Decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) company YOM has been chosen as one of five frontier technology firms for the inaugural Gaming Founders Circle, a program launched by Discord, Techleap, and the Dutch Games Association. This selection comes just days after YOM launched its native utility token, $YOM, on the Avalanche network.
Program Details and Participants
The Gaming Founders Circle operates out of Discord's European headquarters in the Netherlands and runs through the end of 2026. It provides participants with direct access to Discord's global gaming ecosystem and Techleap's investor network. YOM shares the cohort with founders of four other Dutch gaming companies, including Poki, the world's largest HTML5 games platform with over 90 million monthly players, and initiatives led by former Epic Games and Guerilla Games executives. The program culminates in October 2026 with a delegation to San Francisco, where the cohort will meet Discord's executive leadership and attend a private investor summit hosted by Techleap and Prince Constantijn Orange-Nassau of the Netherlands, ahead of the Dutch Games Awards in November.
YOM's Approach to Cloud Gaming
YOM addresses what it identifies as a structural problem in cloud gaming: high costs, scalability issues, and latency. By repatriating GPU compute from big tech data centers to a sovereign network of local devices, YOM aims to reduce latency to under 12 milliseconds, with average latency settling under 50 kilometers of any network host. This approach enables YOM to offer what it claims is the fastest, lowest latency network for cloud gaming. The company focuses on cloud gaming as the highest impact use case for ultra-fast GPU compute networks, but notes that if a distributed network of edge nodes can stream a first-person shooter at sub-12ms latency, it can reliably handle any GPU streaming and future GPU communications workload.
Token Launch and Network Expansion
The $YOM token is now trading on leading exchanges, including Kraken, KuCoin, MEXC, and the Blackhole DEX. Deployed on the Avalanche C-Chain, the token serves as the settlement mechanism for distributed edge compute. The protocol's settlement contract meters node contributions and distributes rewards programmatically, including a real-time 5% burn mechanism tied to network throughput. With the settlement layer live, YOM shifts its operational focus to physical node expansion. Over the coming weeks, more of the network's plug-and-play NANO physical nodes are scheduled to come online, and professional operators can participate by running YOM's custom Linux OS on their servers. Once load tests confirm end-to-end network stability under real-world on-chain usage, the automated on-chain payout function will activate, allowing node operators worldwide to monetize their idle gaming PCs and GPUs.
Industry Backing and Milestones
YOM's selection into the Discord-backed cohort follows a series of milestones supported by a network of institutional partners and accelerators. A 'Coalition of Compute' with over $3 million in backing was announced from funds and ecosystems, including Outlier Ventures, CV VC, Avalanche, Protein Capital, and Borderless Capital. This coalition underpins a massive industrial shift as hardware providers and industrial Bitcoin mining fleets pivot capacity from blockchains toward edge compute.
For more on the broader crypto and blockchain landscape, see our coverage of Coinbase, Circle Rise as Analysts Flag Bitcoin-Linked Recovery Potential and Circle Stock Surges 13% Premarket After OCC Approves National Trust Bank Charter.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
