Golem Network is a blockchain platform that allows users to buy and sell computational power for various purposes like artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency mining, etc.
What is Golem Network?
Golem is software that incentivizes users to operate a market where computational resources can be bought and sold in exchange for cryptocurrency.
- It promises to power microservices and enables asynchronous task execution in addition to providing a marketplace for renting computing resources.
- Through a decentralized blockchain stack, Golem provides developers with Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
- The platform’s goal is to bring buyers and vendors together. It implies that a typical user might generate passive revenue by renting out their extra computing capacity.
- As a result, it eliminates the requirement to work with a single cloud computing service provider while giving various participants power.
- Golem offers a cutting-edge game engine that may be used to create games of the highest caliber.
- Golem provides countless chances for independent filmmakers, scientists, video game creators, and artists. The platform aims to make supercomputing more accessible.
Three elements make up Golem, which serves as the framework for a decentralized market:
- Decentralized farm: A method for sending organizing and carrying out computation jobs from hosts known as requesters and individual users known as requesters (of computational resources). This offers customers affordable costs for operations like rendering CGI and using machine learning to network access.
- Transaction framework: Golem features a unique payment architecture that allows programmers to charge for the services and applications they create for the decentralized network. This framework is adaptable to new and creative ways of capturing value, including escrows, insurance, and audit proofs on the Ethereum blockchain.
- Application registry: Developers can build programmers (for specific jobs) that use Golem as a distribution channel and a market with fresh and original revenue models. These programmers can be uploaded to the application registry, which serves as the network’s equivalent of an app store.
History of Golem Network
- In 2016, Andrzej Regulski, Piotr Janiuk, Aleksandra Skrzypczak, and Julain Zawistowski co-founded Golem Factory.
The Golem network was created with the intention of offering lots of computational power for challenging projects without requiring users to interact with a centralized organization. - When the concept was proposed in 2016, the team sold eighty percent of the native token’s available supply.
- During this auction, they generated about $8.6 million worth of ETH tokens.
- A layer 2 solution based on Ethereum, the new transaction architecture from Golem.
- In 2018, Golem Factory launched the Golem network. Therefore, in November 2020, users have to convert their GNT tokens to the new ERC-20 GLM tokens.
What Makes Golem Unique?
- Speeds up the purchase of resources: By dividing task requests from Requestors to Providers into smaller jobs, Golem finds a way to speed up the purchase and use of processing resources.
- Cost-effective: This technology automates the decentralization of cloud computing services and increases cost-effectiveness by breaking down work into smaller chunks.
- Provides users power over the P2P market: By connecting Requestors and Providers according to the job template, Golem also provides users power over the P2P market.
- Anyone can join: Anyone can join Golem as a service provider and earn GLM, unlike traditional cloud computing service providers where a central authority sells the resources and keeps the money from customers.
- Enable users to sell processing power: The concept encourages users to sell their processing power in contrast to traditional cloud computing while enabling Requestors to get the resources they need for less money.
Application Registry and Transaction Framework
The application registry and transaction architecture are two characteristics that make the Golem Network special among other features. The platform is made secure, open, and effective thanks to the application registry and transaction framework. As a result, even those who make the requests have limited technical understanding and can start a task. Developers can select payment choices for their applications, including off-chain payment channels and payout schemes, using the advanced functionality known as the transaction framework. Golem Network (GLM) intends to expand its network’s capabilities in order to facilitate developer application submissions and to broaden the range of assignments available to candidates.
1. Application Registry
The application registry is simply a list of the fundamental data about applications and the people who created them.
- The Golem Network is accessible to developers thanks to a smart contract implemented on the Ethereum blockchain.
- Anyone can verify an application’s legitimacy by looking it up in the registry, which contains details on trustworthy and untrusted applications.
- Developers can assist users to find the right tools for their requirements by publishing their integrated applications.
2. Transaction Framework
Developers and service providers can choose the method of payment and set the price they want for their applications thanks to the transactional framework.
- The deterministic environment for the transaction mechanism must be an open-source or Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which is placed into the application registry.
- Additionally, the mechanism is accepted by the community and makes use of GNT, the native token of the Golem Network. Off-chain payment channels, personalized receipts, Nano payments, per-unit software usage, payout plans, etc. are a few examples of transaction frameworks.
- Similarly, the transaction framework is being created to assist developers in selecting the kind of transaction that would best serve the requirements of their applications. Payment plans, outside-the-network payment methods, and software usage per unit are a few elements that can be added.
The Working Principle of Golem
The transaction initiates when a requestor demands computational resources from a provider through the task template. Users can access a library of task templates from the Golem network when submitting a task request. If an existing template doesn’t meet their needs, they can also design a special task template. Afterward, the network divides the task into many subtasks based on the computer resources supplied by the suppliers.
Steps involved in carrying out a task through the Golem Network include:
- The requestor visits the Golem Network.
- They submit a task on the network.
- The task is broadcasted on the network with the demand and necessary information such as the specs of the required resources.
- The providers publish an offer for their computational resources.
- The demand and the published offer are matched to check if they agree with each other.
- The requestors meet these potential providers and the terms of business are negotiated between the requestor and provider.
- Once an agreement is reached on the business terms, input files get transferred to the provider node.
- The provider starts the task.
- Once the task is complete, the output files get transferred from the provider to the requestor.
- A payment note is issued, so the providers get rewarded for their services.
- Payment is done through Golem Token (GNT).
The Architecture of the Task Template and Reputation System
1. Task Template
The Golem network uses the task template to execute the request made by the requestor. The steps carried out to execute the request are:
- The source code to be run.
- Splitting the task into subtasks and sending it into different nodes.
- Verification of final results.
2. Reputation System
Once the task is completed Golem grades the requestors and providers that use its marketplace through the reputation system.
- The reputation system keeps track of the requestors’ tasks and the timeliness of their payments to make sure there are no errors when the provider computes them. Because a provider computed their work accurately and it passed a verification check when it was returned, the reputation system grades them.
- A grading system for buyers and sellers has been developed by the Golem network. The reliability of completing work and the veracity of the output supplied influence the supplier’s reputation. Whether the requestor releases the payment on time or not determines their status. The rank of the requestor is also impacted when their work contains errors.
How Does Golem Network Power P2P Computing?
Golem is an open-source platform that empowers software developers to be innovative regardless of their location, background, or affiliation and has the adaptability to accommodate a big audience.
- The Golem Network enables anybody to access the world’s underutilized computer capacity to carry out data-intensive research and complex computations. This includes large colleges, scientists, corporations, and artists.
- The network offers a system with many checks and balances to promote best practices and support correctly functioning interactions between the platform’s users and sellers with the aid of the Golem Network Token, commonly known as GLM.
- The party renting out computational capability is referred to as a “requestor,” whereas the person accessing the Golem Network to do so is referred to as a “provider.”
Golem’s Use Cases
The Golem Network is the use-case for the Golem cryptocurrency (GNT). Because GNT is the preferred coin in the Golem Network, its value is tied to its use there.
- To rent computing resources from a provider who does the computations, requestors need a GNT token. Therefore, in order to access the Golem Network, the requestor will always need to purchase GNT.
- Since its initial release on March 1, 2017, Golem has advanced to deliver the finest developer experience. It has implemented the first use-case for 3D model rendering and continuously improved by listening to community feedback.
How Many Golem (GLM) Coins Are There in Circulation?
Whether or not the requestor releases the payment on time affects their rank. Similarly to this, when a requestor’s task contains some errors, it lowers their rank.
- There are 1,000,000,000 GLM in existence right now.
- Like all other cryptocurrencies, Golem has a finite number of coins.
- The capped supply serves as an anti-inflationary mechanism by limiting the total number of tokens that may ever be issued.
- Every single GLM coin that could possibly exist has already been produced.
How is the Golem Network Secured?
To protect itself from malevolent users, the Golem network has a reputation system.
- After a task request is completed, the Golem system distributes ratings to users, which influence the reputations of Providers and Requestors. The system recognizes malicious nodes in this way.
- The Proof of Work consensus mechanism now maintains the security and proper operation of the Golem network because Golem depends on Ethereum’s consensus algorithm.
- Once Ethereum 2.0 is upgraded and the switch from PoW to PoS is complete, the Golem Network should soon be secured using the Proof of Stake protocol.
Golem Consensus
The Golem Network doesn’t rely on miners or staking because Golem currencies were pre-minted, which implies that all Golem coins that should ever exist have already been generated.
- Golem is not a mineable coin and does not operate on Proof of Stake.
- The Golem Network also maintains resilience through financial incentives in the form of GLM and the reputation system, even if Golem utilizes the consensus of Ethereum for transactions and inherits its Byzantine fault-tolerant qualities.