Golem Releases Brass Golem Beta 0.16.0

On June 6, Golem announced that they have released Golem Brass Beta 0.16.0. This replaces the previous version of Golem, 0.15.1, released last April. The Golem team has been very active over the past few months, visiting numerous conferences and meetups throughout Asia and North America and most notably successfully launching their mainnet onto the Etheruem blockchain in April 2018.

For those of you unfamiliar with the project, Golem is a tokenized platform which is aiming to be the world’s first completely decentralized supercomputer. With Golem, anyone can “rent” out their computer’s unused computing power. CPU providers pick the rate at which they wish to rent out their computer’s power and are paid in Golem’s GNT tokens. For that reason, Golem is sometimes called the AirBNB of cryptocurrency.

Golem Brass Beta 0.16.0

Brass Golem is the first major milestone Golem is working on, as shown on their project timeline. Brass Golem is focusing on their primary target market of digital rendering. The primary goals of the beta launch is to begin acquiring both users (computing power requesters) and computing power providers and lay the groundwork for future releases.

Brass Golem is the first of 4 major milestones planned for Golem.

In this regard, Brass Beta 0.16.0 has made some notable improvements. It has improved the overall general performance of the network in addition to improving the functionality of the entire application itself.

Beta 0.16.0 has also introduced a few notable features to the network. Requesters can now define the minimum performance ability of the machine from which they are requesting computing power. In addition, requesters rendering images can now set a different number of samples per pixel than the one which is set by default.

It is important to note that this version implements some changes to the Golem protocol which render older versions incompatible with Beta 0.16.0. This means that nodes running on 0.16.0 are only able to compute tasks from nodes which are on the updated version. Hence, it is crucial for users to update to this version.

Brass Beta 0.16.0 is available in both the testnet and mainnet. Keep in mind that there is a separate download required for each. It is suggested that you use the testnet if you are unfamiliar with the platform’s functionality, as the mainnet uses actual GNT and ETH tokens in its transactions.

Instructions including video tutorials for installing both testnet and mainnet updated version can be found on the Golem Downloads page.

Full details of the Brass Golem Beta 0.16.0 launch can be found on Golem’s blog post.

Subsequent Support Expansion

Complementing the launch of Beta 0.16.0, Golem has recently expanded upon their design and tech user support teams. This is in response to the influx of support requests after the April 2018 Mainnet Launch.

The Golem team reiterated that user support is not only about 1-on-1 interactions, but about improving the overall user experience. The team stressed that great engagement with the platform’s users is what separates good dApps from great dApps.

A full up-to-date list of all of Golem’s customer support mediums can be found here.

Golem Moving Forward

The rate at which Golem is moving forward is nothing short of exciting. They are one of the few dapps out there which now have a working beta on the Ethereum mainnet. Their increase in customer support shows that the user base is quickly growing. Not only that, they also want to ensure that when the product is finalized, it going to be something that people actually want to use.

The onslaught of conferences the Golem team has attended will serve not only to increase exposure within the crypto world, but will foster connections which could lead to big partnerships or projects later down the road.

To date, Golem’s most notable partnership is with FriendUP, an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) platform that shares similar goals as Golem. Through this cooperation, Golem looks to “dramatically improve its user experience by integrating with Friend’s operating system FriendUP.” More partnerships like this will only help Golem move forward.

Golem has been setting ambitious goals and pulling them off. If they keep up this pace, they might just pull off their dream of creating the world’s first decentralized supercomputer, and in the process change the world of cloud computing as we know it.

To keep up to date with Golem, visit their Medium page. You can also follow them on Reddit and Twitter.

Related: Golem 2018 Roadmap: What The Future Holds