Mass adoption requires wide distribution, that's why 99% of all bytes and blackbytes are to be distributed for free. Currently, we use several ways to distribute them:

- Cashback for purchases at the merchant stores we partner with. In most cases, the offered cashback is 10% of the purchase amount.
- Fill out the application form or contact us if you run a store or a payment processor and want to be part of the cashback program.
- Verification rewards and referral rewards to those who verify their real name.
- Verification rewards and referral rewards to those who verify their email address.
- Verification rewards and referral rewards to those who verify their Steem account.
- Verification rewards and referral rewards to accredited investors who verify their accredited status.
- Rewards to those who pass a quiz in Telegram.
- Subsidies that offset part of the fees paid when buying Bytes with Visa or Mastercard.
- Rewards for donating one's computing resources to the World Community Grid.
- Prizes for winners and referrers of winners in the weekly draw.
- Giveaways distributed e.g. through youtube channels of our supporters. See e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hycluITNDBM.
- Mass sending of textcoins to subscribers of our partners. See the results of the previous campaigns.

In the past, we also distributed Bytes to BTC holders and existing holders of Bytes. Users used to link their BTC and O_byte addresses and were receiving new Bytes in proportion to their existing balances in BTC and Bytes. This distribution was split into several rounds.

The first distribution round took place on Dec 25, 2016 when the network launched, over 70,000 BTC was linked, and 10% of the total supply of bytes and blackbytes was distributed. In the subsequent rounds, the total distributed supply reached 64.5%:

2nd round on Feb 11, 2017: 121,763 BTC linked, 1.8% distributed;

3rd round on Mar 12, 2017: 129,139 BTC linked, 2.0% distributed;

4th round on Apr 11, 2017: 145,441 BTC linked, 2.3% distributed;

5th round on May 10, 2017: 207,672 BTC linked, 2.9% distributed;

6th round on Jun 9, 2017: 453,621 BTC linked, 6.6% distributed;

7th round on Jul 9, 2017: 949,004 BTC linked, 11.0% distributed.

8th round on Aug 7, 2017: 1,395,899 BTC linked, 16.0% distributed.

9th round on Sep 6, 2017: 1,306,573 BTC linked, 5.7% distributed.

10th round on Nov 4, 2017: 1,093,155 BTC linked, 6.1% distributed.

O_byte data is stored and ordered using directed acyclic graph (DAG) rather than blockchain. This allows all users to secure each other's data by referencing earlier data units created by other users, and also removes scalability limits common for blockchains, such as blocksize issue.

Blockless design is simpler because there are no blocks, there are only transactions. Users just add their transactions to the end of the DAG themselves, they don't have to wait when miners create a new block and there is no guesswork whether miners will include your transaction in the block.

The consensus algorithm used to protect from double-spends is based on establishing a total order within the DAG. This is achieved by selecting a chain, called main chain, which gravitates towards units issued by commonly recognized reputable users — witnesses.
See the white paper for details.