Training AI models and running complex applications requires serious computing power. Specifically, it needs GPUs; the graphics cards that crunch numbers faster than anything else. And GPUs are expensive. Renting one from Amazon or Google can cost a fortune, especially for smaller teams or individuals who need serious power without a corporate budget.

Lium.io is trying to change that. Running as Subnet 51 on Bittensor, Lium built a marketplace where people with GPUs can rent them out to people who need them, cutting out the big cloud providers and their high prices. Think Airbnb, but for computing power instead of apartments.

It started as Celium in early 2025, rebranded to Lium in August of that year, and has since become one of the more interesting projects in the Bittensor ecosystem. Not just because of what it’s building, but because it’s already generating real revenue and using that revenue to burn its own tokens.

What Lium Actually Does

Lium connects two groups of people. On one side, you have people with powerful GPUs sitting idle most of the time, like gamers, small data centers, and hobbyists with high-end rigs. On the other side, you have developers, researchers, and companies that need GPU power for AI training, running models, processing video, or other heavy computation.

Lium puts them in the same marketplace. GPU owners list what they have. People who need compute browse available options, pick what suits their needs, and rent it on the spot. No contracts, no long-term commitments, no dealing with big cloud companies.

The pricing reflects this. An NVIDIA A100 GPU rents for as low as  $0.36 per hour on Lium (with variants up to $0.43/hour depending on the exact model, like PCIe or SXM4). The same GPU on Amazon Web Services costs significantly more. An RTX 4090 goes for just $0.14 per hour. These prices can only happen when you remove middlemen and let supply and demand set rates.

Everything runs on blockchain. Payments happen in TAO tokens. Validators on Bittensor verify that the GPUs being rented are real and performing as advertised. The whole system operates without any central company making decisions about who can rent or who can provide.

How Lium Actually Works

When someone rents a GPU on Lium, they pay in TAO. That payment becomes revenue for the platform. But here’s the clever part: Lium automatically takes that revenue and uses it to buy SN51 tokens (Lium’s own token) on the open market, then burns them permanently. Gone forever. Removed from supply.

This creates a direct link between platform usage and token value. More people renting GPUs means more revenue, which means more tokens getting burned, which means fewer tokens in circulation, which should push the price up over time.

It’s not just theory. By November 2025, Lium had already burned over $50,000 worth of tokens. At peak periods in August 2025, the platform was generating up to $14,400 in daily revenue. Every single day, that revenue was being used to buy and destroy SN51 tokens.

With a maximum supply of 21 million tokens and only about 3.6 million currently in circulation, there’s a long runway for burns to create meaningful scarcity. The more Lium grows, the fewer tokens exist.

How Lium Compares to Centralized Companies

The differences between Lium and traditional cloud providers come down to a few things. 

Price is the most obvious. Up to 90% cheaper because you’re renting from real people with real hardware instead of paying a corporation’s premium rates. No markups, no enterprise contracts, no minimum spend requirements.

Access is different, too. On AWS, you sign up, enter payment details, and rent from their data centers. On Lium, anyone with a GPU can provide it. This means more hardware is available globally, including in locations that big cloud providers don’t cover well.

Security is evolving. Lium is integrating Trusted Execution Environments and NVIDIA Confidential Computing, the same hardware-level privacy protections we’ve seen from other Bittensor projects. This means even the person providing the GPU won’t be able to see what you’re doing on it.

The tradeoff is that decentralized marketplaces can be less predictable than centralized ones. AWS guarantees certain service levels because it controls everything. Lium relies on individual GPU providers maintaining uptime, which validators monitor but can’t fully guarantee the same way a single company can.

That said, Lium reports strong uptime and has built systems to route around providers that go offline. The validators continuously score and verify hardware performance, which keeps bad actors out.

How It Compares to Other Bittensor Compute Subnets

Lium isn’t the only GPU marketplace on Bittensor. Chutes (SN64) and Targon (SN4) do similar things, but they focus on different things.

Chutes is more specialized for running AI inference quickly. If you need to call specific AI models at high speed, Chutes is optimized for that. But it’s less flexible for other workloads like training or video processing.

Targon focuses on verifiable AI inference with security built in from the start. It’s great for sensitive workloads but narrower in scope than what Lium offers.

Lium’s strength is being a generalist. It supports the widest range of hardware and workloads. If you need raw GPU access for something that doesn’t fit neatly into inference or one specific task, Lium is probably your best option.

Why Someone Might Invest in SN51

If you’re considering buying SN51 tokens, the investment case rests on a few pillars.

The token burn mechanism is the strongest argument. Unlike most crypto tokens that just sit there or inflate through emissions, SN51 actively shrinks in supply as the platform earns revenue. If AI compute demand keeps growing, and all signs point to it growing massively, Lium’s revenue should grow too, which means more burns, which means more scarcity.

The numbers support this. SN51 ranks among the top Bittensor subnets by revenue and development activity. Daily revenue hitting $14,400 at peak, with burns happening automatically, creates real economic pressure behind the token.

There’s also the broader market tailwind. AI compute is becoming one of the most in-demand resources in the world. Companies are spending hundreds of billions building data centers. Lium positions itself to capture some of that demand through decentralized supply, which is cheaper and more flexible than centralized alternatives.

Miners using Lium alongside Bittensor’s TAO staking have reportedly achieved yields up to 155% APY, though those numbers fluctuate with market conditions.

The risks are real, though. SN51 is volatile like all crypto. The platform is still relatively young. Competition from both centralized providers and other decentralized GPU marketplaces exists. Only invest money you genuinely can afford to lose entirely.

How Regular People Can Use Lium

Lium is designed so you don’t need to be a blockchain expert to use it.

If you need GPU power, the process is simple. Go to lium.io and sign up. Then, browse the available pods (that’s what they call the GPU instances). Pick what you need, launch it through their dashboard or command line tool, and start working. You pay in TAO tokens, which you can buy on any major exchange. SSH access, file transfers, and monitoring are all included. They even offer grants for interesting AI or ML projects.

On the other hand, if you have GPUs sitting idle, you can become a provider and start earning. Download the miner software from their GitHub, connect your GPU to the network, and validators verify it’s working properly. You earn base rewards in TAO just for having your GPU available, plus 80% of whatever rental revenue your GPU generates when someone actually uses it. All GPU types have shown positive returns so far. You don’t need to be technical beyond basic setup, and their Discord community helps with questions.

If you just want exposure to the project, buying SN51 tokens on an exchange gives you indirect benefit from the platform’s growth through the burn mechanism. Every time Lium earns revenue, your tokens become slightly scarcer.

What Happens Next

Lium is still early but moving fast. The rebrand from Celium to Lium in August 2025 came with expanded features and a clearer product direction. Revenue has been growing, burns are happening consistently, and the GPU marketplace is filling up with providers.

Upcoming features include deeper security integrations with TEEs and confidential computing, which will make Lium suitable for enterprises handling sensitive AI workloads. Multi-GPU splitting is also in development, letting users rent partial GPU capacity for smaller tasks at even lower cost.

As AI demand continues exploding and the cost of centralized compute keeps climbing, marketplaces like Lium become more valuable. The global pool of idle GPUs is enormous—millions of gaming cards and small data center rigs that sit unused most of the day. Lium is trying to unlock that capacity and make it available to anyone who needs it.

Whether Lium becomes a major player in the GPU rental market or stays a niche alternative depends on execution and adoption. But the fundamentals are solid: real revenue, real burns, real hardware, and a genuine problem being solved at prices that centralized providers simply can’t match.

Website: lium.io

Check out their GitHub at Datura-ai/lium

Follow @lium_io on X