It’s been a long, slow and sometimes painful process.

We can no longer count the number of times heated discussions stretched over hours into the evening. One thing was figuring out that we wanted to develop a blockchain solution for scientific knowledge, where the incentive structure was rethought from scratch and an AI-based Knowledge Validation engine was the core value in the beginning. But once the basic idea was in place, that’s when the real fun began. How do we handle gas prices given the volatility of ETH? Is a 2% ownership cap of tokens even possible? What should be the ratio of tokens made from an AI training input to the tokens it requires to query the Aiur engine? Do we believe in taxation as a core feature of a financial institution, and how? What is the right governance mechanism when you move beyond one person = one vote or one token = one vote? How do you build stability in the system? How do you build a truly decentralized community, yet retain enough control that you can make sure this ship you’ve built will not capsize before it reaches water?

And how do you communicate the complex beauty of a vibrant system that stands so clear in your mind, into black and white words on a paper, understandable for those who haven’t been living and breathing these issues for the past several years?

Yet, now we are somehow here. It is both a tad majestic, to be able to finally share our core thinking with the world. Yet we are immensely aware that this is just the beginning. Perhaps the final touch to the beginning. This is where the real journey starts. This is where the real work begins. Implementing. Building. Changing the world of Science.

It also feels important at this point to offer a massive thank you. To our supporters. Our friends. Our actively participating community members. Our advisors. Everyone we’ve had calls, emails, face to face discussions with. Who have dissected and rejected and challenged us — and told us they absolutely love what we do and how important it is. You all know who you are and we thank you.

Our whitepaper is, of course, a living, breathing document and will continue to change over the next few weeks and months as we hear from you with your thoughts, ideas, harsh criticism and loving input. Hear about the things you didn’t understand at all, and the things you absolutely loved, and the ideas you thought we overcomplicated, oversimplified, overexplained or underexplained.

So without further ado, dear friends, here is the official version 1.0 of the Project Aiur whitepaper. I truly hope you will enjoy it!