Why I've invested in Golem Network Tokens (GNT)

This is not another pump-post for yet another alt-coin or ICO. I'm going to explain why I've invested 33% of my portfolio in GNT, and the reasoning behind it.

First of all, I'm following up on the crypto space since january 2011 (many people claim to be in this, very early, but I can actually proof it). The thing is, I never thought it would go anywhere, and I gladly admit I was dead wrong. I just didn't see the computers crunching numbers (miners) doing their jobs for years to come and build a real currency or commodity. I just didn't see it, and soon I cashed out whatever I had made mining with a GPU. In hindsight, this was a big mistake, but you can't know the future of course. I had other stuff to invest in at the time. I missed the boat in the financial part, but kept following up closely.

I went into NXT coin (a proof-of-stake coin) and later I was into Vertcoin and now Ethereum.

Then I discovered Golem Network (https://golem.network)
The great opportunity in this system is that it deals with something that can be traded for real, has a real-life use (rendering, calculations...) - That's the main fundament, and even if you don't like Ethereum on itself (many people don't see the value of smart contracts, or even think Ether is a downright ponzi or scam) you can't deny that there's real value in having a network of computers renting out their CPU time.

This scheme is not new of course, the SETI@home was/is an older, more primitive, example of this core idea... where volunteers ran the software to crunch numbers on tasks for interpreting the data coming from space agencies.

The main reason I invested in Golem is mainly because of the real-life use cases we can do something with, instead of just holding coins in hope they go up in price, or become a mainstream payment system. There are enough of these, and my own believe is that we're not only in a bubble, but that we're downright in scam-territory in 85% of the crypto-space. The inflow of investors who don't know anything about technology proofs that we're promising on one side, but getting inflow of money without delivering any value.
I also believe golem will deliver that value. If you look at their roadmap the use cases will not stop with Brass Golem (a rendering software to put it simply).

Maybe it's time we see real use cases for the crypto space, where most of it was focussed on getting coins and store of value, and a means of exchange... it's time to take a real step into a connected economy/services space. Where the real world use (rendering CGI to science and calculations) is combined with a modern form of payment over blockchain/smart contracts technology.

This will not be without problems, the business-side of this will be hard (selling the idea of something named "Golem" to non-tech/nerd users will be hard), as will be the actual implementation in any datacenter. There will be downturns as well.
There is 1000 GNT (Golem) for every 1 ETH (Ether) created... which means that the current price should be 1000 golem for 1 ether... looking at that price graph, it is "over" priced at the moment. But that's even before their first Brass Golem version is released (it's currently in beta at time of this article being written 18 june 2017). The price can be checked at https://liqui.io/#/exchange/GNT_BTC.

In this connected world, we still need a real step into that direction, and I hope and believe that Golem is that first baby step into a real smarter, connected world, where lots of ancient services and even government led initiatives can be put into motion by the crowd, AI and the cloud. Bitcoin showed us the way of using the blockchain, Ethereum showed us that there's more sophistication possible, and now it's time to have something real, with real use cases. Golem will be that use case.
And that's why I invested in it, because investing is looking ahead.