Why Open Cloud (Cloud Engines) could change the game for ICP completely 👀
Imagine a customer pays $1,000 for a Cloud Engine.
$1,000 USD
→ DFINITY buys $1,000 worth of ICP at the spot price
→ ICP is sent to the NNS / Cycles Minting Canister
→ the ICP is burned — permanently gone
→ the corresponding amount of Cycles is minted
Cycles are basically the fuel of the Internet Computer. They pay for compute, storage, memory and network usage. Unlike ICP, Cycles have a stable value and cannot be converted back into ICP.
The resulting Cycles are then split:
80% → Node Providers 💻
20% → Protocol fee → 🔥 BURNED
And here’s another interesting part:
The Node Providers don’t receive ICP that they could later dump on the market.
They receive Cycles, and Open Cloud says those Cycles are settled to USD monthly (or can be redeemed continuously).
So the flow is:
Customer pays $1,000 USD
→ $1,000 ICP bought on the spot market
→ ICP permanently burned
→ Cycles minted
→ 80% Node Providers / 20% Protocol
→ 20% of the Cycles burned
That creates a pretty direct link between real-world cloud usage and ICP burn.
More cloud demand → more ICP bought → more ICP burned.
And the providers get paid in USD, rather than receiving ICP that they could sell back into the market.
Of course, ICP also has inflation through protocol rewards, so the long-term supply effect depends on burn vs. minting.
But the mechanism itself is pretty interesting. 🔥
$ICP