Golem is a cryptocurrency and decentralized supercomputer that uses the collective power of user's machines. The Golem Network aims to create a decentralized sharing economy of computing power, where anyone can make money 'renting' out their computing power or developing & selling software. ^[4]

The idea for Golemwas first thought of in February 2014 and was presented at DevCon in 2014.

^[12]Julian and his time thought of the name Golem from science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem’s novel Golem XIV, about a military supercomputer that achieved singularity and became like a super artificial intelligence. ^[12]The book was named after Golem from Jewish folklore. ^[12]

It aims to make computation power much cheaper than it is today.

^[10]Golem is a two-sided market that lets users either sell or buy unused computational resources (CPU or GPU).

^[10]

During their ICO, Golem raised $8.6 million in 29 minutes.

^[11]

Golem allows users to rent their CPU/GPUs and get paid in cryptocurrency.

For instance, an animator might request 100 computers' processing power for several minutes to render a project.

The reward for the completion of these tasks is GNT.

^[14]

Golem markets itself as the Airbnb for computers. ^[-1]

The Golem Network, in its role as an Airbnb for computing-processing power, enables machines around the world to transact with each other.

Excess computing power will soon be used by data scientists, companies training machine-learning algorithms and more.

^[14]

Golem is a token based on the Ethereum Blockchain and the ERC20 Token Standard. ^[-1]

The first release (Brass Golem) is scheduled for early 2018 and focuses on Golem’s first use case -CGI rendering. Brass Golem enables CGI artists to process even the most compute-intensive Blender and LuxRenderer scenes orders of magnitude faster than their local machines and much cheaper than commercial render farms. ^[4]

In the future, Golem plans on providing Machine learning, Artificial intelligence training and enterprise software. ^[4]

The way Golem rewards contributors to the network is through a lottery system which rewards one of the golem contributors in the network.

This is meant to permit Microtransactions- which are presently not cost effective on most blockchains. ^{[19] [4]}

Golem is based in Warsaw, Poland. ^[8]Many of the developers are also Polish. ^[19]

Julian Zawistowski is the CEO and Founder of the company- he studied at the Warsaw School of Economics. ^[17]Piotr ‘Viggith’ Janiuk is the Chief Technical Officer, bringing over 12 years of experience in computer programming and systems. Andrzej Regulski is the Chief operating officer and Aleksandra Skrzypczak is the lead Software engineer. ^{[-1] [18]}

List of cryptocurrencies