Golem is a new kind of blockchain network that has its own cryptocurrency. Unlike some other networks — and like many of the newer contenders in the blockchain space — it has a purpose that goes beyond moving money from one account to the other.
Golem is a rather impressive project that aims to put the power of distributed and decentralized computing to good use, helping businesses and individuals tap into the vast power of CPUs and GPUs, as well as storage and RAM, all around the world. Here’s what you should know about it…
1. Global supercomputer
Ethereum wanted to make use of the blockchain technology beyond peer-to-peer payments; Golem wants to take it even further, touting its (upcoming) system as a “global, open sourced, decentralized supercomputer that anyone can access.” It is made up of the combined power of users’ machines, from personal laptops to entire datacenters.
Once launched, Golem will enable just about anyone to compute different sort of computational programs, from rendering to research to running websites, in a completely decentralized and inexpensive way.
In other words, the Golem Network is a decentralized sharing economy of computing power, where anyone can make money “renting” out their computing power or developing and selling software.
So in a way, it stands to compete with major cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services.
2. Golem use cases
There are multiple use cases for Golem’s global network, including:
- CGI rendering – it will enable individuals and companies to distribute the task of rendering CGI, doing in minutes what would take days, for cheaper than anything else. The first version, Brass Golem, will do this only.
- Business use cases such as stock market predictions, big data analysis, and more.
- Machine learning – enabling developers to teach their AI software in a cost-effective way. Also much faster than what they are used to today.
- Science – think DNA analysis, protein folding simulations and even searching for alien life.
- Cryptography – Golem can help with cryptography work like integer factorization, and can also run global, decentralized cryptocurrency mining pools.
In addition, Golem will be able to run all sorts of decentralized micro-services and dapps, which anyone will be able to develop and share.
3. Open marketplace of computing power
Golem enables users (requestors) to rent out cycles of other users’ (providers) machines. Any user ranging from a single PC owner to a large data center can contribute resources to Golem network.
Requestors than deploy and distribute their apps in the network with Application Registry and Transaction Framework. They do this by defining computing tasks using Golem’s Task Definition Framework and libraries for high-level programming languages, enabling Golem to distribute each task over the network to computing nodes.
Computations in Golem nodes take place inside isolated virtual machines, for maximum security. Providers are able to decide how many CPU cores, and how much RAM and disk space they wish to rent to the Golem Network.
And finally, an Ethereum-based transaction system kicks in to clear payments between all the parties involved. Golem has its own cryptocurrency (marked as GNT) that is used to pay for the services inside the network.
4. Golem had a great start
In February 2017, Golem’s crowdfunding event became the second fastest in crypto history, raising $8.6 million in 29 minutes. Also, Golem’s cryptocurrency token has risen almost 100 percent overnight.
As of the end of May, Golem was among the top 15 cryptocurrencies by market cap — the first one the list is (obviously) Bitcoin, followed by Ethereum, Ripple, Nem and Ethereum Classic.
5. You can’t buy Golem with fiat currency
Right now, the marketplace for Golen tokens (GNT) is still in development, and as far as we know you can’t buy Golen with U.S. dollars or any other regular (fiat) currency. Instead, you will first have to buy — or use existing ones — Bitcoin and Ethereum tokens and then trade them for GNTs. You can do that at places like Poloniex, Shapeshift.io, Liqui.io, Exodus, EtherDelta, cryptoderivatives.marke and Yunbi.