As part of my series “Real World Applications of Cryptocurrencies”, and follow-up from my previous post on Payment Systems & the Request Network, which you can find here, I will be discussing how the Cloud Computing industry will be disrupted by the emergence of cryptocurrencies.

Cloud Computing — Golem (GNT)

Cloud computing has become increasingly popular for carrying out heavy-computational tasks but there is one major issue — it’s extremely centralized. This leads to a number of drawbacks, including:

Single Point Of Failure — Since our current solutions are centralized, this leads to a single point of failure. For example, Amazon Web Services, a major player in the market, has had numerous outages causing havoc for many companies using it.

— Since our current solutions are centralized, this leads to a single point of failure. For example, Amazon Web Services, a major player in the market, has had numerous outages causing havoc for many companies using it. Expensive — Since the market is dominated by very few players, using these services can be fairly expensive.

Enter Golem (GNT).

Golem is an accessible-to-everyone, distributed, supercomputer that reduces costs [sometimes by over 10x] of scientific research, big data analysis, graphics rendering, machine learning, AI… just about anything that requires heavy computational power. All while bringing CPU cycles into the sharing economy so anyone with a computer can connect it to the Golem Network when they’re not using it and make an automated side income.

Golem connects computers in a peer-to-peer network, enabling both application owners and individual users (“requestors”) to rent resources of other users’ (“providers”) machines. These resources can be used to complete tasks requiring any amount of computation time and capacity. I will describe a simple example below:

Alice is a requestor on the Golem network. Bob, Charlie and many others are providers; renting out their idle PC resources for a passive income. Alice has created a CGI animation and wants to render it using Golem.

The animation can be divided into frames. Each of these frames will then be rendered individually using resources provided by Bob, Charlie and others on the network. Therefore, Alice is essentially paying Bob, Charlie to carry out the complex rendering out for her.

A simple workflow of how the Golem Network functions

Golem aims to solve most of these issues and even improve upon them in the following ways:

Decentralized — The most important feature that Golem brings to the table is the fact that it’s decentralized . This means, no single point of failure and equal privileges to both requestor and provider.

— The most important feature that Golem brings to the table is the fact that it’s . This means, and to both requestor and provider. Flexible —Golem can be used for a variety of tasks, unlike its centralized counter-parts. It can be used for scientific computations, artificial intelligence, computer-generated imagery (CGI) rendering and many more. Additionally, any interested party can deploy software to the Golem network, which can then be further extended and have its payment mechanism customized. “Its limitations are only defined by software developers’ creativity.”

—Golem can be used for a variety of tasks, unlike its centralized counter-parts. It can be used for scientific computations, artificial intelligence, computer-generated imagery (CGI) rendering and many more. Additionally, any interested party can deploy software to the Golem network, which can then be further extended and have its payment mechanism customized. “Its limitations are only defined by software developers’ creativity.” Cheaper — Using Golem is significantly cheaper than what currently exists. This not only benefits current users of heavy computational tasks, but also becomes more accessible for people interested in CGI Rendering, scientific calculations, etc. You can find an example of price difference between render farms and Golem here.

— Using Golem is significantly cheaper than what currently exists. This not only benefits current users of heavy computational tasks, but also becomes more accessible for people interested in CGI Rendering, scientific calculations, etc. You can find an example of price difference between render farms and Golem here. Global Participation — Anyone can join the Golem network; both as a requestor and provider. While a computer is turned on, most of the time, the majority of compute cycles are not fully utilized. Golem allows renting out these resources for a passive income.

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Golem’s first release (codenamed Brass) has finally reached the Ethereum main net! You can find more information, here.

Below you can find an excellent short video created by the Golem team, giving a brief introduction on what GNT is and how it will work.

How are the GNT Tokens used?

Unlike other projects, the use for GNT tokens is very simple. From Golem’s whitepaper: Payments from requestors to providers for resource usage, and remuneration for software developers is going to be exclusively conducted in GNT.

I would also like to point out that GNT is not the only project out there trying to tackle these problems, including, DeepBrain Child (DBC), Elastic (XEL), GridCoin (GRC), iExec RLC (RLC) and SONM (SNM). If you would like to see a post comparing and contrasting these projects, feel free to drop me a comment below or a tweet.

GNT is available for purchase on a variety of exchanges, including, Bittrex, Bitfinex and many more.