[RandomLensman]

I am not sure the actual use of compute is fungible enough as usually you'd need data to travel with the compute then (or somehow connect to it). If it were purely GPU cycles with a little bit of programming it could probably be a lot more commodity like.

[robocat]

Fungible is a spherical economic simplification. Some of our theoretically most fungible resources like electricity or bandwidth or water are not fungible in most markets. Even crude oil is not actually fungible (example sweet versus sour).

There is plenty of demand for pure compute. However no market has been created and the large compute providers have no incentive to commoditise compute (and are smart enough to recognise the value by creating their various lock-ins).

[RandomLensman]

Lots of things are fully fungible (e.g., money, fuels of the same specs. Water is fungible but the supply network is not.).

Demand for compute has created a market but not necessarily a futures market or an exchange/CLOB like thing. The latter needs more than just supply and demand.

[robocat]

"Fully" is anything but fully. It is an unrealisable ideal.

Money is not fungible across currencies or across time or in different locations or a wide variety of different characteristics. Even 1USD at the same time in the same place can have have different values depending on how/where it is stored ($1 on credit card, $1 in USDT, $1 note at a place that doesn't accept cash, $1 silver coin, $1 in Argentina, $1 promised, etcetera).

Even "fuels of the same specs" are not really fungible. Only approximately on some markets. Russian oil? Fungible is an ideal and markets are designed to try and get closer to the ideal but markets and specs are nowhere near perfect.

[RandomLensman]

Two dollars in the same situation are fully fungible between each other - if they are in different systems, or even gold, silver, etc. they are not in the same situation or even money or dollars (but something of a dollar value). For example, dollars in a checking account are fully fungible, you would not know which specific dollar you get if you transfer one.

That situationally swapping between fungible things can be blocked etc. doesn't mean that they thing itself isn't fungible.

[michaelgiba]

I am not sure either. Although maybe it just comes down to how the purchased compute is “delivered”

[RandomLensman]

Perhaps. It might also collapse to basically an energy market if it were fully fungible.

Market design is really tough, but it might be something worth thinking about here.