Workers will be organized in worker pools. Each worker pool is managed by a scheduler, whose responsibility is to distribute tasks to workers. Thus, a worker pool is somewhat similar to what we know as ‘mining’ pools. An individual miner often joins a mining pool to maximize their chances of getting reward computations. Similarly, as a worker, you would join a public worker pool that will make sure that it has sufficient workload to distribute.

The first very significant launch by the iExec team is about to happen toward the end of this month. This will signal the launch of the market network functionality for iExec. The question people may be asking is why isn't it reflected in the price? The price currently is $1.58 for a marketcap total of $126,783,293 USD according to Coin Market Cap. For iExec to reach $100 the marketcap must reach around $8 billion dollars by my estimate. Considering what iExec attempts to do and considering no other platform is available for decentralzied cloud computing?

Currently the RLC token isn't actively being used

The main evolution of V2 is the ability for computing resources to join the iExec network, making it the first decentralized cloud that is able to execute any type of applications using (almost) any type of resource. Up to now, off-chain computations with iExec were executed on our own machines, and dapp developers had to trust iExec for their executions.

One reason the demand for RLC is currently low is that the market network function for which the token exists to support hasn't yet launched. The token itself represents decentralized cloud computation resources but we also must remember that iExec is relying on staking as well. This means that RLC will be "supply sinked" in this staking which could further reduce the demand. RLC also is not inflated and is capped at a very modest 86,999,785. The iExec team has also been securing many different industry partnerships over the past year.

Is 8 billion USD market cap likely? I think it is possible it could reach this market cap sometime this year if the market network functionality is successful enough. But we do not yet know at this time whether the launch will be successful or when specifically the public will be able to sell computation to earn RLC. Once useful computation can be sold then the true market price for RLC will be set (and I expect $100 per token to be reasonable if it is backed by computation resources).

I still hold RLC in my portfolio. I know computation resources will be in demand always. The question is whether or not iExec will be capable of supplying that demand.

iExec has a head start over the competition such as Golem, Enigma, Agoras, etc. These other platforms will take years to catch up even if they can do it better (such as could be the case with Enigma and Agoras).

iExec has a lot of industry partnerships, from Genesis Mining, to Ubisoft, and more. So when the time comes there seems to be the necessary partnerships to create the demand.

To address this issue we are introducing a new method for pricing that we call Pay-per-Task, and we have defined several task categories that describe the execution boundaries. We’ll start with a very simple definition for task categories, namely wall clock time on a reference machine and amount of data transferred. We’ll setup a test infrastructure so that application developers can evaluate the category of their submissions. Conversely, worker pools will be able to benchmark their infrastructures against the reference machine. Later, we’ll refine the categories, and provide more advanced tools for helping developers to maximize the usage of the infrastructure...

I speculate that the RLC price remains low because people either don't understand what it does (and the strategic importance) or they can't yet see the utility of it. Note that Steem has a market cap of over 800 million and at peak was over 1.5 billion. Considering utility of Steem this should have been higher but it's also the case that demand for Steem Power isn't built in so we can use the same excuse for why Steem is so cheap.

In essence, unless Steem (and iExec) build demand for their token then no one will buy a "utility token". iExec will only be able to build demand by launching the market network. Steem will only be able to build demand by launching SMTs allowing for community building, ICOs, and more. What impact will iExec actually have with the market network?

Would you contribute your computation resources in exchange for RLC? Do you think mining can be decentralized via Pay Per Task (can mining be considered a task? Why not?).

Learn more about iExec here