Here’s How I’m Participating in Golem’s Crowdfunding Process — Part 1

Golem’s crowdfunding process starts on November 11th. Here’s how I’m participating. Part 1 describes what Golem is and why I’m excited about it.

I’m feeling excited to take part in Golem’s crowdfunding process. It starts this Friday, November 11, 2016, at approximately 3PM GMT.

I’m a novice in the cryptocurrency world. These processes take some focused attention for me to figure out. Writing and maintaining this post helps me focus on the task at hand.

My goal is to be prepared to participate in Golem’s crowdfunding process. I hope you find it helpful too.

Disclaimer! This post is not intended to convince you to participate in the Golem crowdfunding process. It’s simply to provide information, e.g. if you’re interested in Golem and/or have already decided to participate in Golem’s crowdfunding process. It is NOT a recommendation or offer of investment advice IN ANY WAY! I also have no formal link to or with the Golem Project.

The post is split into two parts -

• Part 1 talks about what Golem is and why I’m excited about it. This post is Part 1.
• Part 2 explains the step-by-step process I’m using to participate in the Golem crowdfunding process. Read Part 2 here.

Part 1 — What’s Golem and Why am I Excited About It?

If you don’t know what Golem is, here’s The Grand Vision, from the Golem About page —

GOLEM IS THE NEW WAY THE INTERNET WILL WORK

Golem’s objective is to use (almost) any computing resource to execute tasks that today need to rely on centralized solutions.

Golem network is going to be a decentralized ecosystem, with combined power of users’ machines and dedicated software delivering all necessary resources to complete any computing task.

Golem is going create the first decentralized global market for computing power combined with flexible tools for developers to distribute and monetize their software. From the Golem About Page

Here’s the current Golem Whitepaper too. You can also read the official announcement of this version of the whitepaper here.

Most new cryptocurrency projects are issuing whitepapers these days. I haven’t gotten around to reading this one yet.

Why am I Excited About Golem?

I’m a tech, OPS and M&A consultant to tech companies and their investors. I’ve done a lot of work in the telecom and data center space. The work goes back 20 years now.

It’s been exciting to watch the abstraction of compute power over this time. Abstraction enabled sharing of compute power to take place. Sharing makes decentralization of it possible. Decentralized computing power is what Golem’s all about, at least as I understand it.

The market for compute power continues to grow. It grows as more -

1 — People use it

2 — Value added services are built on top of it

From The Economics of the Golem Network Token post on the Golem Blog -

Cloud computing is a huge market, with a yearly turnover of $175 billion in 2015, estimated to grow to $203.9 in 2016. In particular, the market for SaaS on the cloud is estimated to be worth $37.7 billion. Infrastructure services (PaaS and IaaS) are estimated to be worth $27 billion. These numbers are mind-blowing, exceeding the capitalization of all crypto assets today (i.e. approx. $13 billion).

What’s Golem Crowdfunding?

Golem crowdfunding is the act of selling Golem Network Tokens (GNT). The sale of GNT’s supports development of the Golem Project. No additional GNT’s will be sold after the crowdfunding process completes.

That’s my layman’s understanding of it.

Here’s what the official Golem Crowdfunding Whitepaper has to say —

Crowdfunding process leads to creation of GNT, a backbone token for the Golem network.

When is the Golem Crowdfunding Process Happening?

The Golem crowdfunding process starts on November 11, 2016 at approximately 3P GMT. Here are the details from the official post announcing the crowdfunding process -

We are pleased to formally announce that Golem’s crowdfunding will start on 11th November, at approximately 3 pm GMT*. It will last for three weeks, or until the maximum cap of 820,000 ETH is reached. The contract will be deployed to Ethereum mainnet and Its address will be announced a day before the crowdfunding opens.

Here are the most important facts to know about the crowdfunding:

The maximum financing is 820,000 ETH.

The minimum financing is 150,000 ETH.

1 ETH creates 1,000 GNT.

An 18% endowment is included (12% Golem Factory GmbH, 6% team).

No new token creation will take place after the crowdfunding period.

GNT will be transferable once the crowdfunding successfully completes.

Endowment tokens will be locked for 6 months.

Tomorrow I’ll publish Part 2 of this post. In it I’ll describe my step-by-step plan to participate in the Golem Crowdfunding process.

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P.S. If this post was helpful, please consider sending a small Ether donation to me. Your donation helps make more posts like this possible.

My Ethereum address is -

0x88f78b27b0eab9cb2f9108808070c7aa1e6a88b8

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