The CARV node sale is imminent. Read on to understand how to combine AI + gaming to create a modular data layer
CARV has created a win-win situation for all three parties based on the application scenarios, market sustainability, and user-friendly vision.Author: BlockBeats
"The saying 'If the product is free, you are the product' has become a maxim in the modern business world where Big Tech goes to great lengths to invade user privacy to obtain data for profit. The true value and cost behind these free products lie in user data. Data is hailed as the 'oil of the new century.' With the rapid development of industries such as gaming and artificial intelligence, data not only enhances user experience but also serves as the foundation of the entire ecosystem.
For ordinary users, it seems they have never truly examined the importance of data to themselves, nor would they think that one day they could profit from the data they create. The protagonist of this article, CARV, aims to build a modular data layer for gaming, artificial intelligence, and Infinity, providing an unprecedented data management experience for project parties and users as a foundational protocol.
The CARV Protocol establishes a complete set of agreements that allow users to have complete data sovereignty. Users can authorize, store, verify, and confirm their identity, player profile, and game data through the protocol while also earning data revenue. Currently, it is selling CARV verification nodes, enriching and atomizing the verification layer through user-owned nodes and proxy nodes.
Today marks the white-list sale of CARV nodes, with a public sale scheduled for June 5, so I hope this article can help readers decide whether to invest in CARV.
AI + Gaming: Users Can Earn Passive Income with CARV
CARV builds an ecosystem composed of the CARV Protocol and two products, CARV Play and CARV AI Agent, allowing users to bind their gaming, social media, and various other accounts to the blockchain. Users can unify their digital identity and showcase their achievements, assets, and history in one place.
Additionally, users can choose how their data is used. If they opt to join and share this data with brands, they can earn passive income when brands utilize their on-chain and off-chain data.
For example, CARV CBO Delio Paul mentioned in a speech that if a very popular Web3 FPS (first-person shooter) game wants to acquire users through CARV, they would pay CARV a fee to obtain user data, provided that users agree to share this data.
If the game wants to find a user from Thailand who holds game tokens in their wallet and is a big whale in other ecosystems, while also having played hundreds of hours of FPS games, CARV can provide such user information. The key is that users who meet these criteria will profit because a portion of the user acquisition fee paid by the game project to CARV will go directly to the users providing the data.
Driven by this vision, CARV's core product development progress and its data performance are also impressive.
The CARV AI Agent, CARA Bot, built on the TON ecosystem and powered by the GPT large model, serves as CARV's encyclopedia and intelligent assistant, helping users answer questions about CARV. The next step will involve making intelligent recommendations based on users' personalized data, D2E tasks, and exploring advertising.
Another product, CARV Play, is a cross-platform authentication system and the largest Web3 game distribution and social platform, currently featuring around 380 games, accounting for 30% of the current Web3 games, including MARBLEX, Shrapnel, Off the Grid, Pixelmon, and Pixels.
In the last quarter, its daily active wallet count exceeded 500,000, making it one of the top three ecosystems in terms of on-chain activity alongside Linea, opBNB, zkSync, and Ronin, providing 2.5 million players with an enhanced gaming experience to share data, establish credentials, play games, and earn rewards.
Understanding CARV's Node Sales Model
The key part that plays a crucial role in all of this is CARV's validator nodes, which are essential for maintaining the integrity of the protocol.
Currently, these nodes are primarily responsible for validating the results of data processing and AI model training, which are conducted in a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) to protect user data privacy. The results are recorded on the blockchain and accompanied by TEE proofs, ensuring the security and privacy of the process, thus fairly distributing data value.
To prevent system manipulation and ensure fair distribution of data value, third-party verification of TEE proofs is required. This necessitates community involvement in strengthening the protocol by operating validator nodes, increasing the level of decentralization of the protocol.
For users, the benefits of running CARV nodes mainly include three aspects:
Reward opportunities: A significant portion of network rewards, with 25% of CARV tokens allocated to node validators.
Decentralization: Contributing to a truly decentralized data economy that respects user autonomy and privacy.
Influence: Having a voice in the CARV community, helping shape the development and governance of the network.
To enable global users to gain more benefits through the CARV network and enhance CARV's level of decentralization, CARV has decided to open lightweight node operations to users on June 5. Participants can acquire the rights to operate verification nodes through node sales, participate in the distributed data network operation, and earn CARV native tokens. The whitelist node sale will start at 10:00 AM (UTC) on June 3 and the public node sale will officially launch at 10:00 AM (UTC) on June 5.
According to official documentation, 25% of the total supply of CARV native tokens, $CARV, will be provided to validator node operators, with a release model that reduces emissions by 25% every six months, meaning that 50% of node rewards can be unlocked in the first year.
The total supply of $CARV is 1 billion tokens, and the unlocking will be completed within four years from the TGE. The application scenarios for $CARV include gas payments and purchasing game assets, serving as ecological incentives to guide data owners, providers, and consumers to participate in ecological activities. Additionally, $CARV can be converted to ve CARV through a 1:1 staking mechanism, allowing participation in community decision-making and ecological activities.
50% of the total supply of CARV is equally distributed to the community and nodes, which is a rare occurrence given the current opposing sentiments between VCs and retail investors. This also reflects CARV's greatest sincerity in its node sales model and shared profits with users.
Previously, CARV partners such as Aethir, Sopon, and Xai have enhanced decentralization and gained substantial node support through this method, while also raising funds for project development. For ordinary investors, participating in node sales allows them to invest before the project launches, thus gaining earlier entry opportunities and potential returns.
The release of node tokens is most critical in the first year, as the following year may see a bull market with favorable token prices. If a bear market follows, with cumulative increases in token release, and institutions and teams begin to unlock, the risk of token price decline will increase. Therefore, the focus of node releases is on how many tokens can be mined within a year.
The total token supply of CARV is 1 billion, with 25% allocated for node rewards, which is the most generous among similar projects, and 12.5% of the total token supply will be released in the first year of the bull market, indicating a clear pattern.
After mining tokens, operators do not immediately receive $CARV; instead, they first receive governance tokens ve CARV, which can then be converted into $CARV for trading on CEX. Moreover, ve CARV has a certain redemption period, but CARV's 150-day redemption period is still advantageous compared to the 180 days of similar projects.
Related Reading: "Data Comparison: Aethir, Sopon, CARV, Which Node Sale Offers the Highest Returns?"
For node investors, it is also essential to pay attention to the token unlocking times of the project parties and investors. CARV's investors will start unlocking their tokens six months after the TGE, while the team will begin unlocking nine months after the TGE.
Additionally, since the redemption period for CARV's node mining tokens is 150 days, the node tokens will unlock earlier than those of investors, which is a highly sincere gesture for retail investors.
Furthermore, CARV has officially announced a token buyback plan, allowing node operators to choose between two buyback methods.
One is a 100% buyback in $CARV, valued at the node price in USDT at the time of purchase, vesting linearly within 30 days from the buyback date. The second option is an immediate buyback of 80% in ETH, valued at the ETH price at the time of the node snapshot during purchase, with ETH released immediately. Eligible node license holders must maintain a participation rate of 70% or higher and have not exchanged any ve CARV rewards for $CARV, providing users and investors with greater flexibility and income security.
The Future of CARV
Projects that obtain development funds through node sales are most tested on their long-term operational capabilities. Currently, CARV is the most closely integrated and first-mover project combining the two hot sectors of AI and gaming.
In terms of AI, CARV has announced partnerships with Aethir and Google Cloud. Aethir is a decentralized GPU network, which is crucial for AI; Google Cloud is a top-tier infrastructure provider offering various resources, including CPU, network, resources, and CDN.
As an intermediary layer, CARV not only connects powerful infrastructure and GPU computing power but also has its own AI agents and integrates top AI applications led by fetch.ai. For AI, data combined with infrastructure and GPU will create greater imaginative space.
CARV's other pillar business is in the gaming sector. As mentioned earlier, CARV users can actively choose to provide their data to earn passive income, while for B-end clients, CARV is also striving to accumulate more complete data to serve games. CARV's existence allows for a win-win situation for games and gamers.
Through an exclusive interview with CARV founder Victor, we learned that CARV's current focus is to better support node development, including making it easier for users to run nodes and improving the overall operation and purchasing experience. Next, CARV plans to quickly expand the application of the node network, including the validation of the data layer and the implementation of oracles.
In addition, CARV's larger vision is to establish its own validation network and processing system, ultimately achieving its own data layer, including data availability (DA) and storage.
On May 31, Animoca Brands announced its strategic investment in CARV and its role as a node operator, injecting stronger confidence into CARV's future development. According to the roadmap, CARV will vigorously support and incentivize node deployment development in the coming quarters. Therefore, for users, currently choosing to participate in CARV's node sales will allow them to engage in ecological construction with the lowest threshold, gaining both active and passive dual benefits.
