Golem price prediction: What is Golem (GLM)?

It is based on a network designed to promote the sharing of digital resources, but what is Golem (GLM)?

Let’s see what we can find out, and also take a look at some of the Golem price predictions that were being made as of 12 September 2022. 

Golem explained

Golem markets itself as a flexible, open-source network for peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing of digital resources, including idle computing power. Examples of projects being built on the network’s modular architecture include machine learning, data analytics, video transcoding services, CAD simulators, chemistry simulations, and image and video rendering.

“Built on Ethereum’s (ETH) layer-2, our payment system enables fast, cheap micropayments for our easily scalable services, eliminating gas fees, onboarding costs and other network congestion issues,” says the project’s website. 

“As a utility token, GLM is used to access the Golem Network and is the currency used in peer-to-peer transactions for renting idle digital resources including spare computing power.”

Golem was founded in 2016 by Julian Zawistowski, Andrzej Regulski, Piotr Janiuk and Aleksandra Skrzypczak. In November 2016, it was one of the first blockchain projects to raise money from crowdfunding to build the network. In 2018, the initial implementation of the protocol, Brass Golem, was one of the first applications launched on Ethereum’s live network, or mainnet. 

The current version of the Golem platform, with a new architecture, was launched in 2020, and its former native token, GNT, began its gradual migration to the GLM token in November 2020. GLM has the same maximum supply of one billion tokens, all of which are in circulation, giving it a current market capitalisation of $415.6m.

Golem has migrated the token to the ERC-20 format, which requires ERC-20 tokens for the Ethereum layer-2 transaction framework. When the GNT token launched in 2016, ERC-20 was not widely adopted. It has since become the standard for applications across layer-2, decentralised finance (DeFi) and decentralised exchanges (DEXs). Golem was one of the first networks to implement layer-2 payments. 

It is worth pointing out at this stage that, because GLM is based on the Ethereum blockchain, it is a token, rather than a coin. You might see references to such things as a Golem coin price prediction, but these are wrong. 

In September 2021, Golem launched Thorg, a mining application featuring layer-2 payments built on the Polygon network. On 8 December 2021, Golem released Beta IV, with support for its new Polygon mainnet payment driver. 

There are several advantages to Polygon over ZkSync, the previous payment driver, the announcement noted. On ZkSync, fees for transferring GLM are around one GLM per transaction, whereas on Polygon, transaction fees are 100-200 times lower, depending on the gas price.

Polygon transactions are finalised after 128 blocks, or around five minutes, while blocks on ZkSync can often remain pending for hours. The cheapest off-boarding on ZkSync involves converting GLM to USDC, but USDC is supported on Binance and Gate.io via direct deposit from Polygon, without having to first bridge to Ethereum.

Golem price history

Let's now cast our eyes over the Golem price history. While past performance should never be taken as an indicator of future results, knowing what the cryptocurrency has done in the past can help give us some context if we want to either interpret a Golem price prediction or make one of our own. 

From the price chart below, we can see that the Golem token started trading in November 2016 at $0.015 and spiked to $0.726 in June 2017. The price reached its all-time high of $1.09 in January 2018, joining in the broader cryptocurrency market rally, then retreating as the market crashed in April 2018 to $0.194.

The price spiked again to $0.911 in May 2018, but subsequently fell back to around $0.10 until the end of 2020. 

As the markets rallied again in early 2021, the GLM price spiked to $0.69 at the end of March. When the markets collapsed in May, the GLM price dropped back and bottomed out at $0.167 on 22 June. The price peaked again at $0.934 on 28 November 2021 as layer-2 tokens in particular staged strong rallies, but it was again unable to hold on to the gains and ended 2021 at $0.456.

The token largely traded between $0.40 and $0.50 in January 2022. February saw it drift downwards until a sudden explosion of trading drove it up to $0.6243 on 26 February 2022.  

After that, though, it went down, with the trend exacerbated by the depegging of the UST stablecoin and the collapse of the associated LUNA cryptocurrency. On 12 May, it sank to a low of $0.164.

Since then, there has been a slow, halting recovery and, as of 12 September 2022, GLM was worth about $0.417. At this time, there were one billion GLM in circulation, representing the total supply.

This gave the token a market cap of around $415.6m, making it the 94th largest crypto by that metric. 

Golem price predictions

With that all said and done, let's take a look at some of the Golem price predictions that were being made on 12 September 2022.

It is important to note here that price forecasts, especially for something as potentially volatile as cryptocurrency, are often wrong. Also, remember that long-term crypto price predictions are often made using an algorithm, which can change at a moment’s notice. 

Technical analysis from CoinCodex was bullish at the time of writing, with 28 indicators showing bullish signals and three giving bearish signals. In terms of a short-term Golem price prediction for 2022, the site said it thought GLM could reach $0.4182 by 17 September, before dropping to $0.3218 by 13 October 2022.

DigitalCoinPrice made a Golem crypto price prediction suggested a slightly faster growth trajectory based on historical data, with the price averaging $0.55 in 2022 and $0.95 in 2023. The site said it thought GLM could average $1.68 in 2025 and made a Golem price prediction for 2030 that saw it potentially trade at $5.81 that year.

CaptainAltCoin had a GLM price prediction that thought the token could drop to $0.1976 by November but then potentially recover to trade at $0.3732 in September 2023. The site went on to make a Golem price prediction for 2025 that suggested GLM could trade at around $0.5686, potentially reaching $0.5710 in September 2027.

The site then argued that the token could be worth $1.42 in 2030 and $2.84 in 2040. 

The GLM price prediction from algorithm-based forecasting site WalletInvestor was rather more bearish, projecting that GLM could fall over the coming 12 months, with it potentially standing at $0.0327 by September 2023. 

When considering a GLM token price prediction, it’s important to keep in mind that cryptocurrency markets remain extremely volatile, making it difficult to accurately predict what a coin or token’s price will be in a few hours, and even harder to give long-term estimates. As such, analysts and algorithm-based forecasters can and do get their predictions wrong.

If you are considering investing in cryptocurrency tokens, we recommend that you always do your own research. Look at the latest market trends, news, technical and fundamental analysis, and expert opinion before making any investment decision.

Keep in mind that past performance is no guarantee of future returns, and never trade with money that you cannot afford to lose.

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