Quicknode

August 30, 2024 — 4 min read

Welcome back to Feature Fridays! This week, we’re excited to spotlight BlockAI, a groundbreaking platform that democratizes access to AI tools through blockchain technology. Christophe Verdot, Co-Founder and Director of BlockAI, brings over 20 years of experience in web development and blockchain innovation. BlockAI makes AI services like ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion easily accessible to users across multiple blockchains.

Check out BlockAI

Q & A with BlockAI 👇

Could you introduce yourself by sharing your name, prior experience, and current role within your company? Additionally, please briefly explain your company's mission and what it offers to its customers.

I’m Christophe Verdot. I’ve been a Freelance Web Developer for around 20 years and started building applications on Blockchain in 2019.

I built several dApps, such as a Blockchain Document Certification application in 2020, the first Waves Blockchain NFT Marketplace in 2021, and multiple MVPs for hackathons, including an NFT Event Ticketing dApp and Multichain Token Bridges.

I’m a Co-Founder and Director at BlockAI, alongside Marc Jansen, the other Co-Founder. Marc is a Professor at a University of Applied Science in Germany and an experienced developer. Together, we are building the BlockAI project.

BlockAI's mission is to democratize access to AI tools using blockchain technology. It offers a decentralized platform where users can access various AI services, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Orca, Llama, Dall-E, Stable Diffusion, and custom features like YouTube summarizers, an AI Discussion tool, and brainstorming tools, without the need for multiple registrations or subscriptions.

By simply using a blockchain account on any of the supported chains (currently BNB, Base, and Waves), users can access all the platform's features using the $BAI token for transactions. All these features are also accessible on-chain by any smart contract through a callback system.

The project employs a Fair DAO model, where active users can participate in all decision-making processes through voting and even suggest new features or AI tools to add to the platform. Voting power is based on platform usage rather than the traditional Blockchain DAO model of token holding.

How has your company grown and changed since its inception, and what do you have planned for its future?

We started the project in 2023 with funding support from the Power DAO to help us realize our vision and extend our MVP on the Waves Blockchain, adding all AI features and the DAO. From there, we had our Token Sale in March 2024, onboarded equity investors, and conducted several marketing campaigns. We listed our utility token on various CEX/DEX platforms, including MEXC, Pancakeswap, Puzzleswap, and Uniswap.

The project is now deployed on three blockchains and live on their respective mainnets. We are working on multiple new additions, such as supporting new blockchains, developing the first on-chain AI game, integrating new AI models, and deploying a cross-chain bridge for the $BAI utility token.

We are also working on multiple partnerships and actively looking for Web3 gaming projects interested in integrating AI into their games.

What inspired you to develop BlockAI, and how did you conceive?

Marc and I have known each other since the early days of the Waves Blockchain, where we have been active community members and developers for years, working together on several projects. Marc regularly works with LLMs in his role as a professor at the University of Applied Science. In early 2023, he shared with me his idea of building a new project combining Blockchain and AI that would simplify access to AI for users and Smart Contracts. He invited me to join him in this venture and build it together.

From there, we started to build an MVP and quickly moved from this to setting up the BlockAI Limited company, receiving our first funding, launching our token, and then releasing on Mainnet less than a month ago.

Can you provide insight into BlockAI’s progress by sharing any metrics or milestones indicating its traction?

We raised around $400,000 for the project, deployed the platform on three blockchains (BNB, Base, and Waves), and are currently considering several other chains. We have reached the first milestone by releasing our application on the Mainnet.

We already have active users and several partnerships in the making that will help us reach bigger audiences and quickly grow our user base.

How does your company utilize Quicknode, and what benefits does it bring to your business operations?

Being a multi-chain project means we need to access multiple nodes on multiple networks, both testnet and mainnet. For that, we wanted reliable and fast infrastructure for all our nodes' API requests, which are at the cornerstone of our Web UI (e.g., bnb.blockai.dev). This also allows our off-chain agents to subscribe to blockchain events and receive instant updates related to our platform.