Patent ID: 8548853

Claim:
A method to reward nodes in a peer-to-peer network environment, the method comprising: signing, at a server computer, the advertisement data to avoid fraudulent modification before advertisements are distributed to the nodes in the peer-to-peer network; storing multiple copies of the advertisements at multiple nodes proximate to a location associated with the advertisement to alleviate traffic load; receiving click or transaction requests corresponding to an advertisement; retrieving the advertisement from a computing node in the peer-to-peer network, wherein the computing node is registered in a mesh that includes n proximate computers, n is a real number, and a master computing node is selected by several computing nodes in one or more meshes based on processing speed or storage capacity, and the one or more meshes are assigned levels that correspond to processing speeds or storage capacity; tracking the click or transaction requests to determine a utilization of the node; and generating, by the server computer, a reward based on the utilization of the node, wherein generating a reward based on the utilization of the node further comprises: (1) determining an amount of contribution of the node when retrieving the advertisement; and (2) rewarding the node when the contribution of the node is above a predetermined contribution level; and redistributing the advertisements stored on the nodes when one node surpasses a reward threshold, thereby providing opportunities for other nodes in the peer-to-peer network to receive rewards.