Thought’s blockchain-enabled Fabric fundamentally changes applications by embedding artificial intelligence into every bit of data making it agile, actionable and inherently secure.
Please visit https://thought.live for full information on joining the THOUGHT ICO Presale on March 1, 2018, and the main THOUGHT ICO on March 14, 2018. The whitepaper is available for download at https://thought.live/assets/thought-white-paper.pdf.
Please join our communities on Telegram, Facebook and Twitter – we would love to see you there!
Funding will be used for building out the thought network and its product along with the ecosystem. Please see the whitepaper for further details.
What are the different milestones (roadmap)?
2018: PHASE 1
Q1 - MVP complete, internal development network expansion
Q2 - Complete prototype builds of Thought Fabric, Nuance Virtual Machine, All Node types
2018: PHASE 2
Q3 - Beta release end-user facing applications, Prototype build of micro-network, Fabric Node alpha development, First round of Integration testing
Q4 - Developer library and API complete, advanced agent behaviors
2019: PHASE 3
Q1 - Prototype builds of Data Marketplace and Nuance Management Interface Beta, Rules development, Thought Network Hackathon
Q2 - Prototype build of Impact rating system
Where can I find the source code?
Thought Networks source code can be found on our GitHub page https://github.com/thoughtnetwork. We are big supporters of open source projects.
Is there a prototype, minimum viable product or trial underway?
Yes, we have an MVP ready for use at the start of the Pre-ICO in March 2018
Team, Advisors & Partners:
Who are the lead team members?
All team members can be found on our website https://thought.live/ with pictures and bios. Team member’s professional bios and experience can also be found on LinkedIn. Harrisburg University is an equity partner in MistIQ Technologies the R&D organization for Thought.
Can the team execute?
Thought Network consists of 30+ team members and advisors, primarily made up of university professors, Ph.D.'s and master’s degrees with experience in computer science, project management, AI, cybersecurity, blockchain, data privacy, bio-engineering and business development.
How long has the team been working on this project?
Team members started working on the technology back in 2016 and have been working on it ever since. However, we recently formed the Thought Network Foundation to support and distribute the technology.
Who are the Advisors, and what do they add to the project?
We thought long and hard when it came to decide who our advisors would be. All of our advisors we have either worked with or have been mentors to us for years. For our advisor's list, please see our website https://thought.live/
Part of the process of deciding our advisors was "what do they bring to the table; will they be able to help us execute." That's why we wanted to look for advisors with experience in AI, data privacy and security, data science, blockchain, product adoption, community growth and business development.
Where are you physically located?
While our office is physically located in Harrisburg, PA, we are proud to have team members spread all over the world.
Does the project have partnerships or backing from VCs and/or established tech or other companies?
Yes, Harrisburg University. They have played a key role in helping us take the project from idea to product. They have provided us with the resources we needed for a successful launch.
What companies are you partnered with or seeking to partner with?
We are working on developing key partnerships to help grow the Thought network ecosystem. However, we will only release partnership details once confirmed. NOTE: All announcements will come from Thought's official communication channels.
How many tokens will be owned by the foundation & founders? Is there a vesting schedule?
Token distribution and vesting schedules can be found in the whitepaper
Challenges:
How do you propose to drive adoption?
As you know, driving adoption isn't easy. We are getting the word out there with the following initiatives: Building partnerships with educational and business organizations and experts; building communities around Thought Network concepts; and educating developers on building on the Thought platform. To further fuel adoption among the developer community we will incentivize development and adoption of algorithm/data model development rewards, device integration and data usage rewards, and of course, mining block rewards.
Token Sale Economics:
How much are you looking to raise?
The soft cap is set at $10 milions, and the hard cap is set at $50 milions
How did you choose your hard cap?
To build out Thought Networks ecosystem requires significant funds for further development, plus large-scale adoption and growth. While we have been working hard to build out our MVP, further development is needed: internal development network expansion, Thought Fabric, Nuance Virtual Machine, All Node types, user-facing applications, micro-network, Fabric Node alpha development, integration testing, developer library and API, advanced agent behaviors, Data Marketplace and Nuance Management Interface, Rules development, Thought Network Hackathon, Impact rating systems and more.
Along the way, we must also foster adoption by building awareness through marketing, building partnerships with educational and business organization and experts, building out a resource library to help educate developers on building on the Thought platform and on-boarding miners and holding competitions.
Finally, this all is for nothing if we are not able to show that developers and entrepreneurs are not able to build solid use cases and businesses from our platform. Therefore, we will be putting a portion aside strictly for grants to help individuals build solid businesses and provide economic value to the ecosystem.
What is the implied valuation?
We believe that assessing the value of distributed ledger technologies and not only their networks, but their entire ecosystems, is difficult. Current methods are flawed and do not capture the underlying value of the network, the encompassing and fragmented value that a strong ecosystem provides, and underlying technology and improvements over time. More importantly, it does not capture the true nature of the risk involved with bringing transformative innovation technology to the public. In other terms, you cannot invent the microwave by improving a toaster. You need transformative innovation, which is hard to value.
What are the participation phases of your ICO?
There are three phases to our ICO
Phase 1: Supporters and Contributors 30% discount
Phase 2: Pre-sale 15% discount – March 1, 2018, to March 13, 2018
Phase 3: 5-10% - 03/14/2018 – 03/31/2018.
How do I participate in the ICO?
You need to sign up through our sign-up page you will receive an email that will instruct you on the AML/KYC process. This process must be completed for you to participate in the ICO. Please visit https://thought.live/
Who can participate?
While we appreciate the support of our community which consists of members from all over the world. However, to raise this funding and to ultimately ensure the longevity of Thought Network and its ecosystem, it’s important that we start off with a solid standing. Therefore, we are committed to full AML/KYC compliance. If you are from the US, Canada you must be an accredited investor. All other countries are welcome except for the blacklisted countries.
Can the additional thought tokens be bought after the ICO?
THT will be listed on crypto exchanges, and that information will be released at the end of the main ICO.
Perhaps this is in the white paper, but how do you propose to drive adoption if you're running your own chain?
As you know driving adoption isn't easy. We are getting the word out there with the following initiatives: Building partnerships with educational and business organizations and experts, building communities around Thought Network concepts, educating developers on building on the Thought platform. We will incentivize development and adoption with algorithm/data model development rewards, device integration and data usage rewards, and of course mining block rewards. Adoption will come from being able to provide a chain where Partners and Communities can see their own DAPPs grow. For example, Healthcare and Supply Chain are two use cases where we are talking to partners about.
What are some hurdles do you think the project development will have to overcome in order to be successful in the future.
There will always be technological hurdles to overcome, which is exactly why we are doing this, because that part is fun! Building a strong community will be extremely important as will be getting participation and know-how from a wide range of industries and disciplines to help us build solutions that solve real problems. Whatever the hurdles may be, we are ready!
Thought is fundamentally changing the way data is being processed by embedding every piece of data with artificial intelligence. This means that otherwise ‘dumb data’ that needs an application to become useful, becomes valuable and ‘smart’, and is able to act on its own - understanding where it came from, where it’s supposed to go, and what it has to do. This reduces the need for third-party applications, making data processing a lot cheaper and faster.
Integrating blockchain technology with this concept creates an extra layer of security on the smallest level. Every piece of data is secured with cryptography, allowing the owners of the data to dictate exactly who has access to it. In addition to making data processing a lot faster and cheaper, it solves some of the biggest issues with the current AI (Artificial Intelligence) industry:
AI training is time-consuming – All of the current AI needs to be trained with large amounts of information before being able to act on its own. By combining data with AI, Thought is able to allow
AI to train itself. Data understands its origin and its purpose and is able to function without human intervention.
AI black box problem – One of the most popular problems with AI is the fear that artificial intelligence becomes smarter than humans and causes massive complications which can interfere with our lives on many different levels without us even noticing this, before it’s too late. Already, some AI networks have become too complex to understand how they came up with their answers. Thought’s smart data can record their progress, making it easy for the designers to see exactly how it came to certain conclusions.
AI is only in the hands of few – Large companies like Facebook and Google know a lot about their visitors, a lot more than you might and, quite frankly, more than you might like. And only they can use that information to work with AI. Thought’s algorithms are transparently designed, improved by the community and can be used even by those who don’t have billions of dollars laying around.
Are you building out a resource library to help educate developers on building on the Thought platform and on-board miners?
The immediate plan is to let developers and node owners set their prices like in any other market - if the owner of a product wants to boost the volume of sales then they lower their prices. All the prices will advertised into the blockchain, so I will write a concept that will monitor the going rate for things, the real cost of Thought, the current volume of the various services, and provide a summary and recommendations for developers and node owners. That is, unless some other developer beats me to it. Thought is an endlessly evolving system, so we can fully automate the whole price setting system at some time in the future, if there is a need.
Smart data have wallets and pay the fabric nodes for services. Also we will be opening the system to the development community to create new kinds of smart data. When smart data is created, the developers of that type of smart data are paid using the token.
This seems awfully similar to Mobius
Mobius is a great platform and we are very excited by their successful ICO. Thought is similar to Mobius in that we are creating universal abstraction layers. The difference is Mobius is abstracting blockchain functionality and addressing some interesting "effects" that blockchain produces, network effect, market effects, etc. At Thought we are also creating a universal abstraction layer. However, Thought is focused more specifically on data and algorithms such as analytics and artificial intelligence. I have met the Mobius folks, they are very smart people and I am confident we will be working together in the near future!
Do you consider SingularityNet a competitor?
Singularity.net are run by great guys and the CEO has met Ben Goertzel, a very smart guy, very big on life extension! We don't consider them competitors, they are creating a great communication network for centralized AI applications to exchange information and value. We are building a whole new kind of AI from the ground up where we will build an emergent "intelligence" that starts with the smallest pieces of information ("Nuances") that together build larger hierarchies of organization and higher-level functionality. So you can think of our global neural network as more like a whole colony of ants, or bees, or individual neurons that synchronize and work together to discover and create patterns to provide value. Our AI will also be "safer" since smaller agents are more manageable. I see us collaborating with Singularity.net in the near future!
Thought is creating a global AI network based on "small things". We are creating a totally new information structure - a hybrid of data and logic called the "Nuance". Nuances will take ordinary data that doesn't do much on its own and make it agile and able to act autonomously. Thought will democratize and add transparency to how we interact with data and applications, things that in today's digital world are monopolized by a few very large and powerful companies. Thought is leveraging blockchain as the structure for a global "intelligence" layer on the Internet where "data that thinks" will create insight and value for all that participate in the network.
How do you compare to Neurochain?
Thought is infinitely more flexible. Our scope covers Smart City and IoT, we have extensive use cases including Smart City and Smart Grid. The key is that Nuances each contain their own logic based on community developed "Concepts" or algorithm models. Big data is merely a component of operating on information that comes from different systems. Smart grids are ultimately about responding to grid conditions in an efficient and time sensitive manner. For example if a certain condition happens on a specific location on the grid, Nuances with contextual awareness of the local environment can respond autonomously based on pre-defined criteria to more rapidly respond with corrective action.
Nuerochain bots don't seem to be incredibly programmable. Their focus is on transactional transfer of a generic decision protocol. I was surprised to hear that they use SMTP - an email protocol - to communicate information. Our fabric creates its own universal communication medium where Nuances are free to evolve their functionality based on something unique to Nuance, a digital "memory". Nuances autonomously extract patterns from connected devices and are able to act on contextual environment based on a more dynamic and flexible set of algorithms, true building blocks of AI.
THOUGHT ICO PARTICIPATION:
What is the minimum investment?
Phase 1: minimum $50,000 USD
Phase 2: minimum $100 USD
Phase 3: no minimum
What is the maximum number of tokens available?
We have a max coin of 1.618B, 809MM of which are premined and 517MM available for sale. This represents 65.38% of currently circulating coins. The remaining 809MM coins are not yet created and will only be available by mining. It's mineable by the public over 25 years. We have a block time of 1.618 minutes and a 314 THT block reward with subsidy halving interval of 1,299,382 blocks. At this rate, minable coins (809MM) will be created over 27.7 years (all coins mined and circulating by year 2045). We expect network value to significantly outpace additional coin creation so that dilution from new coins will be insignificant. If we reach our hard cap of $50MM USD, the valuation of Thought will be $76.47MM. We will use the funding for heavy R&D and community and partnership building to bring an unprecedented amount of value to all entities that create and consume data and data insight with a truly unique artificial intelligence network. We need minable coins because we will need community participation in processing Nuances and compute resources for real AI!
