Gate.io AMA with EpiK Protocol-An AI-first Blockchain That Aims at An Open And Collaborative AI Data Network Accessible To All AI in Web3

Time: Sep 11th, 2021, 10:00 UTC
Gate.io hosted an AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) session with James Lim,CEO of EpiK Protocol in the Gate.io Exchange Community.
Official Website: https://epik-protocol.io/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EpikProtocol
Follow EpiK Protocol on Twitter and Telegram

Guest

James Lim — CEO of EpiK Protocol

Q&A from Gate.io

Q1: Could you tell us about the EpiK Protocol with its specific practical exploration in the industry, and how is the current development progress?

Jams: In one word, EpiK Protocol is the world’s first decentralized storage protocol for AI data.

Through the integration of IPFS storage technology, Token incentive mechanism and DAO governance model, we create a global open autonomous community to work together at an extremely low management cost, and continuously produce high-quality AI data that can be jointly built and shared.

EpiK Protocol aims to broaden AI’s horizons and usher in the era of cognitive intelligence.

At present, EpiK Protocol has launched the main-net successfully on Aug 15, 2021.

In the main-net, EpiK Protocol has two contribution s: labeling of AI data and storage of AI data.

In the labeling of AI data, users join us to produce high-quality AI data. In the storage of AI data, users join us to store the AI data produced in the labeling and provide download service.

Within one month after the main-net launch, the storage of AI data has been built far beyond our expectations. There are already 3000 active knowledge nodes in the storage .

This is amazing.

On the other hand, the labeling has accumulated 3000+ daily active human labels worldwide. These labels come from 16 countries and master more than 10 languages.

Welcome to join our labeling via downloading Knowledge Mainland App, https://epikg.com.

With the launch of the main-net, there are more than 330,000 EPK distributed to contributors in the labeling and storage everyday. The speed of collecting AI data by EpiK Protocol will be dramatically increased, and there will be more ways for the community to participate in EpiK Protocol and work together to create real value for the AI and blockchain industry continuously.

Q2: In terms of distributed storage, what is the specific technical solution adopted by EpiK protocol?

Jams: The EpiK Protocol’s decentralized storage solution was adapted based on Filecoin‘s Go-lotus.

We utilized Filecoin’s PoRep(Proof-of-Replication) and PoSt(Proofs-of-Spacetime) to guarantee the equitability of storage device inputs and outputs, and eliminate problems such as outsourcing attacks.

The difference is that setting up a miner node in EpiK Protocol will be easier and cheaper than Filecoin.

If you have a device with 8 cores, 16 GB memory, 250GB SSD and 5 Mbps bandwidth or better, you could set up a miner node in EpiK Protocol following this tutorial, https://github.com/EpiK-Protocol/go-epik/wiki/How-to-join-Mainnet

At the same time, we have modified the penalty mechanism and incentive mechanism of the storage to reduce the engagement cost of EpiK storage machines, improve the decentralization and security of data across the network, as well as significantly increase the TPS.

Don’t worry about being punished.

In addition, we have added an incentive mechanism for the labeling , integrating data production and data storage in a single protocol to prevent any intermediaries from making a profit margin.

Another innovation is that we have introduced the Coinbase mechanism for EpiK from the Bitcoin technology , so that the revenue can be automatically pooled which indirectly gives rise to the first open mining pool technology solution for decentralized storage eco.

If you only have 1-2 miner nodes, you could benefit a lot from a mining pool.

Q3: How will the knowledge graph be constructed in the future? What are your strengths?

Jams: At present, EpiK protocol has already got tools stringing up domain experts, bounty hunters and knowledge nodes.
The main work of domain experts is to define the knowledge graph schema of different domains and verify the quality of data.

The main task of bounty hunters is to help domain experts complete specific data collection and acceptance work.

The main work of knowledge nodes is to store knowledge graph data and provide paid access to it for the external users.

These tools allow us to build a data sharing economy operation for the first time, with a high degree of mutual trust between all parties, so that data contributors can continue to enjoy the realized benefits of future data.

This mechanism has easily accomplished 10 times the cost advantage of traditional data labeling in our real-world testing. The significant reduction in cost will provide a continuous source of power for the future development of AI.

Just like what top AI experts say, in the process of building AI rockets, neural network algorithms are the rocket engines while data is the fuel.

It’s very cool that users with different backgrounds work together to produce high-quality data to make AI smarter in a decentralized way.

We believe the EpiK Protocol will play a huge role in implementing AI technology in the future.

Q4: What do you see in the future of the crypto market and how do you think your platform will be recognized as the space keeps evolving?

Jams: In my opinion, human economic activity is a big network in which individuals are the nodes and transactions are the edges.

Business makes us work together to improve the speed of generating and transferring value in this network. The technology of AI is good at improving the efficiency of generating value and the blockchain is good at decreasing the cost of transferring value.

We believe there will definitely be projects that combine the advantages of AI and blockchain to make a big difference in this future.

We hope EpiK Protocol is one of them and even the lead of them.

AI consists of data, algorithms and computing power. We think data-labeling is the best situation that blockchain could play an important role NOW.

That’s why we started the EpiK Protocol last year.

Q5: Your project plans to operate in a public and transparent way, which is good, but how involved will the community be within the project to make the best decisions and thus strengthen the eco?

We believe nobody can make the best decisions in the blockchain industry forever except for Satoshi Nakamoto who disappeared.

At the very beginning of EpiK Protocol, we had a plan to build the EpiK DAO to dynamically adjust the economic model and establish credible governance.

We recently released our governance whitepaper to introduce the EpiK DAO. And to our surprise recently, there is actually an absence of DAO in today’s domain of decentralized storage.

EpiK DAO may be the first DAO in a decentralized storage eco.

According to our roadmap, EpiK DAO will be integrated in our main-net in Q4, 2021. Before EpiK DAO is alive, we will release EpiK PreDAO this week to make important decisions in our community.

Q6: Revenue is an important aspect for all projects to survive and keep the project/company running. What is your way of generating profit/revenue? What is the income model?

Jams: The native token is $EPK in EpiK Protocol network.

BTW, $EPK could be traded in Gate.

The token economy model of EpiK Protocol is designed based on the principle that each player in the eco can work together to promote the overall growth of the project while maximizing their own benefits.

There are several roles in the EpiK eco: domain experts, bounty hunters (Knowledge Mainland APP users), knowledge nodes, and knowledge gateways (AI companies). Each of them performs their own duties and forms a complete ecological closed loop.

Among them, domain experts, bounty hunters (Knowledge Mainland App users) are responsible for the production of AI data; knowledge nodes are responsible for storing data; and knowledge gateways are responsible for indexing data.

Domain experts, bounty hunters and knowledge nodes will be rewarded based on their contribution.

Knowledge gateways need to pledge $EPK to access the data in EpiK Protocol network.

1 EPK means 10Mib data.

In EpiK Protocol Main-net, 332,000 EPKs will be produced per day. 75% of them will be given to knowledge nodes, 9% to domain experts, 1% to voting users, and 15% to bounty hunters.

In current status, knowledge nodes could get back their capital in 90 days. Voting users can get an annualized return of 190%. Every bounty hunter could get 2-3 EPK ($1.3 per EPK) around within 1-2 hours everyday.

In EpiK Protocol, we work together to produce high-quality AI data and then sell data to AI companies. And the truth is that almost each AI company is hungry for data.

Q7: Non-crypto users are very important for mainstream adoption. How are you planning to attract non-crypto users towards your project? Is there any upcoming partnership that will bring non-crypto user and real-use cases?

Jams: It’s a good question for every blockchain project.

Actually, more than half of bounty hunters in EpiK Protocol network are non-crypto users. They come from the traditional data-labeling industry. EpiK Protocol is more popular in AI than the blockchain industry. We have a lot of partners in AI industry. They are all hungry for high-quality data. You can find them on our website: https://epik-protocol.io .

Please follow our social media to get the latest news.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EpikProtocol
Medium: https://epikprotocol.medium.com/

Q8: Do you have any plans to add Nft’s to your eco as this is the hottest topic in the crypto space?

Jams: Sure. The combination of NFT and Knowledge Mainland is a perfect fit. The original intention of Knowledge Mainland was to gamify the work of data annotation, and to start building the in-game world around land and building elements (which is what “Metaverse” is picking up on now).

Knowledge Mainland itself is already a meaningful Play-to-Earn game, not just a game solely for killing time. We recently released the Wave I of EpiK Protocol Grants Program. If you guys have great ideas to make Knowledge Mainland more fun via NFT-based games, please apply our grants via this LINK. https://www.epik-protocol.io/grants