Telegram's AI Mining Revolution! ⛏️ Your Home GPU Can Now Earn Toncoin!
Pavel Durov, the co-founder of Telegram, has provided crucial details on the official launch of Cocoon, the decentralized AI computing network. This initiative is not merely a conceptual launch but a practical effort to leverage blockchain technology to fulfill Telegram's internal feature demands while addressing the critical issues of privacy and the flawed economics associated with centralized AI providers.
The Cocoon Network is structured around three key, interconnected components:
1. Client: Submits AI inference tasks to the network and pays the designated Agent upon completion.
2. Agent: Protected by TEE (Trusted Execution Environment), the Agent securely routes the work requests to suitable Work Nodes based on GPU specifications, current workload, and reputation. The Agent collects fees from the Client and pays the Node, taking a small commission. Telegram plans to decentralize this component further by allowing anyone to run an Agent in the future.
3. Work Node: These are user-owned machines equipped with GPUs. The Work Node executes the AI inference tasks within a TEE-secured virtual machine and receives payment in Toncoin ($TON) for every processed request.
The GPU Earnings Opportunity: This structure means that anyone with a capable GPU can earn $TON by becoming a Work Node. By simply running the Cocoon protocol stack on a TEE-supported GPU server, users can provide private, verifiable AI model execution and receive transparent payments in $TON, directly contributing to the network's decentralized compute power.
Real-World Utility from Telegram: Durov confirmed that some of Telegram's internal AI-related functionalities, such as message translation, are already partially powered by Cocoon. He also indicated that future built-in features, including voice-to-text conversion and message summarization, will utilize the Cocoon network. This commitment from Telegram's massive user base is a significant factor, ensuring that the Cocoon network will have genuine, high-volume demand from the outset.
Long-Term Trend vs. Speculation: Unlike many crypto projects, Cocoon is built to use $TON as the primary settlement currency, foregoing the need to issue a new, highly speculative token. While this limits immediate speculation, it strengthens the project's utility and sustainability. It aligns with the emerging long-term trend where rising privacy concerns over centralized AI models will increasingly drive demand towards decentralized solutions that champion "data sovereignty" and secure, trustless computing infrastructure.