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Blockchain 1.0 was just currency, like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, etc.
Blockchain 2.0, that was pioneered by Ethereum, introduced programmability, often dubbed a “world computer”.
The issue with Blockchain 2.0 is that its focus is on “processing”, such as processing transactions and smart contracts, i.e. program code.
However, storage of data in all shapes and forms is at least as important as processing. There is no “data processing” without data. And for most classical blockchains today, data storage hasn’t been a top design priority.
Storing the world’s data reliably, in a decentralized way, with fast and easy participation and retrieval, is a critical component of the further development of our world. There are a few decentralized, blockchain-based storage platforms out there, pioneered by Filecoin.
However, adoption in the real world has been lagging behind expectations.
That’s why Bitoku is setting out to create a decentralized storage blockchain that people like you and me would actually want to use.
A decentralized blockchain that developers will build on to create experiences that they know from centralized services such as Dropbox, enterprise backup, key-value store, and more.
A storage blockchain that works for all, doesn’t strain the environment – owned and governed by you, the users.
Welcome to Blockchain 3.0. Welcome to the future of the world’s information.
The information in this document is not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, financial advice.
Bitoku or its representatives are not attorneys, accountants, or financial advisors, nor holding themselves out to be, and the information provided is not a substitute for financial advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. Nothing provided in this document is, and shall not be understood or construed as, a recommendation to purchase any cryptocurrency coins or tokens. We have done our best to ensure that the information provided and the resources available for download are accurate and provide valuable information.
Regardless of anything to the contrary, nothing available in or through this document should be understood as a recommendation that you should not consult with a financial professional to address your particular information.
Bitoku Labs, Inc. expressly recommends that you seek advice from a professional. Neither OKU tokens nor Bitoku Nodes are investment vehicles, and nothing in this document should be construed as characterizing them as investment vehicles. Any mention of OKU tokens or Nodes in this document is exclusively limited to OKU tokens’ or the Nodes’ functional utility in the context of the Bitoku protocol.
To create a platform that stores the world’s information in a decentralized, peer-to-peer, censorship-resistant way, and gives ownership and governance to the users.
To enable everyone to participate, even with regular consumer devices.
To minimize the environmental impact of information storage, retrieval and validation.
To create the platform so performant, secure, efficient and easy to use that developers will prefer Bitoku to build storage-enabled apps, eventually touching billions of lives.
“Bitoku (美德, Japanese for virtue) is the world’s first
storage blockchain that people really want to use by
being true to the four Bitoku commandments.”
Bernie Blume
Founder of Bitoku Labs
Don’t use proof of work.
Owned and governed by you, the users. Can’t be censored by any single entity.
Enable an ecosystem of apps built on Bitoku, such as a Dropbox-like experience, enterprise backup & restore or an S3 compatible key-value store.
Fast, scalable, low fees. Can use simple devices (Antsle and others) for providing storage space.
Fun Fact:
Bitoku is 美德 in Japanese Kanji (adopted Chinese characters).
It means “virtue” or “virtues”.
In Chinese, 美德 is beautiful (美 měi) + virtue (德 dé).
Chinese 美国 = měi guó = country of beauty = America
Chinese 德国 =dé guó = country of virtue = Germany
So Bitoku (美德) has both countries of our founder Bernie Blume
The days of blockchains ignoring the user base & not rewarding the node and token holders are over!
Any great movement that makes a substantial positive impact on humankind has a group of true believers and supporters at its core. These are the folks that are crazy passionate about the mission that they want to be part of the movement as much as they can.
You can join the Bitoku Preferred Club to symbolize you belong to that core group.
Bitoku Preferred Club members are required to provide a non-refundable deposit of 1,500 OKU to join. This deposit is intended to limit the Bitoku Preferred Club to the most enthusiastic community members who are with us from the beginning.
Benefits for Bitoku Preferred Club members:
Bitoku Preferred will bring you inside that walled garden that keeps the non-committed folks out. It will make you an integral part of the Bitoku movement and grant you rewards not available to the public.
The world’s data is growing exponentially, and there is no end in sight. It all needs to be stored, for various durations. The trend toward decentralized storage is unstoppable. The worst-case for humankind is it will mostly be stored at Google, Amazon, etc
500,000 OKU/day – Shared equally among all node owners
As MainNet goes live, the unconditional rewards will become contingent on storing data / validating transactions, but the 1,000,000 OKU emissions per day and the strict max. supply will stay intact. After 10 years, supply will always be kept below the 4.015B through a burning scheme.
OKUPT maximum supply ever: 1,400
OKUFND maximum supply ever: 50,000
What exactly am I buying?
When you purchase a Bitoku Platinum Node (OKUPT) or a Bitoku Founders Node (OKUFND), you are securing a license to operate a Validator Node in the future Bitoku social storage blockchain. You are NOT buying hardware.
Even BEFORE your node license will materialize later on by running a PHYSICAL node, later on, your Node license as certified by OKUPT and/or OKUFND tokens in your wallet will start earning you OKU rewards each and every day, from day 1. We have two stages of Validator Node activation. You will need to provide the computer hardware required to run the Validator Node in stage 2, and we will communicate the hardware requirements as the launch date approaches in 2023. There are no hardware requirements whatsoever in stage 1, other than your Phantom wallet. Note that storage nodes will be different from validator nodes. The validator nodes are the backbone of the network with far superior economics than the permissionless storage nodes.
Stage 1. You have some nodes in your NodeStore Account, which you can see on your My Nodes page. These node licenses communicate with the smart contract that distributes the OKU tokens each day and is the verification needed for any future rewards. Some people will purchase multiple Nodes. Each license for each Node will need to be safely engraved and publicly provable in your NodeStore account on the blockchain. This will trigger the accrual of your daily rewards.
In Stage 2, you can finally run the Bitoku Validator software on individual computers that are connected to the Internet. Your physical validator node(s), enabled by the OKUPT / OKUFND licenses your can purchase today, will be the backbone of the Bitoku Network, verifying and validating that all storage nodes store and keep the data they are supposed to, and validating all transactions such as creating, copying, moving or deleting files or objects, reserving storage space and redundancy levels.
Stage 2 will start with a DevNet and then TestNet, which will not work on real OKU tokens. We expect to launch mainnet-beta in the third quarter of 2023. By then, the basis for earning your rewards will switch from the pure node license in your wallet to operating your physical node.
Purchasing Nodes in a blockchain is an interesting decision. If you purchase early in
the cycle, you get your node at the cheapest price and receive the largest amount of
reward coins. Waiting too long to buy a node may diminish the risk but they become
more expensive to buy, often to the point of pricing people out of Node ownership.
Our Nodes are not intended to be an investment. Although our Node owners will be
rewarded in OKU tokens, Node operators must be part of our ecosystem because they
believe in our mission and our vision to provide the missing storage layer to Web3,
DeFi, and the Metaverse.
There will only ever be 1,400 Platinum Nodes (200 of which for the Bitoku team, 100
as strategic reserve for future strategic partners) and 50,000 Founders Nodes. They
start at $100 USD and increase by $100 USD each time 100 Nodes are sold. All Node
owners receive an equal split per node of the allocated 1,000,000 OKU tokens each
day. Every year the coin allocation is 365,000,000, plus a 10% reserve for affiliates.
Once all 4.015 billion tokens are fully distributed after 10 years, only transaction fees
will be paid to Node Owners in place of the daily token allocation.
When mainnet-beta goes live, transaction fees and token burns will be introduced, gradually replacing the unconditional rewards of the time before launch. This will enable the OKU supply – even after 10 years – to never exceed the 4.015B OKU limit, and for the total net daily emissions to never exceed 1.1M (1M + 10%) OKU.
DAO (道) is not only the natural order of the universe in East Asian religions but also a Distributed Autonomous Organization that Bitoku will adopt to govern the network.
To become a DAO member, you purchase nodes. Your voting power is derived from the number of nodes and associated OKU tokens.
DAO members have the right to vote on the future of the platform, technical improvements, and – with a supermajority – on foundational things such as changes to the tokenomics.
This way (yes, 道 means “way”), you, the node owners, will govern the Bitoku network – not banks or large corporations
1. Node Owners
Persona: Passionate crypto enthusiasts.
Message: Be among the firsts to be part of an important paradigm shift.
Channel in Private Sale: Known, closed user group.
Channel in Public Sale: YouTube influencers, press, social media.
2. Storage Node Operators
Persona: Crypto enthusiasts, IT Pros with spare capacity.
Message: Turn your spare SSD to profits while supporting an
important paradigm shift.
Channel: Node affiliates, YouTube influencers, PR, social media.
3. App Developers
Persona: Innovative startups building for DeFi, Web3, Metaverse.
Message: Finally build storage-enabled blockchain apps.
Channel: Hackathons, Solana launchpads, PR, trade shows,
blockchain events, speaker assignments.
Social API for Virality
4. End Users
Persona and message vary by app. End users are being reached indirectly, mostly through App Companies, but also through PR that’s mainly targeted to App Developers and Node Owners.
Traditional computers (non-blockchain) have
DeFi, Web3, and the Metaverse are suffering severe limitations in innovation due to the lack of a (random access) storage layer.
Existing distributed storage solutions are inappropriate because they are
Modern smart contract chains are considered by many as “world computers”. However, they lack a critical component to become that: A random access, onchain, fast storage layer that’s natively baked into the smart contract platform it runs on.
Bitoku provides a social storage API, connecting Solana & the Bitoku chain. The latter performs and validates random access storage operations, such as
One remarkable event in the history of computing was the advent of Github, and their remarkably terse and fitting slogan “Social Coding”. Github is not only storing git repos, but participants have profiles, a history, and other participants can interact with it.
Social features and/or a social API are critical for mass adoption.
Some other blockchain storage solutions just provide an S3 API and that’s it. It helps to get some adoption, but this naïve, non-social approach prevents mass adoption.
Bitoku will socialize the distributed storage field in a similar way as Github did for coding.
In order to get virality multiplied, we focus on:
The future of distributed storage is social.
Welcome to the future.
Welcome to Bitoku.
Both Platinum and Founders Nodes are validators. Their tasks are:
As a Node Owner, you can
Use your OKU on okubin.com and later on the Bitoku chain,
Storage nodes can be run by anyone in a permissionless manner.
Apps built on Bitoku will run on user devices. They access
Late Q2 2022
LightPaper · Private Sale of Platinum Nodes
Mid Q3 2022
Dev White Paper & Specs · Public Sale Founders Nodes · Use OKU on okubin
Q1 2023
Launch DevNet (Nodes operational for dev labs)
Q2 2023
Launch TestNet (Live nodes for performance testing)
Q4 2023
Launch MainNet-beta · Transition rewards to live storage Launch File Sharing App, Backups App & S3-Compatible Storage Service
Future generations rely on us to store and preserve the world’s information. But that’s not all. Posterity will also need to be sure that this information has not been tampered with, has been confirmed by a large number of digital witnesses, and has not been censored.
But even censorship-resistant archival is not enough. The world needs space for temporary, random-access storage as well. All the world’s IT infrastructure is being rebuilt on the blockchain right now. But this new world computer, as any computer, needs random access storage.
The current distributed storage solution cannot be nor become that storage layer that smart contract chains rely on for day-to-day, random access storage.
Without the missing storage layer, the world will miss out and cannot truly rebuild the IT infrastructure, leaving us in a world where we are forced to trust a few large corporations.
Our descendants need a world where stored information flows in a censorship-resistant way – the best way to accelerate progress for everyone.