THOUGHT ICO FAQ's
Welcome to the Thought ICO FAQ's page!

Read also on our blog: https://medium.com/thought-tht/thought-ico-faqs-2fdd2145ab41

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!

General:
"   How can we get in contact with you?
o   General Information - info@thought.live
o   Development - dev@thought.live

"   What are your approved social media accounts?
o   Telegram - https://t.me/thoughtcommunity
o   Twitter - https://twitter.com/Thought_THT
o   GitHub - https://github.com/thoughtnetwork
o   LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/thought-network/
o   Medium - https://medium.com/thought-tht
o   Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ThoughtTHT/
o   Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/Thought_THT/
o   BitCoinTalk - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3076464.new#new

"   What is the web address for your project?
https://thought.live/

Project:
"   What is the money being used for?
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?
SC $10mm HC $50mm

"   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 America, Canada you must be an accredited investor. All other countries are welcome except for 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!


If you have any more questions, please ask!

With Love, Team Thought :

It’s incredible to witness how rapidly humans have evolved in the last couple of decades. This period in particular has held spectacular advancements in technology, especially when compared to our early history as a species. It took Homo Sapiens tens of thousands of years to come up with the concept of the wheel and another few thousand years to invent the first car in the 19th century.

Now, within the last hundred years, humans have landed on the Moon, we have invented computers, and the Internet. We can take our smartphones, order goods online and have it delivered to our doorstep within a few hours, and we can have video calls with our friends across the planet and connect with millions of people without much effort. All thanks to the Internet.

All of these inventions have caused exponential growth in data, all which is generated by humanity. Around 90% of the world’s data has been produced within the past few years. According to the International Data Corporation, in 2016, humans created around 16.3 ZB (16.3 trillion GB) of data, and by 2025, this number will grow tenfold, to 163 ZB.

To store all of this information, we need massive data storage facilities and powerful computers to analyze and process all of it. Already there are some data centers as large as the Pentagon, and computer transistors the size of a few atoms, reaching the limits of traditional computers. This means that at some point, going further with our current methods will no longer be feasible.


According to International Data Corporation, by the year of 2025, less than one-fifth of the world’s data will be analyzed, and while over 90% of the information requires some level of security, only half of it will be secured.

“All data is created equal until it is sifted and categorized by insight engines. Data is inherently inanimate, and only becomes valuable within the context of an application,” explains Professor Andrew Hacker, the Founder, and CEO of Thought Network, a Harrisburg University backed blockchain and AI start-up, which tackles the problem with ever-growing amounts of data from an entirely new angle.

“Things like the web, different social media platforms, and IoT devices continue to drive exponential data growth, while businesses are creating more and more applications that can use this information. This adds up to a landscape littered with applications, too much data, and insufficient intelligence to handle it.”

“Even with the progress AI and Data Analytics industries have made, they still have to face significant challenges and inefficiencies. Already in 2018, even the most innovative deep learning techniques, which mimic the human brain, struggle to sift through the world’s information.”

THOUGHT NETWORK AND SMART DATA
Thought Network has gone beyond our current solutions by removing the application layer and embedding smart logic directly into pieces of data. Data will no longer be inanimate; it becomes agile, able to act on its own, directly at the source of creation, distribution, or action.

Otherwise ‘dumb’ data, which needs applications that can process and categorize it to become useful, becomes smart. Smart Data understands its origin and its purpose; it can communicate with other pieces of information and accomplish its goal.

While all of the other companies in the AI and data industries focus on expanding their capability to store, analyze and process larger and larger amounts of data, Thought focuses on handling data more efficiently. By making data able to act on its own, it eliminates the problem with uncategorized data which just sits around – data becomes able to categorize itself and fulfill its purpose straight after its creation.

“Smart Data reduces process latency and can eliminate a gigantic layer of cost and complexity from an organization of any type and any industry. No longer is it necessary to collect data, examine it, and run it through an application. Data can take action immediately and continuously,” says Professor Hacker, who was granted a US patent for his concept of Smart Data.

For example, if a machine in a factory would be about to break down, this information doesn’t have to be sent to the central command system that decides whether to shut the machine down or not. Instead the information gathered from the sensors can decide on its own. This saves precious seconds and spares costly equipment – not to mention people – from unnecessary damage or harm.

If the average power grid would run on Thought, it would be possible to create a self-healing and fully autonomous power grid. Even if an outside party were able to bring down a part of the grid, the network would self-heal and come back online on its own.

“Thought incorporates multiple levels of dynamic encryption on the data layer itself. Being able to secure the smallest units in computing – individual pieces of data – is the Holy Grail of cybersecurity.” explains Andrew Hacker, who’s also a Cybersecurity Expert in Residence at Harrisburg University.

CONCLUSION
Thought Network’s Smart Data holds great potential in dealing with the exponential growth in data creation and the problems it hides.

“Going forward, the current paradigm will no longer be scalable, extensible, adaptable or smart enough to cope with the massive influx of information generated by our society.” Says Professor Hacker. “Thought solves these challenges by moving artificial intelligence from the application layer to the data layer, making data processing more efficient, intelligent and above all more secure.”

Thought’s Pre-ICO is now live until March 13, 2018, and you can click https://thought.live now and earn a 15% discount on the purchase of THT tokens. The main ICO starts on March 14, giving participants a 10% discount.

Source: https://themerkle.com/harrisburg-university-backed-thought-ico-eliminates-traditional-applications/

Official ANN topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3076464.msg31902124

We are growing a community that is asking many insightful questions about this project on the telegram channel, much more than here, and it may be that you would enjoy this group as you also have an interest in our project.
We would love to see you there adding your Thoughts and insights

Hi Arjuna,

Yes, the private sale is over, but we are offering discounts for large block purchasers.

If you are interested, please visit us at https://acct.thought.live/signup.html

Or, if you are looking to join the crowdsale in bulk, email us at info@thought.live and we can talk % discount.

Thanks.

Thank you! Your advice was very useful!

Well in fact we have a topic, but without any graphics it looks poor https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2930270

And we have good comments about our ICO but no possibility to design good topic, at least for now while account is young.

Hello all!

We actually need proper ANN topic, but we have only Newbie account, so we will appreciate your help and advices.

Hello!

This is official account for Thought project and as it hasn't even JR Status we are even unable to create proper ANN topic. Who can help with this issue? Thank you!

Please write PM to this account if you can help us!

Thank you!

For thousands of years, humans have recognized patterns, gathered and analyzed data. Identifying patterns and using this information has been key to our evolution, as well as playing an important role in our pastime activities.


Whether it is making a difference between animals that want to kill us and those who don’t, categorizing plants based on their edibility, seeing patterns in the stars, or creating algorithms that know exactly which cat video we want to see next on Youtube. It’s all patterns and data.

Although data and pattern recognition have been around forever, the way we use, store and spread this information has changed drastically.

While at the beginning we had to rely on word-of-mouth and cave drawings to spread knowledge, nowadays we can store and spread trillions of gigabytes of information without much effort.

In 2016, humans collectively created 16.1 ZB (zettabytes) of data. That’s 16.1 trillion gigabytes. According to the International Data Corporation, by the year of 2025, humans will create over 160 ZB of data in one year.

Social media platforms generate millions of status updates every hour; there are over 400 hours of videos uploaded to Youtube every minute, smart-watches can gather information about your heart-rate and your daily activities, smart-fridges know your eating habits and so on.

Humans create A LOT of data, but there’s a major problem with the increasing amounts of data created: we are not able to process and secure all of this information. With our current ability, less than 20% of the data generated will be analyzed by the year of 2025, and less than half of all of the data will be secured.

The main reason behind is that data is inherently inanimate — it only becomes useful when it is used by applications that can process and categorize it. With our current solutions, we’ll, at some point, end up with a landscape littered with information and without sufficient intelligence to handle it all.

Thought Network’s patented solution for this problem

Already in 2018, even the most innovative deep learning techniques which mimic the human brain and create neural networks, still struggle to sift through the world’s information.

Thought Network is an AI and blockchain start-up backed by the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. Thought attacks the problem with the rapidly growing amounts of information by taking the focus away from traditional “big data” and centralized closed artificial intelligence platforms and instead focusing on handling data more effectively.

“Going forward, the current methods will no longer be scalable, adaptable or smart enough to cope with the massive increase of information generated by our society.” Says the founder and CEO of Thought, Professor Andrew Hacker. “Thought solves these challenges by moving artificial intelligence from the application layer to the data layer. At its core, Thought removes the intermediate application and embeds smart logic directly into every bit of data. Now, data is no longer inanimate; it becomes agile, able to act on its own, directly at the source of creation, distribution or action.”

Mr. Hacker’s unique angle on the problem has granted him and his company an US patent (US9454398 B2). His new technology, called “Smart Data,” turns traditional solutions of collecting enormous amounts of data inside out.

“We’re proud of Andrew’s accomplishments and are honored to have him as a valuable member of Harrisburg University,” said Dr. Eric Darr, the President of Harrisburg University, which is one of the equity partners of Thought Network. “Mr. Hacker’s patent shows the community that the University supports local people doing great things, and it gives our students a great example of what you can accomplish in the growing field of technology.”

The technology of Smart Data takes ordinary data that would usually need applications to process them to become valuable, and gives this data intelligence on its own. This way information understands where it came from, where it needs to go, and what it needs to do, reducing the need for external applications that would otherwise become bottlenecks for all of this data over time.

The pieces of Smart Data are processed in a widespread Thought Blockchain, allowing them to make decisions and take action based on their own internal logic. In addition, data can communicate and collaborate with other pieces of data. While traditionally this could only be done with the help of applications, Thought reduces the need for these applications by bringing the communication and processing to the data level.

Each piece of Smart Data is individually encrypted by dynamic cryptography, increasing security and allowing value derived from the data to be shared while the original data is protected.

“Being able to secure individual pieces of data is the Holy Grail of cybersecurity.”, says Andrew Hacker, who in addition to leading the development of the Thought Network is a cybersecurity expert in residence at Harrisburg University. “In addition, Smart Data can notify its owner if information gets stolen. It’s almost like a built-in alarm, which is very appealing to people concerned with cybersecurity.”

Conclusion

Andrew Hacker knows that the technology of Smart Data holds great potential for industries like health care, manufacturing, urban planning, IoT technology and many more. But, developing this new technology is no walk in the park. It requires a highly skillful and dedicated team of developers and business, legal, operations, and marketing people.

“Building something as complicated as Thought takes a team of dedicated folks that drink, sleep and eat code. Unless you have a dedicated and brilliant team behind your project, you’ll never get off the ground.” Says Mr. Hacker, who has a well-versed and experienced team of over 15 industry experts as well as an impressive board of advisors.

“Although building Thought is a complex endeavor, we have moved at an incredible pace towards the completion of the project.” Says Mr. Hacker, whose team is on the home stretch of getting the MVP ready for the launch of their pre-ICO on the 1st of March. “Seeing the collective passion of the team as we knock down obstacle after obstacle on the path to a release is a really amazing thing to witness!”


The whitelist is open with pre-ICO starting on March 1, 2018, and main ICO starting on March 14, 2018. To participate in the Thought ICO, or join their whitelist, please visit: https://thought.live and you are also invited to join their Telegram group on https://t.me/thoughtcommunity

Hello, we will for sure update this thread, but a better way to ensure that you are up to date with the newest announcements, please join our telegram channel at https://t.me/thoughtcommunity

Of course Thank you for whitelisting!