Pitch Memo
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Cortensor: Decentralized AI Execution & Verification Layer
Overview
Cortensor is a decentralized AI execution and verification layer designed to democratize access to powerful AI systems while ensuring transparency, efficiency, and trust. It reimagines how AI workloads are distributed, executed, and validated across a permissionless global network of compute nodes, powered by a native incentive and governance system.
Problem
Today, AI is gated by centralized infrastructure monopolies, opaque model execution, and trust assumptions that inhibit its integration with public systems like blockchains. AI services are vulnerable to hallucinations, unverifiable outputs, and exclusive access models.
Solution
Cortensor solves this by building a decentralized network for AI inferencing, synthetic data generation, and model execution. The network includes validation mechanisms such as Proof of Inference (PoI) and Proof of Useful Work (PoUW) to ensure correctness and incentivize performance.
Key Differentiators
Model-Agnostic Execution: Any LLM or generative model (e.g., LLaMA 3, Mistral, Stable Diffusion) can be deployed by the community.
PoI & PoUW SLAs: Built-in mechanisms for inference verification, uptime guarantees, and performance-based rewards.
Validation Layer: Statistical sampling, redundancy checks, and multi-node confirmation ensure correctness and trust.
Network-Generated Tasks: The system supports internal jobs to stimulate activity and bootstrap node engagement. These tasks are gamified to continuously assess node quality through randomized question-answer challenges, promoting active participation. This approach ensures continuous quality control, enhances dynamic node classification, and drives community engagement. The QA data produced can also be reused for training AI models, adding an additional layer of value creation.
Synthetic Data Generation: Miner nodes can generate synthetic datasets for ML applications.
Incentive System: Native token economy incentivizes compute contributions and validator behavior.
Web2 & Web3 Integration: Works with traditional APIs and smart contracts for trustless AI access.
Light & Heavy Nodes: Supports diverse hardware, from CPUs to GPUs, via quantization and job matching.
AI Oracle Functionality: Allows smart contracts to query LLMs through decentralized middleware.
On-chain Billing: Supports deposits in COR or ETH and token payments through smart contracts.
Use Cases
AI inference for Web2 & Web3 apps
Synthetic data generation for ML training
LLM-based oracles for smart contracts
AI agent marketplaces & decentralized assistants
Trustless, verifiable AI output pipelines
GTM & Adoption Strategy
Closed Alpha Testing: Incentivized devnets & testnets with leaderboard-based rewards (e.g., Phase #3, #4, #5, #6 and beyond). These early stages help build a resilient developer and node operator community. Cortensor’s current testnet spans ~200 organic nodes validating the early demand and value of the platform.
Token Incentives: Mineable token model with controlled sell pressure and staking pools. COR is essential to the ecosystem as it functions like 'gas' for inference - used in every AI task. Utility scales with real usage: more app traffic → more COR demand.
Developer SDKs & APIs: Cortensor is built with a developer-first mindset, offering intuitive SDKs and APIs for both Web2 and Web3 builders. Our strategy emphasizes organic adoption through:
Sample & Demo Apps: Real-world examples to showcase Cortensor's capabilities and inspire developers.
Hackathons: Developer-focused events where participants build on Cortensor, submit projects, and win prizes. These serve as our primary GTM channel to:
Drive hands-on adoption
Gather direct feedback on integration and performance
Promote community-driven innovation
Community Engagement: Outreach through dev forums, open-source contributions, and Discord/Twitter communities.
No Traditional Sales: Inspired by Stripe, Twilio, OpenAI, and Alchemy, we prioritize product-led growth - letting the platform prove itself.
Growth Blueprint:
Build a killer platform
Empower developers to launch with minimal friction
Enable organic use case growth across sectors
Scale BD, GTM, and ecosystem support once traction is proven This lean, scalable approach ensures Cortensor grows where it matters most—at the hands of its builders.
Strategic Partnerships: Align with decentralized infrastructure providers (e.g., Aethir, Stratos, Filecoin) to extend compute and storage capacity.
This GTM strategy aligns tightly with COR’s token utility model:
Every inference request consumes COR.
Cost per request depends on: token usage, inference complexity, and current COR market value.
Pricing may be pegged to stable benchmarks (e.g., USD per 1k tokens), but converted dynamically to COR.
Developer-facing staking models are under exploration - e.g., teams stake COR to host AI apps, gaining usage credits and incentives to stay long-term.
Over time, this creates a sustainable flywheel: developers build → apps grow → usage increases → COR demand rises.
Key Components
Router Nodes: Handle user requests, route them to available miner nodes, and optimize load balancing and model selection.
Miner Nodes: Perform AI inference jobs (e.g., LLaMA models), including quantized versions for low-end devices.
Oracle/Master Nodes: Validate miner outputs, sample responses, and ensure consensus in PoI systems.
Client Nodes: Enable users and developers to submit requests, monitor tasks, and access results.
Architecture & Infrastructure
Job Scheduling & Coordination: Smart contract-based hub for session creation, worker selection, and result submission
Validation & Sampling: Validator nodes use statistical sampling to check miner output correctness
Storage & Data Management: Uses IPFS and plans to expand to Filecoin and Stratos for off-chain file storage
Security & Privacy: ECDSA encryption for confidential data passing and selective on-chain/off-chain exposure. Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) will also be considered to enhance secure execution of sensitive workloads.
Business Model
Tokenomics: 1B total supply, 40% initial DEX allocation, vesting for team, staking with ETH revenue sharing
Revenue: COR & ETH paid by users for inference and other services, split between validators, miners, and treasury
How to Think About Cortensor
Uber for AI (Everyone): Cortensor is like Uber for AI - providing on-demand AI inference without the need to own or manage GPUs. Miners contribute compute power, while users access scalable, decentralized AI services. Think of it as OpenAI, but without centralized infrastructure or model ownership.
Tesla Simulation for Synthetic Data (AI Practitioners): For AI scientists, Cortensor functions like Tesla's simulation engine. Just as Tesla generates synthetic driving data to train its models, Cortensor enables the creation of synthetic datasets that are scalable, diverse, and ideal for improving AI performance beyond real-world limitations.
Stripe for AI (Developers): Cortensor is to AI what Stripe is to payments. It simplifies AI integration for developers through intuitive SDKs - whether you're building in Web2 or Web3. Just like adding a payment button, developers can embed LLM functionality with just a few lines of code.
Vision
Cortensor is building the execution layer for a decentralized AI future where inference is trustless, verifiable, universally accessible, and composable. In a world dominated by opaque, centralized AI gatekeepers, Cortensor stands for openness, composability, and proof-based intelligence.
Contact Website: Cortensor.network Twitter: @CortensorAI Dashboard: https://dashboard-alpha.cortensor.network GitHub: github.com/Cortensor Medium: medium.com/@cortensor Email: [email protected] Draft: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TqAuV1CPR2zfFK5bkk3G5vr01hz6qc9r_kUsqew8kYU/edit?tab=t.0
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