GOLEM: ONE OF THE ETHERUM'S MOST AMBITIOUS APP IS LIVE!

Wouldn't it be nice to make some extra cash while browsing social media?

That's the promise of Golem, a peer-to-peer market for putting your computer's excess CPU power to use for other people. And today, after three years and 14 software implementations later, it's going live on the ethereum blockchain.

The project, which sold out of its GNT token in 20 minutes, raising 820,000 ETH - around $340 million, according to current metrics - in 2016 by selling its crypto utility tokens to investors will likely see a significant amount of fanfare since Golem was one of the earliest generations of ethereum applications.

But it has also received some amount of criticism for its failure to turn around a product relatively quickly.

"This is typical for software development in general, and blockchain in particular, we underestimate the complexity of what we want to do," Julian Zawistowski, CEO and founder of Golem, told CoinDesk. "You always underestimate how difficult it is, and this was obviously the case with us."

That said, even though the project is still far from its goal of building a worldwide supercomputer, the mainnet launch is an important step forward in proving out its underlying architecture and ethereum itself.

In its current format, the service enables computers to rent unused CPU power for creating computer-generated imagery (CGI) using Blender, an open-source software for animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications and video games. It works by swapping computational power for GNT through an interface that connects to Blender directly.

And this current release, Golem Brass Beta, is an effort to test whether the technology functions in real market conditions with real money. "We have to see how it behaves in the wild," Zawistowski said.