The Golem team writes about its decentralized computing network, covering blockchain security, SGX enclaves, task verification, and developer tools.
HN commenters cite it for its post on finding $10M by reading the blockchain, an example used in an argument about EVM safety, and for Golem tooling announcements.
It's possible to write provable programs in any language, but some formalisms make proofs easier than other. I think Michelson makes it easier. There are a few other advantages I can think of:
1) The code can be inspected directly on the blockchain and remain human readable. You can attach Solidity code to an Ethereum contract, but there is no certified compiler yet so you can't be sure they do the same thing.
2) Type safety and an insistence on functional design make good things happen. For instance, by insisting from the get go that contracts should be pure functions, we naturally make it hard to write DAO-like reentrancy bugs. By typing every input, we avoid the ABI bug that recently put some ERC20 funds at risk[1]. Good design principles help prevent problems before they occur.
3) The code can be made more concise. Adopting high-level primitives directly in the language, such as maps and lambdas, make it easier to do what you need with a small program. The language should reflect the type of problems encountered. For instance, building an "updatable" contract in Michelson can be done by putting the contract logic in a lambda and putting that lambda in the contract's storage. It can then be updated according to some logic, such as a multi-signature. Achieving the same thing in Ethereum is much more arduous. You could use a call to an external contract, and have the address of that contract updatable, but you lose all type safety and all isolation.
[1]…
I would argue that attacks like this https://blog.golemproject.net/how-to-find-10m-by-just-reading-blockchain-6ae9d39fcd95 are only possible due to the lack of attention paid to safety in the design of EVM. You can compensate for it by putting more smarts into Solidity and other compilers but the basic fact is that the VM doesn't do much to prevent it. Other modern (and even non-modern) VMs take steps to prevent this without reducing expressiveness or speed at all.
At a fundamental level, getting 0s when reading missing or out-of-bounds values is an incredible red flag for security-focused design. Incidentally I can't even find a concrete source that says how calldataload behaves when an index is out of bounds. It's not mentioned anywhere in the documentation I've found (on the ethereum website or elsewhere).
https://omg.omise.co/
OMG holders can use OMG to validate the network. If they validate a block correctly, they get paid the tx fees from that block
https://blog.golemproject.net/golem-network-token-gnt-sale-220c2a732f9
All transactions in the Golem network will be subject to a fee, approximately 5% of the transaction value. This will include both transactions between the users — payments for computing power — and transactions between users and software developers. The latter will consist of payments for the software used on the Golem network in a SaaS model. Where applicable, a blend of both open source and proprietary software will be used.
Continuing our efforts to lower the barriers for users to build applications on Golem, we are excited to announce the launch of Dapp-runner and Dapp-manager! With these new tools, running and managing decentralized applications on Golem Network is now easier, faster and no longer requires extensive programming skills. Full article here: https://blog.golemproject.net/golem-releases-new-tools-to-simplify-running-and-managing-decentralized-applications/?utm_source=GMT&utm_medium=GMT&utm_campaign=GMT