Golem (GNT) Mainnet Goes Live – Harnessing the World’s Computing Power
Big things were expected of Golem way back in 2016. One of the earliest generations of Ethereum apps, Golem sold all of their GNT tokens in just 20 minutes. The ICO raised 820,000 ETH, with a USD value of $340 million, but progress slowed down not long afterwards.
Now, almost three years later, Golem have finally launched their ambitious scheme which seeks to harness idle computing power the world over. The Golem ecosystem allows users to rent out their unused CPU and GPU power in exchange for GNT tokens.
Specifically focusing on the rendering of CGI through use of the open-source software, Blender, the Golem project seeks to facilitate the trading of computing power among users. By creating a market-place for unused computing power, Golem are attempting to create an integrated network of single computers, which will combine to create a global supercomputer.
The current launch is not the finished article. This Golem Brass Beta will ultimately serve as a real world test for the technology, but hopes are high following a lengthy development term, and over a dozen software implementations.
Referring to the Golem project’s long delay since 2016, CEO and founder of Golem, Julian Zawistowski said: “You always underestimate how difficult it is, and this was obviously the case with us. This is typical for software development in general, and blockchain in particular, we underestimate the complexity of what we want to do.”
While initial plans are to see how the project fares with rendering apps like Blender and Luxrender, big plans are afoot for the Golem team as they seek to provide a platform for the application of machine learning. AI research into machine learning requires a huge amount of computing power. By bringing together the world’s idle processing power, Golem could be the perfect answer to the need for more computational resources.
In the future, if all goes to plan, the Golem network could eventually become a foundation for the entire internet, or very large parts of it. Former Golem spokesperson, Eddy Azar, said in 2016, during the project’s initial announcement: “...it will replace the huge data centers that currently power the internet, and become the decentralized (and therefore non-monopolized and more secure) computing power behind the entire internet and just about everything on it.”
Such plans may seem pie-in-the-sky at this early stage, with so much real-world testing still to take place, however it’s easy to see how it could operate in theory. By using a small piece of each individual computer across the world, the network could have access to more than enough computing power to safely run any number of large-scale applications.
Many sceptics point to scalability issues with the new platform. The huge slow-down experienced on the Ethereum network when the popularity of CryptoKitties peaked presents a possible stumbling block. If all goes well for the Golem project, expect the value of GNT tokens to rise rapidly in the coming months.
In the meantime, Golem are offering payments to users in return for finding bugs in the software.