leaders on NASDAQ Trade Talks on August 4th.
They talked about how DePINs (decentralized physical infrastructure networks) are changing the way essentially infrastructure can serve end-users. The Render Network, alongside mobile and mapping software, has added value while making services more resilient via decentralized user-driven models.
Three takeaways:
DePIN is accessible to mainstream audiences
On the supply side, building wireless solutions, maps & compute infrastructure requires a node, dashcam, or GPU, for which participants get rewarded. On the receiving side, users get real-world utility.
Crypto economic models power these projects but crypto isn’t front and center
Real-world apps like the Render Network, Hivemapper, and Helium solve real-world problems that the average individual can relate to; no crypto knowledge needed. Blockchain is used behind-the-scenes.
All three projects run on Solana
The Solana blockchain was chosen by all three projects due to low cost, faster performance, and a built-in community of viable DePIN projects.
Catch the interview here:
Check out the full transcript.
The Render Network highlighted in DLNews on AI crypto trends
On August 26, the Render Network was quoted in a story on how AI crypto projects have raised $516m in 2025. The story highlights how the quick pace of AI development is driving new asset classes such as datasets, autonomous agents, and fine-tuned models. The innovation behind is, however, is creating bottlenecks, specifically that of GPUs, which Trevor Harries-Jones, on the board of directors of the Render Network Foundation, addresses in the article.
Read the full article for more details.
Other Announcements
Render Royale: the Premier Monthly 3D Contest — August recap
Last month’s Render Royale invited artists to peer into dystopian tomorrows — shattered skylines, scorched earth, and re-imagined societies rising from the ruins — with the theme ‘Post-Apocalyptic Visions’. Entries did not disappoint!
Read about all the entries in the blog post.
Watch the entries here:
What’s coming up
Render Royale: The Premier Monthly 3D Contest, September 2025 Edition
Render Royale is the Render Network Foundation contest for artists/creators to submit their best 3D work using Redshift, OctaneRender, or Blender Cycles on the Render Network. Each month features a different theme and a new chance to win.
September’s theme is Architectural Marvels and we invite all world-builders, conceptual artists, and visionaries to share their archviz skills with the Render Network community!
Three winners per render engine will be selected each month. Winners take home a share of 5,250 USDC in prizes and get their work featured as part of a global showcase of great work.
Submissions for this month are open now until September 25th.
Criteria: must be rendered on the Render Network with Cycles, Octane Render, or Redshift.
Full details: renderfoundation.com/royale
Catch us at upcoming events
SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render
As covered in the Announcements section, this first-of-its kind art exhibition sponsored by the Render Network in collaboration with ARTECHOUSE NYC runs September 19th through December 14, 2025.
You can get tickets now to catch the exhibition. Save 25% on opening weekend (9/19–9/21) with code FIRSTLOOK.
Motion Plus Design, Sep 27th, Seoul
The Render Network Foundation is sponsoring three Motion Plus Design events this year. The curated motion design festival happens next on September 27th in Seoul. While we will not be attending the Seoul event in person, we will be sharing an overview from afar with the 2,700+ expected attendees.
