Explained simply

Darkbloom

A way to run AI on strangers' sleeping Macs, where the strangers can never read your stuff.

Public alpha, August 2026.

Millions of Macs are asleep right now

Apple has shipped over 100 million powerful Macs. Most of them sit idle about 18 hours a day. That is an enormous amount of wasted computer power, and modern Macs are strong enough to run very large AI models.

z z z z z z idle working (blooming) idle
Most Macs do nothing most of the day. Darkbloom wakes them up.

Darkbloom rents that power out

You send an AI question. A traffic controller picks an idle Mac, the Mac computes the answer, and the Mac's owner earns money. It plugs into the same tools people already use for ChatGPT-style APIs (you change one web address), and it claims to cost about half as much.

You your question, locked Traffic controller picks a Mac, re-locks it still locked Someone's idle Mac $ owner gets paid the answer comes back, still locked
One question's trip through Darkbloom. Locked the whole way there and back.

The money flows the opposite direction. You pay for each answer, the traffic controller does the billing, and right now it passes every cent through to the Mac's owner. The 0% fee is an alpha promo, not the business model: the middleman is where a fee would go later (the fee machinery is already in the code, set to zero). There is also a second stream of money: while the network is young, the project pays bigger Macs a small monthly floor from its own pocket, roughly $10 to $40 a month, just for staying online and provably healthy. Everything settles in dollars through Stripe.

You $ you pay per answer Traffic controller does the billing keeps 0% during the alpha (a fee would live here later) passes on 100% $ Mac's owner $ $ subsidy pool the project's money, capped monthly plus a monthly floor, just for staying online
Who pays whom. Usage money passes through untouched (for now), and a capped subsidy pool tops up bigger Macs. Straight from the code: pricing.go (fee set to 0 for the alpha), payments.md (Stripe in, Stripe Connect out), base-rewards.md (the $10–40/month floor, ~$9k/month pool).

Plugging in, both sides

Using it needs no download at all. Darkbloom is just a web address. You make an account on their website, create a key, and add a few dollars with a normal card (50 cents minimum). Then you tell the AI tools you already use to talk to Darkbloom's address instead of OpenAI's. Every answer is deducted from the prepaid balance; there is no subscription.

Earning with a Mac takes one install command (no admin rights), a login to link the machine to your account, and optionally a schedule, like "weeknights, 10pm to 8am." The Mac dials out to the network itself, so there is no router or firewall setup. And once you run a node, your own AI use becomes free: requests to your own machine are never charged.

Using it (nothing to download) make an account, get a key $ add a few dollars with a normal card </> point your AI tools at Darkbloom's address prepaid balance, pay per answer, no subscription Earning with your Mac (one command) >_ run one install command (no admin) log in to link it to your account $ it serves while idle, earnings land in dollars no router setup, and your own AI use becomes free
Both onboarding paths, start to finish. From the docs: consumer quickstart (account at console.darkbloom.dev, API key, one base URL), billing ($0.50 minimum card deposit via Stripe, pay per token), and the README's provider guide (curl install, no sudo, device-code login, schedule windows, free self-route).

The clever part: the owner can't peek

This is the hard problem. The person who owns the Mac has full control of it, yet they must never see your question or the answer. So your question travels in a locked box, and the only key lives inside a sealed program on the Mac. The seals are enforced by the Mac itself: breaking them requires a reboot, which kills the job.

your question locked box sealed program only it holds the key the owner can't peek
Encryption is the locked box. The sealed program is the only keyholder, and the owner is locked out of their own machine's work.

How do you trust a stranger's Mac?

Before a Mac gets any work, it has to prove itself. Its security chip signs an ID, Apple's systems confirm the machine's protections are on, and a final check proves it is running the real, unmodified Darkbloom app. No proof, no work. Anyone can look up a Mac's proof.

the Mac's ID badge its security chip signed the badge its protections are switched on it runs the real, unmodified app gets work
"Attestation" is just this: hardware-backed proof that a machine is what it claims to be.