Did you know most of us only use a fraction of our computers’ capacity? Thinking about it, you wouldn’t expect most of the tasks we do on a daily basis to take up much computing power. So what do you think happens to the rest of your capacity?
It sits idle, and nothing is done with it. Your computer is still on and consuming electricity and this power goes to waste. Based on this exact “problem” Golem has come up with a solution that ends up being a lot like AirBnb for your computer.
Golem has created a peer-to-peer system for sharing computing power across the network. The result is a flexible, scalable solution that aggregates idle resources and democratizes the payout to the millions of people on the network.
Golem’s Long Road to an ICO
It took 3 years, but Golem finally completed the sale of their GNT token in early April 2018. The platform is built on ETH and utilizes smart contracts to drastically bring down the cost of distributed computing. The sale was completed in under 20 minutes and raised 820,000 ETH ($340 million).
How it works is that suppliers have extra computing power and are willing to be paid GNT in exchange for their computers performing tasks for requesters.
The app is 100% secure and operates in the background, and you can also choose what fraction of your computing power to use, so there’s no worry about getting slowed down by its operation. Ideally, the only time you would notice it is when you earn some ETH for performing tasks for other users.
Golem’s Economics
The mechanics of the market are pretty simple. There is demand (requesters) and supply (providers). The supply is essential, because there are no central servers that are able to perform computations. Providers will come to the network with the goal of earning a few dollars a month in ETH, at virtually no cost to themselves.
On the demand side, you have users who buy GNT tokens in order to pay for providers to perform tasks for them. Requesters generally join the network because of its lower cost. They are able to set the maximum they will pay (their bid) and Golem distributes the tasks appropriately.
A final party to consider are the software developers who enjoy access to a distribution channel that helps them depoy and monetize new software. Golem has a store that enables this function and adds much more value to the network.
The obvious competitors to Golem are big cloud services like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. The fact is that these services are grossly overpriced because the companies have developed an oligopoly that allows them to collect high margins. This is crazy because computing power is not actually a scarce resource and this is the market inefficiency Golem aims to fix.
Golem’s Long Game
Golem is currently trading at a fraction of a dollar ($0.145) and is down from a high above $1.00. The same downturn has affected many companies in the blockchain space, and Golem has received extra flak for taking so long to release their product. At the same time, another way to look at this is as a major buying opportunity.
Most of this has to do not with ineptitude, but a complex framework (Ethereum) that isn’t perfectly designed for integration yet. However, in the long-run Golem still has huge potential. As more features are released (Clay Golem is next) and they scale to be able to help data centres, there is no limit to how far they can go. The size of the market has been proven by Amazon and Microsoft, and now it is up to Golem to see if they can get a piece of the pie.
Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock.
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