It has been far too long since I last posted about Akash, so it's time to fix that now. But before I dive in, time is running out on the "Blog Bounty" challenge I'm running from @leoalpha. It's the last chance to enter for LEO prizes, (2 * 250 LEO prizes, and 1 * 100), and to get your entry in to have a shot at the Akash prize of 100 AKT ($250 value). Check the linked post above for more details.
Still Bullish?
Akash has had a quiet time lately. Amidst many cosmos coins that have performed very well, Akash can be seen as underperforming. The price is well below its highs, and seeming stagnated. Under the surface, however, much has been going on to set the project up for the long term. No-one said that taking on industry giants like Amazon Web Services, Google and others would be easy. Traction and adoption is a hard goal to achieve.
Appearances are important, and one drama that has taken a little shine of Akash has been the price performance after a big unlock. A decent sized chunk of tokens unlocked, and the price has underperformed since. This has lead to some FUD from some corners, blaming the unlock and drop on the team and/or early investors selling off. I'm not sure if that's the case or not, but am looking mainly at other metrics for what should be considered a long term investment.
Overall, my thoughts on Akash have not changed much over the last year or so. IF (a big if to be sure) it can gain traction and adoption, it could be one of the best coins to own over a mid-to-long term horizon. I have a high degree of respect for Greg Osuri as the founder of the project, and generally think that a decentralized alternative to the major cloud providers is a needed service.
So, what have I done.
During a restructure of my holdings, primarily aimed at increasing my LP positions and variety of assets on Osmosis, I unstaked my AKT. Once it unlocked, I moved it to Osmosis. Roughly half went in to the AKT/OSMO pool. The other half I traded out of, and put it mainly in the LUNA/OSMO pool instead. So I downsized my AKT holding, and added LUNA exposure in its place. This has turned out to be a fairly well timed change, with AKT underperforming and LUNA having been a great performer over the time.
However, I have recently taken a different approach to building a position in certain assets, which I have first of implemented with Comdex. I am moving to a stake first, build a base, then, once the goal stake has been hit, add staking income to an LP position. This approach certainly sacrifices a little extra income, but gives a much more sustainable long term accumulation strategy.
With AKT, my plan is different. I considered removing my LP and re-staking it directly, but decided against that. Instead, I will slowly rebuild a staking position over time, DCAing a little every day from OSMO income back into staked AKT. Just a small buy, every day to build up my position over time. With Osmosis adding superfluid staking in the coming months, followed by offering that as a service to other IBC chains like Akash, I'm keen to maintain my LP position. I'm also keen to rebuild a stake so that is the plan.
A look at some metrics.
We saw the chart above, and what could be called a lackluster performance of late. But how do the stats that mater look? Is the network growing with increased deployments?
To see how its going, we can turn to the excellent Akashlytics data tracking site.
This shows active deployments on the network since launch. It showed a sharp uptrend in August last year, which coincided with the release of a guide to mining a POW coin called PKT. More on cloud mining soon. Since then it has been flat, with a recent promising uptick hopefully a sign on renewed growth.
Here we see the chart of daily AKT spending on cloud deployments via Akash. It shows a similar trend, with a recent surge in the last few days. This is likely to be the chart that AKT stakers are most interested in, with future plans including a "take income" component where 20% of the spend on Akash's cloud service being shared to AKT stakers. There is no firm timeline for this, just once the spend and adoption is significant enough to justify it. Even at its new all time high, the spend is still very miner when split amongst a current circulating supply of 125 million AKT tokens.
Both the above screenshots are from Akashlytics.
What's coming?
One of the most significant drivers will be the addition of GPU support, and persistent storage. The network as it is now would require Akash to be a part of a suit of services. Deployments that require both compute, and high storage requirements would need more than just Akash. (Filebase, SIA for example).
GPU support opens new opportunities, with a recent announcement of a new hire by the team - Andrew Mello - giving a clue to what could drive a new wave of adoption. Andrew has been appointed "Head of Mining"
A powerhouse in crypto mining, Andrew’s main focus at Akash is to ensure miners are welcomed and supported while creating new integrations for mining communities to use the Akash Network.
Andrew has been in crypto mining since 2013. He built one of the largest mining pools in Docker with over 1,000 mineable coins and started his first business when he was just 13, providing computer consulting for local businesses.
Source of quote: Akash website.
Mining of PKT gave Akash its first significant burst of adoption. Hiring someone highly experienced in the mining space would indicate that an increased focus on mining as a pathway for growth is a priority. As to that the addition of GPU's alongside the existing CPU based cloud market, and we could see the next phase of growth coming for Akash.
Conclusion.
Quite a while ago, (nearly 12 months in fact) I wrote a post about Akash and named a hypothetical price target of $250 by 2025. While not shying away from that prediction, I caution that to hit that, significant adoption and growth is required.
Is it possible? - YES.
Is it likely? - Only time will tell.
Despite having downsized my exposure a bit, and now working on rebuilding it, I'm here for it if it happens.
DYOR, NFA as usual.
Thanks for reading,
JK.
P.S. Don't miss the Blog bounty - time is running out.