The AMA focused on introducing the team, projects and products and answering questions from community members via the #NumbersAMA tweet. A lucky ten winners of Honor Badge NFT were announced at the end of the event.
The event was hosted by Aaron and was joined by Numbers Protocol’s co-founder and Chief Growth Officer, Sofia, to give more insights into the start-up in Taiwan.
Numbers vision is to create a decentralized photo network for Web3.0.
We received 300 questions from the community via the #NumbersAMA tweet. We appreciate every community member!
Introducing The Team Behind Numbers
Sofia has over eight years of experience in business development and marketing. Before joining Numbers, Sofia worked for an AI startup and an intellectual property valuation firm as Head of Business Development. She loves new challenges, embraces new technologies, and believes that technology should bring good to society.
Tammy is Founder and Chief Product Officer at Numbers. She is a data scientist and a particle physics Ph.D. graduate from Manchester University. Before founding Numbers, she worked for Canonical, Viscovery, and DT42 as a software engineer, tech lead, AI developer, CEO, and founder. Tammy has a great curiosity about the world and loves to analyze everything in life to discover the rules behind it.
Bofu is the founder and Chief Technology Officer. He is a software engineer and architect with over 15 years of experience in data engineering, embedded systems, AI, and IoT. Bofu is an Arm innovator, the top-five open-source developer of Taiwan 2017, and the consultant and opinion leader of blockchain and data policy in Taiwan. He has strong faith in FLOSS, internet freedom and is very active in the open-source community. Although he spent most of his lifetime in the software industry, his love for fried chicken is more than software!
Ethan is the Global Developer Community Manager at Numbers. Having received his Masters in Computer Science from Georgia Tech University, he is a member of the development team and has a solid understanding of Numbers technology and products. Ethan has extensive experience growing communities, having worked in social media for Jeremey Lin’s inaugural Dota2 esports team in 2016. He looks forward to interacting with our community and our project. Beyond that, the rest of the team consists of excellent back-end, front-end engineers, and some marketing team members.
AMA with Sofia.
Can you introduce what Numbers does and your motivation for building this project?
With trust in digital media at an all-time low, Numbers Protocol aims to bring integrity and authenticity to the digital content space by creating a decentralized photo network where assets are both traceable and verifiable through its innovative Capture, Seal, Trace process.
What is the main problem that the team is aiming to solve?
Digital Media is an enormous part of our daily lives. We consume it constantly because of the entertainment it provides and the limitless ways it can inform us. However, digital media currently has numerous problems. Untraceable, unverifiable, easily copied, and manipulated. Today’s digital content has no protection, no trust, and no freedom. 2.5M unlicensed images are stolen every day, amounting to 600B in damages daily. Rampant misinformation makes it impossible to tell what is true or misleading. Big tech companies manipulate access to information. These are considerable problems that affect our society and what we are aiming to solve.
Can NFT solve the digital media problem? What’re the differences between your solution and the current solution?
In early 2021, NFTs rose out of the blockchain world and positioned themselves as a potential solution to the current digital media problems. NFTs document the token history and record ownership. However, it’s become evident that ownership alone is not enough to resolve the issues of the current internet world.
Who created it? What’s the context? What’s the history? How to trace and verify? These are all questions we need answers to in digital media.
Numbers Protocol is THE comprehensive solution that addresses the four pillars of the digital media problems: ownership, copyright, provenance, and ecosystem. In doing so, we are establishing an authentic, secure, and decentralized photo network in the Web3.0 space.
How does Numbers Protocol achieve “establishing an authentic, secure, and decentralized photo network in the Web3.0 space?
To achieve the goal, we need to redefine digital media as assets for Web3.0.
Today photos are simply raw images or videos. Empty with no information. Images and videos created with Numbers Protocol, which we coin as ‘Captures’, are multi-layer containers with embedded ownership, context, photo provenance, creator signature, and on-chain records to keep images and videos traceable, verifiable and unique.
When Captures are shared and downloaded over the web, the information remains with the asset. Additionally, as a native content protocol, Numbers makes it possible for the digital creations themselves, not tokens, to be owned truly. Our solution does not just stay on a protocol level. We have also created a suite of tools and services to allow users to register and retrieve assets in the network. These include Capture App, Seal API, and Trace Site.
Can you share more about the Capture App? Is it available on the market now?
You can easily download the Capture App on both Google Play and App Store. Download here 👉 https://www.numbersprotocol.io/#products
Capture App is the world’s first blockchain camera built for Web3.0, the first NFT camera, and the first wallet for photo assets. With Capture App, users can establish ownership and context at the moment of creation. The information is sealed on the blockchain, and users can access ecosystem applications from the App without relying on third-party platforms.
What can Seal API do? Can everyone use it to seal their photos?
Seal API is a developer tool that helps advanced users to use Numbers Protocol easily to create, register and retrieve assets in the network. It has a rich API set with a friendly interface for developers to create ecosystem applications.
What about the Trace site? Is that also a developer tool?
Trace is a website for reading photo injection and on-chain history. It provides a basic chronicle view of photos so that readers can easily access photos’ original information, such as who and when it was created. Trace Site also helps users claim copyright of photos they create for images and videos with proper creator signatures.
We know there is a protocol and 3 different tools that can be used to generate a traceable photo “Capture” in the network, but how can people use it?
Protocols and tools are only effective if used. Therefore, Numbers Protocol has built native applications to help establish the foundations of the ecosystem and allow users to experience the next-generation photo network.
In the future, this photo network can grow into areas such as news, social media, and gaming, with contributions from the developer community leveraging our tools and applications.
For now, we have two native applications for the community to experience.
NFT search engine is a native application of Numbers Protocol. Users can upload an NFT image or video and view its history, including when it was first sold, how many minted tokens, etc. This helps users verify whether the NFTs sold in the marketplace are the real ones and help users check if the NFTs they own are truly unique.
NFT search engine will launch at the end of November; subscribe to our announcement channel to get the latest news!👉 https://t.me/numbers_ann
CaptureClub is another native application of Numbers Protocol. Easy to use, and it is the first NFT marketplace to feature end-to-end authenticity preservation. Users can take photos from the Capture App and list the images to the CaptureClub marketplace with a simple click.
CaptureClub helps users verify the NFT content history and respects creators’ copyrights by generating immutable records on the blockchain using Numbers Protocol.
What will be the role of the $NUM token?
NUM is the native protocol token of NUMbers Protocol. It is primarily a utility token designed to incentivize users to create, archive, and verify content with good integrity. The vision of Numbers Protocol is to create an ecosystem where photos (encompassing both images and videos) matter by leveraging proofs, integrity records, and data provenance to increase the credibility and legitimacy of registered photos in the network.
Participants, such as verifiers and other network operators, can get rewards by providing services to increase the credibility and legitimacy of registered photos.
$NUM tokens can also be used to pay for services running in the decentralized photo network.
For more details of tokenomics, please check out our latest litepaper: https://link.numbersprotocol.io/litepaper
The following 5 questions have been selected from the #NumbersAMA thread.
How to avoid indecent photos or violent and bloody photos or videos?
(Question from @JerryMoon3689)
The reality is, internet users are free to post, share and create whatever they want. That is the freedom that the internet allows us. We want to offer the space to generate content they wish to produce; however, there is a fine line between the freedom to create and going overboard.
The details are up for discussion, but we may have some initial content guidelines. Additionally, we may have some form of community governance to allow network members to amend rules or vote on potential content in violation.
Are there any measures against digital copying of photos? Are there any features that photographers have devised for use?
(Question from @get_freeeee)
Yes. The ‘Right Click & Save’ phenomenon is a big issue on the current internet, but photos in the Numbers Protocol network cannot be acquired in this fashion. As an example, CaptureClub is a native NFT marketplace for Numbers Protocol. Assets can only be downloaded following the purchase or acquisition of a license.
Additionally, all photos in the Numbers Protocol network have associated certificates of authenticity and C2PA metadata embedded into each asset. Metadata includes information such as creator, owner and other contextual information. The embedded information makes it possible for the asset itself to be traced.
How do you stay ahead of copyright protection with creative ways of cheating IP by making slight tweaks to the images etc., to make it “unique”?
(Question from @steve_7an)
The interesting thing about users of the internet is that they can be very creative in bypassing systems. As much as we would like to create a full-proof method, there is always room for improvement.
To answer your question, we view slight tweets to images as unique as in our network; the asset’s content identifies all assets via Content Identifier (CID). So in that way, modifications to existing images are not technically in violation but more creative license.
Despite this, Numbers Protocol does a few things to make slight modifications more challenging to achieve. Firstly, assets cannot simply be downloaded and reimported into the network. For the asset to be accepted, it needs to have a C2PA injection and be digitally signed (created via Numbers Native Application or Capture App). We have this strict policy because tracking the asset through its entire lifecycle is extremely important in the traceability and verifiability of an asset. Content Provenance is what Numbers Protocol leans on to ensure assets have good integrity. So if any tweaks or manipulations do happen, it is recorded and able to be looked up.
A lot of NFTs are coming into the market. After some time, the hype of that NFT declines. What are your plans for long term sustainability in the NFT space?
(Question from @PraveenKanodia6)
The solution that Numbers Protocol provides is not limited to just NFTs but all digital media. Since everyone creates, consumes and shares digital media, Numbers Protocol always remains relevant even when the popularity of NFT dies down.
There have been cases of NFTs being minted by using other people’s work without permission. Does the Numbers Protocol have any countermeasures or penalties for such behavior?
(Question from @uk_trtwt)
Of course! Open Minting policies such as the ones employed on OpenSea present the door for these violations to happen.
To curb such behavior, Numbers Protocol plans on utilizing a “claim asset’ verification system to ensure assets to be minted are the creations of the minter. We can do this because all assets created and registered to the Numbers network will have a digital signature embedded into the asset itself via C2PA standard. Numbers Protocol can verify the signature with a valid wallet address, and if the information checks out, the privilege to Mint will be made available.
We also created the NFT Search Engine as a means of looking up the history of NFTs as well as identifying potential violations.
You can learn more about “claim asset” verification and NFT Search Finder by reading these Mediums.
● NFT Search Finder: https://medium.com/numbers-protocol/surfing-web3-0-digital-content-with-numbers-protocol-nft-search-engine-8e11f69eeb5
● Claim Asset:
https://medium.com/numbers-protocol/how-to-claim-copyright-with-numbers-protocol-c114e497f574
Additional questions
Do you have any use cases to share on using Capture, Seal and Trace?
In 2020, we focused very much on applying the technology to the news media industry. In the 78-days project (https://www.starlinglab.org/78days/) hosted by Starling Lab, we provided a special version of Capture App to photojournalists that can connect with Canon cameras and take photos with integrity records.
We also helped archive other photos which weren’t taken from this unique Capture App directly to Filecoin and seal the integrity data to the blockchain. Other news media will adopt the flow we built for 78 days, and more announcements will come soon.
Besides news media, the Capture, Seal and Trace tools are also super useful for NFTs. Capture App seals birth information of photos to blockchain and makes photos verifiable, and this allows marketplaces to accept user-generated images with much lower risks of violating copyright. More news about product updates and the adoption of Numbers Protocol will be released in Q4 2021.
With such a solid project and a strong team, what is your extraordinary project’s recruiting qualifications for team members? Is there any way to join the incredible team?
At Numbers, we call our team members “Numerator”. Numerators are team members who are key innovators in the digital data world and want to bring positive changes to the future data economy.
We care more about team members’ personal characters more than their experiences. Some examples are:
- The ability to continuously improve oneself is not limited, full of enthusiasm for new technology.
- Willing to listen, share and enjoy working with team members from different backgrounds.
- Detail-oriented and look forward to designing better functions for users.
And more importantly, they have the same vision as us on the Web3.0 world.
If anyone in the community wants to become a “Numerator”, please send your resume or CV to recruit@numbersprotocol.io and tell us why you want to join the team. We will contact you if there’s any position available.
We thank everyone in the community for their support!
We will have more campaigns before the public sale. Stay tuned to the official group, subscribe to https://t.me/numbers_ann, and join our local communities to get the latest news!
- Spanish: https://t.me/numbers_es
- Japanese: https://t.me/numbers_ja
- Korean: https://t.me/numbers_kr
- Turkish: https://t.me/numbers_tr
- Vietnamese: https://t.me/numbers_vi
- Chinese: https://t.me/numbers_zh
- Hindi: https://t.me/numbers_hi
- Discord: https://link.numbersprotocol.io/discord
Join our Discord to interact with the team if you have any questions about the Capture App, Seal API, Trace Site, CaptureClub, and NFT Search Engine!
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