Let's talk about a project that sounds like it was invented by Elon Musk at a pizza day party: io.net. They claim to be building a decentralized GPU network. Translating from techno-jargon to human: it's like Uber, but instead of a taxi, you summon someone else's graphics card to teach your AI to recognize cats or, if you're in Silicon Valley, to order avocado toast.
What is this miraculous beast?
Io.net is a crypto-market for surplus graphics cards. If someone has an RTX collecting dust, throw it online. Developers of neural networks need a supercomputer for cheap, connect in. Everything is on the Solana blockchain because... well, because Solana. They even invented the IO token, which is used to pay for these computations. You can think of it like tokens in a vending machine, except instead of a plush bear, you get a generated AI image where a dog looks like the mayor of Chicago.
It's serious, almost.
The project raised $30 million from big names: Hack VC, Multicoin Capital, Solana Labs. And everything seemed to be going great... until founder Ahmad Shadid left. How did he leave? Well, like a politician after elections: 'My mission is accomplished, and I'm riding off into the sunset. With tokens.' The internet immediately screamed: 'Rug pull!' But the team appointed a new CEO and continued to work.
Tokenomics: translating from crypto-speak.
A maximum of 800 million IO. Currently, about 185 million is in circulation. There are token burns, rewards for GPU providers, staking, and inflation. That is, everything that makes any crypto 'truly decentralized'... until the price drops by 90% from ATH. And that has already happened with IO.
Why does anyone believe in this?
Because the idea is cool: cheap computing for AI. Because DePIN is trendy, and Solana is fast. Because maybe it's like buying Amazon stocks in 1997... or like buying Pets.com stocks in the same year.
The reality is this: right now IO is worth about $0.60. At its peak, it was $6.43. If you bought at the start, I sympathize. If you're planning to buy now, you either have nerves of steel or you just love extremes.
Conclusion?
Io.net is like the story of a garage startup, only the garage is rented in the metaverse, and instead of tools, there's a server farm. Can this succeed? Yes. Can it fail? Also yes. Welcome to crypto.
