Akash Weekly: Geeks Pics
Welcome to another issue of The Akash Weekly Newsletter from the team at Overclock Labs.
Tune into our weekly Twitter Spaces held every Wednesday at 8 am PT, featuring the Founder & CEO of Overclock Labs, Greg Osuri — and special guests from around the web3 space.
Explore the Akash Community and check out our Akash Insider and Vanguard programs.
Follow @akashnet_ and @gregosuri for real-time coverage of the Akash ecosystem.
Our guest this week
Solomon G, Project Manager at Geeks Pics
San Francisco Tech Week is back
SF Tech Week is back and currently ongoing from November 1st-6th. There have been lots of great panels and events, and it’s been great to see everyone in person again.
Greg Osuri spoke on a panel at Draper University on Thursday alongside Adit Gupta (Mirana Ventures), Jazear Brooks (Sifchain), Jayendra Jog (Sei Network), and Neel Somani (Eclipse).
Spheron hosts a web3 masterclass in Nigeria and Delhi
Akash Network ecosystem partner Spheron is hosting a web3 masterclass with our own Alani Kuye, Technical Program Manager at Overclock Labs.
The masterclass will take place on November 5th in Nigeria and on November 12th in Delhi. Follow the links in the tweets below to register.
Luna’s Akash Terraform Provider
Regular readers of this newsletter will recognize Akash Insider Luna’s Terraform Provider for Akash Network. This week, Greg wanted to highlight that usage of the Provider has been picking up — and we always want to spotlight the work of the incredible Akash community.
Follow Luna on Twitter, and check out the Terraform Provider here.
Akash’s Mainnet 4 unlocks functionality for MASQ and Urbit
Mainnet 4 brings an open IP marketplace to Akash, which we call IP Leases. Once the marketplace is live, projects like MASQ and Urbit will be able to run on Akash once the network has the functionality to provide fixed IP addresses. With IP leases, Akash will be able to host Urbit nodes, for example.
We believe Urbit should run on the decentralized cloud. If you’re currently an Urbit user, and you’re interested in finding out more, keep an eye on this newsletter for the launch announcement of Mainnet 4 — coming very soon!
Check out MASQ here.
Check out Urbit here.
Check your AKT delegations
PSA: Check your AKT delegations and make sure you’re not delegating to one of the validators in the tweet linked below. You will not earn staking rewards if you have AKT delegated to a jailed/unbonded validator.
Special-edition Akash merch for the holiday season
Cast your vote for this season’s holiday merch by following the link in the tweet below. Voting ends on Monday, so make sure to choose before then.
Generative AI and the coming Akash GPU marketplace
Consider this blog post from Open AI:
“We’re releasing an analysis showing that since 2012, the amount of compute used in the largest AI training runs has been increasing exponentially with a 3.4-month doubling time (by comparison, Moore’s Law had a 2-year doubling period).[1]
Correction (November 7, 2019): We originally quoted Moore’s Law as an 18-month doubling time.
Since 2012, this metric has grown by more than 300,000x (a 2-year doubling period would yield only a 7x increase).” —Open AI, AI and Compute
The post is from a few years ago — but it points towards the current rise of Generative AI fueled by the increasing adoption of GPT-3, Stable Diffusion, and others.
Akash Network's vision includes an open marketplace for GPGPUs. The current distribution of GPU computing is inefficient: finding new GPUs can be difficult and expensive, yet many currently owned GPUs go unused or underutilized (especially as blockchains transition away from mining). Akash’s GPU marketplace will connect those with unused GPU compute with those who need it.
As generative AI grows exponentially, so will the demand for GPGPUs. Akash is working to position itself as the best-in-class marketplace for GPU compute — which will directly support the rise of AI.
Listen to the full recording of this week’s updates from Greg Osuri (YouTube)
Geeks Pics and the Lorem Ipsum Metaverse
This week's guest is Solomon G, Project Manager at Geeks Pics — to give us an overview of the Geeks Pics NFT project and the Lorem Ipsum metaverse.
Owning a Geeks Pics NFT opens access to the Lorem Ipsum metaverse — an exclusive shared digital space for Geeks Pics holders. In addition, Geeks Pics just launched its own DAO, allowing community members an active voice in project governance.
The Lorem Ipsum metaverse allows artists, creators, and other members to showcase their work and organize their communities in a shared digital space. They are currently working on a live chat feature powered by blockchain — which could eventually replace other external chat apps for their community.
Listen to the recording of Solomon’s section below:
Q&A
Q: Who are Akash Network’s target users?
A: Akash’s current target audience is web3 broadly and the Cosmos ecosystem specifically. Cosmos users likely already have the basic requirements needed to use Akash — like a Keplr wallet. The UX of the network is steadily improving as we release new products and features like Mainnet 4 and Overclock Console. Features like IP Leases will open up new use cases and applications that are not possible on Akash currently.
Post-Mainnet 4 launch, we will focus on launching a GPGPU marketplace on Akash.
Our community is always available for help and support on Akash’s Discord.
Link to the recording of this question and answer (YouTube)
Q: When will fiat payments be integrated and what are the updated AKT tokenomics?
A: Akash will need stable payments as a precursor for fiat payments on the network. We are developing this feature and will keep everyone updated on the progress.
Given the financial (and in-progress) nature of the tokenomics question, please listen to Greg’s answer in the Spaces recording on YouTube.
Q: Are any other features coming soon for the Lorem Ipsum metaverse?
A: Inside there Lorem Ipsum metaverse, there are billboards that show the NFTs of the users currently in the metaverse. These billboards cycle through the current users in the space and other NFTs in the collection. They have launched a governance proposal to use these billboards as screens for broadcasting content (i.e., a YouTube video) by users within the metaverse.
Link to the recording of this question and answer (YouTube)
Listen to the full recording of this week’s spaces below