Investing in cryptocurrencies reflects investors’ opinion that in the future, cryptocurrency will be a functional means of payment. It's that simple. How can the future of cryptocurrencies be predicted? Let's have a look at it.
Today I have the honor of introducing the cryptocurrency with a market cap of around 200 million (23/3/18), making it #65 in the crypto world according to market cap.
Very simply: Golem is Airbnb for computers. Rent your unused CPU/GPU cycles and get paid in cryptocurrency. A decentralized network powering true cloud computing.
Source: vignette.wikia.nocookie.net
Golem is a decentralized application (DaPP). Decentralized - means that not one person or company „owns“ the application. Anybody who has spare computing power (CPU, GPU) can rent it via Golem DaPP – the only cost is electricity cost. All right there are more similar decentralized projects like a Gridcoin, Curecoin, BOINC. But they are rather altruistic projects than commercial projects. And on the other side we’ve witnessed some centralized project as SuchFlex, CPUsage, and many others but they all failed because of centralization: using centralized project (selling or buying CPU/GPU cycles) you have to trust that company behind this project (credit risk – maybe they aren’t gonna pay you or they go bankrupt), infrastructure costs of that company so you won’t receive so much money for computing power sold as you would receive utilizing decentralized project.
The most important messages:
- because of the decentralization you don’t need to trust any authority
- because of the decentralization the infrastructure costs are very low
In my opinion, the only way to rent out CPU/GPU with profit (except mining altcoins via NiceHash) is a decentralized network with crypto token. And we have the solution – GNT!
Golem environment consist of requestors (Golem offers them tools to execute compute-intensive tasks, they get access to affordable and scalable solutions, which combine hardware and software.) providers (Golem combines and utilizes (almost) any kind of existing computing hardware. Hardware providers get paid for renting out their hardware.) and SW developers (Golem is flexible platform to deploy and monetize SW. SW developers use Golem as a distribution channel associated with access to hardware.)
Source: whitepaper
One of the most important periods of Golem was crowdfunding. They utilized for it Ethereum’s smart contracts. In the certain period (from 11th November 2016 to 2nd December 2016) anybody could send any amount of Ether to the certain address and doing so they created Golem Network Tokens (GNT). They set up levels of funding:
- 150k ETH (Brass Golem)
- 320k ETH (Clay Golem)
- 530k ETH (Stone Golem)
- 820k ETH (Iron Golem)
For every reached level of funding Golem team set up additional features which they promise to deliver. Fortunately, they fundraised „maximum financing level“, i.e. 820k ETH in 29 minutes! For investors is very important that total supply of GNT (1 billion) is final. So unlike Bitcoin or most of the cryptocurrencies your investment will not be eaten by inflation (for example we don’t need to go far – STEEM is the great example of inflationary cryptocurrency).
Golem team, source: blog.golemproject.net
I really like that Polish team because they could use the opportunity and could raise much more than 820k ETH but they didn’t do that! Another great thing about the team is that they’re active on social networks and they respond to questions about issues connected to using Golem Network. So every problem you can solve just going through social networks.
Now we have to wait for delivery of Golems, according to their promise they should deliver Iron Golem in the future. But in the whitepaper, they mentioned delivering Clay Golem 15 months after crowdfunding so it should be done right now (in early March). The reality is that they have only alpha release of Brass Golem.
You can check their progress on Trello:
Source: https://trello.com/b/YL1qZ2pZ/brass-golem-progress-board
To be honest, I didn’t try to rent out my CPU/GPU cycles because my laptop is just for the Internet, watching movies etc., it doesn’t belong to high-end computers. Sometimes I even should buy some CPU cycles 😊
Does this project make a sense? Yes, it does! Just to summarize it:
Golem is Airbnb for computers. Rent your unused CPU/GPU cycles and get paid in cryptocurrency. A decentralized network powering true cloud computing. There are requestors (they buy CPU/GPU cycles), providers (they rent out spare CPU/GPU cycles) and SW developers. It’s decentralized network so there is almost no credit risk and very low costs of infrastructure.
Useful resources:
You can track the progress: https://trello.com/b/YL1qZ2pZ/brass-golem-progress-board
Everything about the project: https://golem.network/index.html
Here you can try the Alpha version of Brass Golem: https://golem.network/alpha.html
Disclaimer: Never invest more than what you can afford to lose. This post is my personal opinion, do your own research before making any investment decisions. If you make any trades after reading this post, it is completely in your responsibility. I am not responsible for any of your losses. By reading this post you acknowledge and accept that.