What is Gonka in simple terms

Today, AI computing is controlled by four corporations: OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Meta. They set prices, decide who gets access, and can cut off entire countries from intellectual resources with a single decision. This is not a hypothesis—it's an architectural reality: if your business depends on a single company's API, you are hostage to its pricing policy, censorship, and technical failures.

The global AI computing market is estimated at over $150 billion and is growing by 30%+ annually. The Stargate project involves investments of hundreds of billions of dollars in building giant data centers. Meanwhile, 'second-tier' countries cannot buy GPUs directly from NVIDIA—quotas are limited, and prices are monopolistic. Entire regions remain without access to AI simply because they were not on the chipmaker's list of priority clients.

Gonka is creating an open alternative: a network where computations belong not to a corporation, but to all participants. Any GPU owner can connect to the network and earn money. Any user can send an AI request without intermediaries. The price is determined by the market—competition among thousands of independent hosts, not by a board of directors' decision.

Example: In 2023, OpenAI blocked API access for developers from several countries without warning. Thousands of products built on top of the ChatGPT API became inoperable overnight. In a centralized model, the user has no leverage—you are completely dependent on the decisions of one company. Gonka eliminates this dependency: in a network of ~4,648 GPUs and ~113 independent participants, there is no single decision-making center, no 'off' button.

Geopolitical context: In 2024–2025, the US introduced restrictions on the export of advanced GPUs (H100, H200) to several countries, including China, Russia, Iran. This means that entire regions of the world physically cannot access hardware for AI computing. A decentralized network circumvents this problem: GPUs are already distributed worldwide, and no government can 'shut down' the entire network. Bhutan became the third country in the world to engage in state-level crypto mining. Uzbekistan is considering connecting state data centers to Gonka. When states begin integration, it signals that the technology has moved from the 'experiment' category to the 'infrastructure' category.

The Gonka team consists of over 50 engineers and researchers working on the protocol, SDK, and network infrastructure from offices in San Francisco and remotely.

The Gonka workflow can be divided into several stages. Owners of powerful GPUs connect their graphics cards to the network by installing special software (inferenced CLI) and registering on-chain. Each such machine is called an ML-node—it's a server with a GPU, ready to perform AI computations.

When a user sends an AI request, it goes to the Transfer Agent—a special intermediary node. The Transfer Agent finds a free ML-node with the required model, sends the request, receives the result, and returns it to the user. All of this happens in seconds. The Sprint Consensus (Transformer PoW 2.0) distributes tasks in real-time—each computation simultaneously serves the user and confirms a block on the blockchain. The PoC V2 mechanism verifies that each node operates honestly: 1–10% of tasks are sent for cross-verification by other nodes.

Currently, the network has approximately 4,648 GPUs from ~113 participants (~582 ML-nodes). The main model is Qwen3-235B, an MoE architecture with 22 billion active parameters out of 235 billion total. The cost of an AI request through Gonka is about $0.0009 per million tokens. For comparison: OpenAI GPT charges $2.50–15 for the same volume—this is ~2,800 times more expensive. The Gonka API is fully OpenAI-compatible—any application using ChatGPT can switch to Gonka in 5 minutes by simply changing the endpoint URL.

Security is ensured by several layers: BLS signatures verify each computation in less than 10 milliseconds, and dishonest nodes lose 20% of their stake if discrepancies are found. All code is open-source on GitHub, and an audit was conducted by CertiK. Unlike centralized providers, where security is a management promise, in Gonka, security is an architectural property.

About the Qwen3-235B model: it is one of the largest open AI models in the world, developed by Alibaba Cloud. The Mixture-of-Experts architecture means that out of 235 billion parameters, only 22 billion are activated for each query—this ensures high-quality responses with moderate computational costs. In terms of response quality, Qwen3-235B competes with proprietary models like GPT-4 and Claude, but the cost through Gonka is thousands of times lower. Gonka's roadmap includes support for multiple models simultaneously, distributed training of new models via DiLoCo, and Confidential Computing for sensitive data processing (Q2–Q3 2026).

Response speed: a typical request to Qwen3-235B through Gonka is processed in a few seconds—comparable to ChatGPT. Streaming (token-by-token generation) allows you to see the answer as it is generated, without waiting for completion. For developers: the API supports both synchronous requests and Server-Sent Events (SSE) for real-time.

GNK is the Gonka network's token, its 'fuel'. Every AI request is paid for in GNK. Hosts (GPU owners) receive GNK for the work performed. This is not a speculative meme coin—the value of GNK is tied to real demand for AI computing: the more people use the network, the more GNK is needed to pay for requests.

GNK tokenomics are transparent and fixed in code:

• Total supply: 1 billion GNK—there will never be more.
• 80% (800M) distributed to hosts for real work—AI computation requests.
• 20% (200M) reserved for founders with vesting (gradual unlocking according to a schedule).

Distribution mechanism: when a user pays for an AI request, 80% of the payment goes to the host who performed the computation, and 20% goes to the community pool—a fund for ecosystem development, bounties for developers, and training new models. A portion of transaction fees is burned—destroyed forever, creating deflationary pressure on the token supply.

The token is traded on SafeTrade and via OTC on HEX. The current price is about $0.54–0.68. GNK is not yet listed on major CEX (Binance, Coinbase), but TGE and tier-1 listings are on the project's roadmap.

In practice: if you want to use AI through Gonka, you don't need to buy GNK on an exchange and deal with crypto wallets. There are gateways that accept regular money and convert it into GNK automatically. For developers, the API looks exactly like OpenAI's—the only difference is the URL and the price. And if you want to earn GNK—connect a GPU to the network or invest in a pool.

Verification in Gonka is multi-layered: every inference result goes through Proof of Computation V2—cryptographic proof that the GPU indeed performed the computation and did not return random data. Validators compare outgoing tensor hashes, and if discrepancies are found, the node loses rewards for the entire sprint. This makes attacking economically senseless—the cost of faking exceeds the potential reward by tens of times.

Where to store GNK: the main wallets are GG Wallet (Chrome extension, open source) and Gonka.Wallet (Telegram Mini App). Both are free. Keplr and Leap—popular Cosmos wallets—are also supported. For experienced users, the gonkad CLI wallet is available. A detailed overview is available in the wallets article.

Gonka is open to people with diverse backgrounds, budgets, and interests:

• Passive investor: Invest $100+ in a mining pool and receive GNK without technical knowledge. Gonka.Top offers pools starting from $100 with a 25% referral rate, Mingles CloudMine from $30 with the lowest entry threshold. The operator rents GPUs, configures nodes, and distributes income—you don't need to set up anything.
• Crypto trader: Buy GNK on the SafeTrade exchange or via HEX OTC as an investment in the AI computing market. Current price is about $0.54–0.68 at an early-stage market capitalization. TGE and tier-1 CEX listings are on the horizon.
• Technical user: Connect your own GPU server (NVIDIA, 40GB+ VRAM) and mine GNK directly. This is the most profitable path—all rewards go to you without pool fees. Details are in the mining guide.
• Developer: Use the OpenAI-compatible Gonka API for $0.0009/1M tokens instead of $2.50–15 with GPT. Switching takes 5 minutes—just change the endpoint URL. You can also earn GNK through bug bounties and contributions to open-source code on GitHub.
• Simply curious: Try the free AI chat on our website, running through the real Gonka network with the Qwen3-235B model. No registration, no payment—just verify that it works.

Regardless of the path chosen, we recommend starting with understanding GNK economics—how the price is formed, what influences demand, and why this token is tied to a real market, not speculation. A detailed comparison of all providers and paths is on the “Get GNK” page.

The Gonka ecosystem is actively growing. In addition to the main network, the following are already operating: several pools (Gonka.Top, GonkaPool.ai, Hashiro, Mingles CloudMine), bare-metal providers (Spheron), third-party gateways (GonkaGate, OpenGNK with free 1M tokens), wallets (GG Wallet, Gonka.Wallet, Keplr, Leap). The community is present on Discord and X (@gonka_ai). The more participants in the ecosystem, the more stable and valuable the network.