Brian Chesky’s bank account had dwindled to $1,000. He had no job.
And the rent on his San Francisco apartment was about to jump by 25%.
With his back against the wall, Chesky tried a “silly” idea to make some cash.
He put three inflatable mattresses in his spare bedroom and offered to rent them to attendees of an upcoming conference in town.
Chesky built a basic website and advertised it as Air Bed and Breakfast.
Fast-froward 15 years, and home-sharing pioneer Airbnb (ABNB) is now an $86 billion company, making Chesky a billionaire.
Airbnb allows you to earn some extra cash renting out a spare room in your house.
Akash (“ah-cash”) Network (AKT) is like “Airbnb for computer chips.”
It allows you to make money renting out your idle chips to users who need some extra computing power.
Akash has been around for roughly six years. Its first offering was a decentralized cloud computing service. Think Amazon Web Services, but instead of running on a few giant data centers, it’s powered by thousands of individuals around the world.
That business has hummed along. But the AI boom — kicked off by ChatGPT’s launch less than one year ago — presented an even bigger opportunity for Akash.
AI systems are powered by a special type of computer chip called graphics processing units (GPUs). Unlike traditional chips, GPUs can perform thousands of calculations all at once, making them perfect for fast-thinking AI “brains.”
And ChatGPT doesn’t just need a couple dozen chips. It was trained on 10,000 Nvidia (NVDA) GPUs! It also needs thousands more to keep the system up and running 24/7.
Akash launched its “AI Supercloud” last month. As I said, it’s like Airbnb for GPUs. It allows folks to rent out their idle GPUs to companies that can’t get their hands on them.
Users love Akash. It gives them access to AI chips they can’t get anywhere else — and at a fraction of the cost, as I’ll show you in a moment.
It’s also great for folks who sign up to rent their idle GPUs. When your chip is used, you get paid in Akash’s crypto token (AKT). Folks can then sell AKT for real US dollars.
Say you pay $100 to access GPUs on Akash’s network. Akash takes anywhere from $4 to $20 as a fee, funneling the rest through to the GPU provider.
Better… faster… cheaper
Akash’s AI Supercloud enjoyed huge growth since launching on September 1, 2023.
There are now 644 top-end Nvidia GPUs available to rent on its network, as you can see:
That’s still a drop in the ocean compared to cloud giants like Meta and Microsoft, which have over 100,000 GPUs.
But given the AI chip shortage, Akash’s GPU capacity should keep growing. Not only can Akash give firms access to sought-after GPUs, but it does so at much lower prices than competitors.
We cobbled together numbers from various sources and found Akash can offer GPU power anywhere from 15% to 30% cheaper than Microsoft, Amazon, or Google.
Access hard-to-find AI chips at slashed prices? Sounds like a winning business to me.
Analyzing Akash’s tokenomics
RiskHedge Venture members know tokenomics is a key part of our analysis.
It’s one of the most important — if not the leading driver — of a crypto’s price. A well-designed token can cause mediocre projects to soar. Bad tokenomics can weigh on even the best, fastest-growing cryptos.
There are two key pillars to every crypto’s tokenomics.
#1: How will the tokens accrue value from the underlying businesses?
Akash makes money through “take rates,” which currently range from 4% to 20%.
The majority of these fees are then paid out to AKT holders who secure the network by “staking” their tokens. In the stock market, they’d call this paying a “dividend” or returning money to shareholders.
You can currently stake your AKT tokens and earn a 16% yield.
#2: What does its supply schedule look like?
Akash created 344 million AKT tokens when it ICO’d in 2019.
Roughly 30% of those tokens were released right away.
Another 45% were gradually introduced into circulation over the past four years. This includes all the tokens awarded to “insiders,” like early investors and Akash employees.
In other words, some three quarters of all AKT tokens that will ever exist are already in circulation today.
The remaining 25% will slowly be released over the next six years, mostly paid out to stakers who secure the network.
Here’s a snapshot of Akash’s supply schedule. There are no massive unlocks on the horizon, which is what we want to see:
Today, Akash is a tiny crypto with a $1 billion market cap — small enough to rank outside the largest 100 cryptos.
Yet, it’s solving one of the biggest problems in the world right now — access to AI chips.
I first recommended AKT to my Venture members in October 2023. By March, we sold half of that position for a 650% profit. We continue to hold the other half 440% into profit. It’s a great crypto to keep in your portfolio.
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I publish fresh research on stocks and crypto every Monday and Friday.
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— Stephen McBride, Chief Analyst at RiskHedge
This under-the-radar crypto created Airbnb for AI chips was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.