SIWA Public Testnet is Live: Redefining Ownership, Attribution, and Fair Compensation in AI
May 19, 2025
With over 1.4M+ daily active accounts on private testnet and 200k+ users on Data Services Platform, we're proud to introduce SIWA—our public testnet designed to bring AI ownership and provenance on-chain.
The world is rapidly moving toward a future where AI is embedded into everything we do, unlocking new forms of innovation, creativity, and collaboration across every industry. At Sahara AI, we’re building the infrastructure needed to accelerate this future.
Sahara AI is the first full-stack, AI-native blockchain platform where anyone on any chain can create, contribute to and monetize AI. Today, we’re excited to launch SIWA—our public testnet for decentralized AI development and the first real step toward an AI-driven future that’s open, equitable, and accessible to all.
SIWA serves as the first public gateway to the Sahara Blockchain, a foundational infrastructure layer purpose-built to enable the registration, licensing, and monetization of AI assets - such as datasets and models - through transparent, verifiable on-chain protocols. The SIWA testnet will allow developers and contributors to explore and validate these core protocols ahead of Mainnet.
We’ve already seen strong momentum: during our private testnet, over 3.2 million total accounts conducted at least one transaction, with a steady 1.4 million+ daily active accounts and 200,000+ users engaging with our Data Services Platform (DSP).
Now, with Phase 1 of SIWA, we're laying the groundwork for on-chain data ownership, giving contributors the ability to register and tokenize their datasets with verifiable, on-chain records. This data, which is often taken and used in centralized AI systems without credit or compensation, can now be transparently tracked and monetized on-chain.
"AI currently runs on data from billions of people, but most contributors aren't credited, compensated, or even aware their data is being used,” said Sean Ren, Co-founder and CEO of Sahara AI. “Sahara AI isn't just another blockchain - it's a call to action. With SIWA, we're supporting every developer and every chain that shares our vision of letting all AI contributors own their part of it. We’re already generating revenue through our Data Services Platform, and this value will directly accrue to our testnet users."
Our protocol roadmap includes three additional phases before mainnet: licensing, revenue distribution, and royalty vaults that turn attribution into revenue; permissionless testnet with open-source protocols; and pipeline registration, provenance tracking, and proof-of-contribution for automated revenue sharing.
Register, Own, and Manage Your AI Datasets On-Chain
In today’s AI landscape, the most valuable resource is data. With SIWA, for the first time, contributors can prove ownership, establish provenance, and (eventually) monetize their data through a transparent, on-chain system.
“We’re laying the foundation for a more equitable AI ecosystem—one where developers, data contributors, and builders can finally track how their work is used and get credit for it,” said Jesse Guild, Blockchain Product Lead at Sahara AI. “This phase is just the beginning, but it unlocks everything else: attribution, licensing, monetization, and ultimately, a more collaborative AI future.”
When you register a dataset on SIWA testnet, here’s what happens:
1. Register and Tokenize Datasets
Upload your dataset through our guided Developer Portal, whether it's raw data, labeled training examples, or something more custom. We currently accept text-based datasets in .json, .csv, or .txt format.
A strong dataset is structured, well-labeled (if applicable), and contains enough high-quality, diverse examples to be meaningful for AI training or evaluation. Whether it's dialogue transcripts, sentiment-tagged reviews, or scraped text from a niche domain, clarity and context are key.
Tokenize it on-chain as an ERC-721 Ownership NFT. This isn’t just a collectible; it’s a cryptographic proof that your dataset exists, was submitted at a specific time, and is tied to your address.
Log it in the Sahara Global Registry, our decentralized ledger of AI assets. This creates a verifiable, tamper-proof record that your dataset exists and that you were the first to register it.
The result? Your dataset becomes a recognized, traceable AI asset, anchored on-chain, protected by cryptography, and ready to plug into models, agents, and AI workflows!
2. Establish On-Chain Ownership and Attribution
Registration is just the start. Once your dataset is registered on-chain, you can begin linking it to the broader AI ecosystem using built-in attribution tags:
“Trained On” – Shows your dataset directly contributed to training an AI model. This creates a provable link between your contribution and the model’s performance.
“Derived From” – Identifies new datasets built using yours as a foundation. It preserves your dataset’s lineage and clearly attributes downstream work back to your original input.
These links form a transparent chain of custody for AI development, letting contributors trace how their data is used and reused, and enabling new models of compensation, licensing, and collaboration. These attribution links form a transparent chain of custody across AI assets ensuring creators can prove their contributions and potentially receive credit or compensation when their data is reused.
Upload your datasets now at app.saharalabs.ai/developer-platform/ and mint your ownership token.
A Full-Stack AI Development Platform
The Sahara Blockchain is just the foundation. Alongside SIWA, we're also rolling out the first public phases of our AI Developer Platform, AI Marketplace, and Data Services Platform—a full-stack suite of tools, infrastructure, and economic systems for building and scaling AI in Web2 and Web3.
The AI Developer Platform and AI Marketplace together form a full-stack suite of tools and services that fill a major gap in the blockchain ecosystem. Until now, developers and public chains have lacked the infrastructure needed to support AI development in an open, secure, and collaborative way. Running on Sahara’s testnet, the AI Developer Platform delivers end‑to‑end, chain-agnostic tooling for data, model, agent, and compute workflows, while the AI Marketplace adds on‑chain ownership and revenue‑sharing channels to monetize those assets.
SIWA is the on-chain gateway to this broader AI stack, with more protocol capabilities rolling out in the coming phases.
The Growing Sahara AI Ecosystem: Welcoming 40+ New Partners and Clients
Alongside current partners and clients such as Microsoft, Amazon, Snap, MIT, MyShell, USC, and UCLA, the SIWA testnet launches with over 40 new ecosystem partners and clients across AI, Web3, cloud infrastructure, and research organizations, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, UC Berkeley, Together AI, and Quicknode.
“Sahara AI is opening a new chapter in AI development by making the process more open, equitable, and accessible,” said Vipul Ved Prakash, Co-founder and CEO of Together AI. “Scalable compute is essential to realizing that vision, and Together AI is proud to help power their AI Developer Platform to ensure anyone, anywhere can access the resources they need to train and run meaningful AI workloads.”
Check out our full Ecosystem Directory page to see our full list of partners or apply to have your name added! saharalabs.ai/ecosystem/ecosystem-directory
Build, Scale, and Fund Your AI Startup
To support developers building on the Sahara Blockchain, our team has launched the Sahara Incubator—a hands-on program designed for early-stage teams building the next generation of AI-powered applications, training foundation models, or developing critical infrastructure.
Participants in the incubator receive:
Potential ecosystem funding
Technical support from Sahara AI’s engineering team
1:1 product and GTM mentorship
Access to ecosystem partners and distribution channels
Access to Sahara AI’s network of investors
Learn more at: https://saharalabs.ai/blog/sahara-incubator
What’s Next: The Road to Mainnet
SIWA Phase 1 is just the beginning. While it introduces the critical foundation of dataset registration and ownership, Sahara AI’s full protocol rollout will unlock deeper capabilities across licensing, monetization, and open-source development, ultimately paving the way to a fully decentralized AI stack.
Phase 2 – Licensing, Revenue Distribution & Royalty Vaults
In Phase 2, Sahara AI will introduce the next layer of economic empowerment: the ability to license your datasets and models on-chain, define usage permissions, and receive revenue automatically when your assets are used.
Key features include:
Allowing AI developers to monetize their assets by setting custom licensing terms and generating revenue.
Ensuring automatic, on-chain revenue distribution to original creators and contributors.
Introducing royalty vaults where asset owners and investors can claim proportional revenue based on usage and licensing fees.
This phase turns attribution into real economic participation, enabling sustainable growth for AI resource providers, creators, and developers alike.
Phase 3 – Permissionless Testnet with Open-Source Protocols
The final phase before mainnet opens up the core infrastructure to the world, allowing full and permissionless participation.
Key features include:
Enabling full decentralization of AI asset management, removing reliance on a centralized multisig.
Allowing AI developers worldwide to deploy and interact with Sahara Protocols permissionlessly.
Creating an open-source ecosystem where developers can integrate, contribute, and extend functionality without gatekeeping.
This phase decentralizes the core infrastructure of our blockchain, allowing the community to shape its future, fork its infrastructure, or build new verticals using its open architecture.
Phase 4 – Pipeline Registration, Provenance Tracking & Proof-of-Contribution
Phase 4 introduces the tokenization of AI pipelines—such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) stacks and multi-stage inference systems—bringing full transparency and attribution to even the most complex workflows.
Key features include:
On-chain registration and compositional tracking of AI pipelines via the Sahara Global Registry.
Attribution links for every pipeline stage, dataset input, and model reference.
Contribution Tokens that reflect relative value added across datasets, models, prompts, and improvements.
Automated revenue-sharing based on usage and lineage, enforced by protocol logic.
This phase enables a new collaborative economy where prompt engineers, data curators, and pipeline developers are all credited and rewarded for their contributions across the AI value chain.
Accelerating the AI-Driven Future—Together
It’s clear the world is headed toward an increasingly AI-driven future. Just as the internet reshaped every aspect of modern life, AI is on track to do the same—embedding itself into how we work, create, learn, and connect.
At Sahara AI, we’re building the tools and infrastructure to accelerate that AI-driven future while ensuring it remains open, equitable, and accessible to all.
The Sahara Blockchain is the foundation of that vision, placing provenance, attribution, and fair compensation at the heart of AI development through transparent, verifiable on-chain protocols. With the launch of our SIWA testnet, we’re inviting AI developers, resource providers, and consumers alike to join us in shaping what that future looks like. Explore our core protocols, test what’s possible, and help lay the groundwork for an AI-driven future where anyone—on any chain—can participate meaningfully and earn from the value they help create.
