Why You Should be Paying Attention to OriginTrail (TRAC)

AI-related cryptos are gaining momentum again, outpacing BTC, ETH, and other major digital assets. 

This is a resurgence of the AI/AGI narrative that began in November 2022 when OpenAI released ChatGPT. This led to a massive surge of related crypto assets — such as SingularityNET (AGIX), Ocean Protocol (OCEAN), and Fetch.ai (FET) — amid a crypto-wide bear market.
 
Today’s project is one you should have on your radar, and it has been active since 2013 — OriginTrail. 
 
Despite being in a bull market and generating solid returns this year, its native token, TRAC, with a market cap of $500M, still has legs.

What is OriginTrail?

OT is an open-source protocol that claims to be “the world’s first decentralised knowledge graph (DKG)”. It aims to improve the overall experience of searching for reliable and factual information aided by AI, powered by its DKG system and Knowledge Assets — useful pieces of information or intellectual property.
 
Besides AI, much of the entity’s work revolves around comprehensive product traceability (for food, drinks, medicine, etc.), verifying credentials (e.g., education certificates and degrees) or confirming the authenticity of (luxury) goods to combat counterfeiting — powered by blockchain tech.
 
Its developers and other stakeholders are continuously working to achieve greater efficiencies for various stakeholders across the globe by improving the technology and fostering new partnerships across different sectors.
 
These only scratch the surface of what the organisation has achieved and what is planned; you only need to look at its comprehensive roadmap with its five eras (similar to Cardano) to see what is in store for its ecosystem. Check OT’s latest whitepaper for details about its dual-token system and layer 2 solution (OriginTrail DKG).

Use cases and features

Construction
 
Various stakeholders involved in construction, including owners, developers and government agencies, can verify a building’s safety record or sustainability credentials via OriginTrail’s ChatDKG — an open-source tool to combat misinformation — and knowledge assets. 
 
For too long, we’ve witnessed various rogue developers, engineers, and compliance officers overlooking structural defects and not addressing them in time (particularly in apartment complexes), leading to costly repairs and immeasurable stress for landlords. 
 
It’s a process of trusting the entities assigned to ensure quality control, e.g., building inspectors, engineers and their related firms, etc. 
 
While most buildings (in regions and countries with high standards) satisfy the safety requirements, the system has flaws and inefficiencies. Thus, blockchain technology can help improve these. 

“Blockchain can also be used to track the provenance of building materials and ensure their authenticity. This can help prevent the use of counterfeit or substandard materials, which can be a major safety hazard. Additionally, tracking the movement of materials through the supply chain can help optimise logistics and reduce waste.”
 
Rider Levett Bucknall

Whether OriginTrail (OT) or another protocol is at the forefront, there’s significant long-term potential with its Decentralized Knowledge Graph, particularly when verifying data with blockchain proofs. 

Life sciences and healthcare
 
A relevant case study involves Trace Labs’ collaboration with British-based BSI Healthcare to form AidTrust. This initiative uses OT to ensure all medicines, vaccines, and related equipment successfully reach the intended recipients and have been correctly stored and transported along every step of the supply chain. 

“Poorly managed inventory, stock, and distribution subcontractors can lead to suspicious loss, diversion, damage, and waste of medicines and vaccines, and the inability to know that the medicine reached the intended patient, ultimately utilization.”
 
BSI 

All it takes is one negligent intermediary or lengthy power outage to spoil a large batch of temperature-sensitive (thermolabile) drugs and vaccines. Thus, greater transparency along the supply chain through blockchain tech will save vast amounts of money, resources, and, most importantly, lives, particularly in crises.
 
Check out this brief video and OriginTrail Deep Dive for a good overview of AidTrust. 
 
In spite of the technological innovations and efficiencies OT and other blockchain-based protocols offer, I am expecting resistance from medical companies and Big Pharma, at least in terms of ensuring high profit margins. 
 
Yes, savings will be passed onto consumers, but I question to what extent. I hope this tech will boost affordability, particularly for those needing the most medical treatment, but time will tell.

Learn about other use cases provided by OT through its solutions overview.

Whitepaper 3.0

Earlier this month, Trace Labs, the key entity behind the protocol, released the project’s latest version of its whitepaper: Verifiable Internet for Artificial Intelligence: The Convergence of #Crypto, #Internet and #AI.

One of the topics frequently mentioned in this paper is

information provenance

: a way for AI systems to validate where the information comes from, when and how the data was obtained, etc.

This eliminates misinformation and enables users to verify the information provenance used to answer their question. Combined with the ability to search both proprietary and public knowledge, it’s as powerful as it gets — and it’s coming soon.

OriginTrail > ChatDKG

This will be essential in tackling misinformation and fake news, even though I still expect people to disseminate BS to unsuspecting people. At least it will be much simpler for the average person to call it out once the technology is publicly available.
 
To help establish information provenance in OT, one of the most promising aspects of this protocol is its decentralised retrieval-augmented generation (dRAG). This, in turn, will help overcome the problem of AI hallucinations — automatically generated incorrect yet plausible answers. 
 
This idea is an adaptation of RAG, as recently mentioned by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

With the rapid rise in AI-generated content, I expect tech to play a key role in combating fake news and, eventually, deepfake images and video, particularly as these become more convincing over time. 
 
 Thus, dRAG will be part of a suite of products to help us find better ways to combat misleading claims and information disseminated online.

“We live in a time of abundant connectivity and alas abundant misinformation. The OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG) is an evolving tool for finding the truth in knowledge. In particular, we see knowledge graphs improving the fidelity of artificial intelligence.” 
 
Dr Bob Metcalfe 
Entrepreneur, co-inventor of Ethernet technology and formulator of Metcalfe’s Law

Staking TRAC
 
 There are two positions involved in delegating TRAC: 
 
— Node operators that store, authenticate, and make data available to AI systems 
— Delegators opt to lock up their tokens to secure the protocol on specified nodes, increasing their chances of earning TRAC rewards. 

Even though these are two separate roles, it is possible to do both simultaneously.
 
Token withdrawals are subject to a withholding period of 28 days to ensure greater network stability in the event of a mass exodus of delegators. 
 
Polkadot also adopts this timeframe, and other blockchains implement variable waiting times for stakers trying to access their coins or tokens: 2–5 days for Ethereum (ETH); for Fantom (FTM), it is seven days; 21 days for Cosmos (ATOM), ~3–4 days (80 checkpoints) for Polygon (MATIC), and so on.
 
See Section 7.1 (TRAC utility token driving Verifiable Internet for AI infrastructure) of the Trace Labs whitepaper for an explanation. You can also check out the Delegated staking tab of OriginTrail Docs. 

TRAC price information

OT’s native token, TRAC (also called Trace Token on certain exchanges and price-tracking platforms), has had a stellar performance over the past 12–15 months. 
 
Since 1 January 2023, its price has risen from $0.15 to $1.18, a ~686% increase, and is showing little sign of slowing down, particularly as most of the market has turned bullish once again. 
 
It set an all-time high (ATH) of ~$ $3.50* per token, so it’s plausible to do at least another 3x from here, particularly with its low market cap — $418 million circulating MC and $616 million fully-diluted MC. 
 
*This can vary between $3.50 and $4, depending on which price-tracking website you use.

N.B. There’s another project, trac (Ordinals), bearing the same token name, which has become common in recent years with the increasing number of (active) altcoins and tokens. However, these are unrelated digital assets, so double-check the token details, e.g., the contract address and its corresponding blockchain, Ethereum, in the case of OT’s TRAC. 
 
This is essential when going through a decentralised exchange (DEX) and something you should also be mindful of, even via a regular exchange. 
 
Despite launching on Ethereum, the token is also available on three other chains — Polkadot, Gnosis and Polygon. Thus, you can purchase TRAC through these networks and circumvent the high gas fees on Ethereum without bridging assets via L2s. Info about the contract addresses is available here. 

Additional thoughts 

So why do I believe TRAC and similar assets will do very well in the future? 
 
A trustless system powered by distributed ledger technologies (blockchain, directed acyclic graphs [DAGs] and otherwise) that is proven to be safe, accurate and reliable will help overcome (perceived) trust issues. 
 
A July 2019 report published by the Pew Research Center reflects Americans’ declining levels of trust in their government(s) and each other, with markedly lower levels among younger people amongst different demographics. 
 
Note that this was before the pandemic and how our society has become increasingly divided since then, so I look forward to data featured in the follow-up report…
 
Let’s not forget public perceptions of corporations and other non-governmental entities in our society. Regarding crypto, pay attention to the results for large corporations, banks and tech companies.

Source: Pew Research Center. Click on the image for a full-size version. 
 
Tying it all back in, these data reflect the increasing benefits blockchain technology has to offer with its trustless setup — no/less reliance on third parties through smart contracts and P2P transactions — systems that can capitalise on the lower levels of trust many have towards governments, corporations, certain educational systems and even each other. 
 
Rather than relying on various intermediaries to guarantee the authenticity of said products or confirm that something has been stored correctly, smart contracts and automation will substitute much of this. 
 
This will particularly be a hit in countries that are rife with corruption. Time will tell how quickly trustless systems get adopted in these countries. I am not holding my breath, as I imagine corporations will find ways to retain many clients and still get them to interact through them, even when P2P alternatives exist.

As the AI narrative remains strong and there will be a cohort of people late in the game looking to gain some exposure to altcoins and tokens, a.k.a. FOMO, I remain optimistic. 
 
Unlike many other protocols that have faded from the spotlight, OriginTrail is still chugging along and making progress. It has evolved from a project focused on supply chain management to one that also aims to play a prominent role in the growth of AI/AGI. 
 
Some will argue that “older” tokens, i.e., those that pumped last cycle, are less likely to be profitable than new ones, although this is misleading. Even though it was released six years ago and has already gone through the 2021 bull cycle, you shouldn’t rule out its future potential and the possibility of it eclipsing its ATH.
 
TRAC still offers the ideal balance between risk and reward, even though many altcoins and tokens are beginning to pump. 
 
If history repeats, “altseason” still has room for growth this cycle, and I see TRAC becoming a prominent token in the coming years. 
 
I expect it to comfortably surpass $8 during this bull cycle (most likely by mid-2025), accounting for inflation, market sentiment and overall growth in OT’s activity. I wouldn’t rule out it eclipsing $12, but it is still too early to tell.

Ways to stay in the loop with OriginTrail and TRAC

– Official website and the TRAC token

– OT Docs

– Whitepapers (versions 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0)

– Roadmap

– X (formerly Twitter)

– Reddit

– Telegram

– Discord

– Trace Alliance

– TRAC staking

– Trace Labs

– Tracverse — OT’s metaverse

Further reading and additional resources
 
— A four-minute video summarising the latest whitepaper. 
 
— (Blockchain Wire Integrating Trusted AI with OriginTrail — Demo video

— TechCrunch article about AGI and hallucinations

Ways to support my work

 
 • Check out this post for various affiliate links and promotions you can use to top up (or kick start) your crypto portfolio. By using these, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

 
 • All of my articles (including previous ones) are now published on Medium for anyone to read, including non-members. I welcome any crypto donations to support my work. Please use the following addresses to do so. 
 
 BTC — bc1qny59y95g4narcf4a7d3k9g7h54kc8jakj9t87a
 
 ETH — 0xF4D51542Ed8bb769F87692e220Ea31932f184887
 
 ADA —
 
 addr1q9dkkzs8sfevxve72ttmtgthsdcddut86ssttlhn25t9qczmdv9q0qnjcvenu5khkksh0qms6mck04pqkhl0x4gk2psq5c5gqz
 
 XRP — rLDThKVeMCZQCZcT4uzBU6NTSPHxwmRifE 
 
 DOT — 15Gn8DZeZY3pmLczjwx7WGUc7TXXme8y2nrxuC6o4hBxn7jX

Disclaimers 

 
• N.B. None of this is financial advice; I am not a financial advisor. You are ultimately responsible for crypto investments, let alone in any asset class.

• The opinions expressed within this piece are my own and might not reflect those behind any news outlet, person, organisation, or otherwise listed here.

• Please do your own research before investing in any crypto assets, staking, NFTs or other products affiliated with this space.

• For transparency, TRAC accounts for roughly 1% of my crypto portfolio.

• Information is correct at the time of writing.