When crypto first started it had the simple marketplace. Where one currency was being traded for another. We called it swap. Yet there was marketplace around this type of the function. Then this moved a bit more and people started trading the NFTs and the digital assets. Slowly people started trading other digital items too.
Storage selling and the bandwidth selling are some of the oldest marketplaces on the internet. This has gone into the crypto marketplaces too. Like Storj and many other blockchains are into this space. And they are monetizing the use case and thtat is also building the token price of such projects.
Now there is a new concept coming out. In this concept the cloud computing resources are in the market. Say you want a 1GB Linux virtual compute space on the blockchain, you can get that usiing a protocol called Akash network.
Let's talk about how Akash network works, it's token and it's benefits and issues.
How does Akash Network (AKT) work?
Let's think of this as a marketplace example. You want some compute resources and you have specific configuration in mind. So you search for such a solution in the market and then find the kubernetes deployment that offers this. In this condition you don't need permission, you pay up and use the resources. So it's a permissionless system with the power of open source solutions.
It has two products namely console and praetorapp. So the console app allows you to connect the wallet and then do the docker deployment as per your configurations based on the marketplace configuration. Where as the praetorapp allows you to become a provider on the chain. This kind of helps out with the overall functioning of the marketplace. You can read more about this in the documentation here.
Akash token (AKT) Token Economics
Akash network has it's own token named AKT. This token is used internally in the marketplace and the chain. Where the marketplace makes use of the token for making the transactions. Also the listing and the sale also happens with this token. Apart from that there is also staking token option which can be done using this token economics. And for those who wish to take part in the governance they also make use of it.
Incentive also given in the AKT kind of makes the network working. The token AKT can be purchased in the kraken exchanges. You may also buy it in the kucoin market once it stabilizes. Apart from that you may find binance and others may get into tihs in upcoming times as the market matures for the akasha network. In that context I'd say that you should check out other exchanges which work for you.
What are some of the Pros and Cons of Akash Network?
Let's keep things more use case base now. What makes the akasha network useful? And why we sould be making use of it? Let's start by jotting down some of the benefits of the akash network.
- Akasha network being on the ethereum chain layer it can be interoperable with other chains as well.
- Akasha's interoperable nature was possible because of the COSMOS chain and it turns out it can be scalable as it is based on the ecosystem that has been open towards the scalability and connectivity.
- Considering this deals with the computing resources, it has worked out with the security and the privacy of the chain too.
- As the resources gets added into the chain the price is not going to be the factor and instead it gets cheaper as the resources are added into the network.
Now these are the benefits but everything has some issues and akasha is no different it has it's own share of the issues and limits.
- Currently the adoption is not what it seems. It has long way to go. Though resources and the prices is what the marketplace is about but things do take some time for cloud marketplace to work the right way.
- Considering the selling and buying of the computer resources is not an easy thing to do on cloud, there is a complexity which kind of keeps this sort of marketplace as developer exclusive as of now and it's use case is limited.
So that kind of is showing up the overall grand scheme of things for the akasha network and there is a good future for project of this type in the near future as well.
Akasha network is a protocol that works on the concept of selling the computing resources in the marketplace by making use of the tech like docker and kubernetes. Let's see how the marketplace matures and how the decentralized compute resources become norm in the future.