{"schema_version":2,"updated":"2026-10-24T07:57:30.265Z","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","cite_as":"Own Your Mind, \"Decentralised AI Freedom and Returns score dataset\", https://ownyourmind.ai/integrity/","attribution":"Own Your Mind (ownyourmind.ai). Link the specific project review when citing a single project.","integrity_notice":{"summary":"Each integrity record carries its own record_type, verdict and assessment_level. A 'claim' record quotes the project's own published statement; a 'reported' value is that claim, not a verified fact, unless verdict is 'match'. A 'finding' record is our own measurement and grades no one's claim. assessment_level 'not-assessed' means unchecked, never clean. Findings are dated snapshots, not a live feed.","verdicts":{"match":"verified against independent data","inflated":"reported higher than independent data shows","understated":"reported lower than independent data shows","outdated":"was accurate when reported; on-chain reality has since moved","established":"our own independent measurement; there is no project claim to grade","unverified":"independently checkable, not yet checked","unverifiable":"checked, could not independently confirm"},"record_types":{"claim":"the project's own published statement, quoted verbatim, graded against independent data","finding":"our own measurement for a score dimension; no claimant and never a verdict on a claim"},"methodology":"https://ownyourmind.ai/resources/integrity-checks/"},"slug":"aethir","markdown":"https://ownyourmind.ai/projects/aethir.md","title":"Aethir","token":"ATH","category":"compute","freedomScore":3,"returnsScore":6.2,"freedomGrade":"F","returnsGrade":"C","url":"https://ownyourmind.ai/projects/aethir/","integrity":{"assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","last_assessed":"2026-09-25","emission_honesty":{"classification":"mixed","reason":"Operators are paid from two streams: ATH reward emissions (~8.84B ATH distributed per Aethir's own on-chain dashboard) and an 80% share of service fees (~6.48B ATH, being 80% of the 8.10B ATH gross fees we indexed on-chain). Emissions are the larger share, so operator compensation is emissions-led, not purely revenue-funded."},"reconciliations":[{"metric":"gpu_network_distribution","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"claim","verdict":"unverifiable","claim_holds_up":false,"claim":{"quote":"Aethir supports 440,000+ high-performance GPU Containers worldwide, across 200+ locations in 94 countries, ready to service the most demanding AI, Web3, and gaming workloads, at scale.","source_url":"https://aethir.com/blog-posts/aethirs-2025-wrap-up-decentralized-gpu-cloud-milestones","archive_url":null,"date":"2026-01-15"},"reported":{"value":"440,000+ GPU containers across 200+ locations in 94 countries","source":"Aethir blog, 2025 wrap-up (15 January 2026)","self_reported":null},"independent":{"value":null,"source":"GPU container count and geographic distribution are off-chain reality on a closed-source, self-certified surface (zero public repos). Per the WS1 rule, off-chain hardware claims are not deep-reconcile targets. Corroborated by Aethir's own dashboard (not contradicted by its own surface, unlike io.net) but not independently verifiable."},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"medium"},{"metric":"onchain_governance","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"claim","verdict":"inflated","claim_holds_up":false,"claim":{"quote":"$ATH holders have the right to participate in the governance of the Aethir network by voting on proposals and decisions that affect the future of the platform.","source_url":"https://docs.aethir.com/aethir-introduction/aethir-token-usdath","archive_url":null,"date":null},"reported":{"value":"ATH holders vote on proposals and decisions affecting the platform","source":"Aethir docs, Aethir Token ($ATH)","self_reported":null},"independent":{"value":"No on-chain governance found. The ATH token's owner is a 2-of-3 Gnosis Safe (0x1246aE66) with no timelock; the DAO Treasury allocation exists but no on-chain voting or governance mechanism is deployed.","source":"Ethereum RPC (ATH owner() -> Safe getOwners/getThreshold) + BaseScan/Etherscan, 2026-08-09"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"medium"},{"metric":"provider_allocation","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"finding","verdict":"established","claim_holds_up":false,"finding":"Half of ATH supply is allocated to checker nodes and compute providers, vesting over time.","independent":{"value":"Allocation as documented: 50% to compute providers (linear vesting).","source":"documented allocation + on-chain supply"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"info"},{"metric":"insider_allocation","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"finding","verdict":"established","claim_holds_up":false,"finding":"Insiders hold a material, vested share of ATH: team, investors and advisors together carry close to a third of supply.","independent":{"value":"Insider allocation is material: 12.5% team, 11.5% investors and 5% advisors, 29% between them, against 50% to checker nodes and compute providers and 6% to airdrop. Aethir's Token Distribution page publishes the split only as an image (Tokenomics3D.png), re-read 2026-09-23; the image carries the 5% advisors slice, which the Token Vesting table does not list as a separate row.","source":"docs.aethir.com token distribution and vesting pages, re-read 2026-09-18"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"low"},{"metric":"token_layer_censorship","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"finding","verdict":"established","claim_holds_up":false,"finding":"The ATH token has no pause, freeze or blacklist function and cannot be upgraded, so holders cannot be frozen at the token layer.","independent":{"value":"Verified AethirToken source exposes an owner-only mint (exhausted at the MAX_SUPPLY cap) and an owner-only whitelist that pays out the contract's own balance; no pause, freeze, or blacklist function, and the contract is not upgradeable (no EIP-1967 slot).","source":"Ethereum RPC + Etherscan verified source, 2026-08-09"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"info"},{"metric":"network_control","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"finding","verdict":"unverifiable","claim_holds_up":false,"finding":"Client data sovereignty on Aethir cannot be checked: the container runtime and the Indexer that matches workloads to containers are closed-source.","independent":{"value":null,"source":"The container runtime and the Indexer matching layer are closed-source, and nothing on chain records how workloads are matched or what the matching layer can see, so client data sovereignty is not independently verifiable."},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"medium"},{"metric":"open_source","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"finding","verdict":"established","claim_holds_up":false,"finding":"Aethir publishes a handful of client-side repositories, none of them licensed, and the orchestration and indexer stack is not public.","independent":{"value":"Seven own public repositories across two orgs, none of them licensed. AethirApp, the org Aethir's own docs send node operators to, holds two (checker-client, libyxrtc); AethirCloud holds five more (client-sdk-js, checker-client, HostAgent, metamask_demo, a profile repo) plus one fork. Not one carries an SPDX licence, so a reader has no right to use, modify or redistribute any of it. The orchestration and indexer stack is absent from both orgs, and only the ATH token contract is source-verified on Etherscan.","source":"GitHub REST API (AethirApp + AethirCloud org listings) + Etherscan, re-read 2026-09-17"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"medium"},{"metric":"compute_payment_utility","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"claim","verdict":"match","claim_holds_up":true,"claim":{"quote":"$ATH is used to pay for various services on the Aethir network, such as renting GPU resources for AI applications, cloud gaming, and other computational tasks.","source_url":"https://docs.aethir.com/aethir-introduction/aethir-token-usdath","archive_url":null,"date":null},"reported":{"value":"ATH pays for GPU rental and other compute services","source":"Aethir docs, Aethir Token ($ATH)","self_reported":null},"independent":{"value":"Compute-payment utility is on-chain-verified and now indexed rather than observed. 1,250 DepositServiceFee events on AETHIR_CORE (0x226D...a42d, Arbitrum) carry 9,786,507,650 ATH of gross service-fee throughput since July 2024, paid by 61 distinct payer addresses.","source":"Own on-chain AETHIR_CORE service-fee index (Arbitrum), 2026-06-09"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"info"},{"metric":"value_accrual","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"finding","verdict":"established","claim_holds_up":false,"finding":"Holder value accrual is indirect: GPU operators receive about 80% of service fees, the protocol keeps about 20%, and nothing is shared with or burned for holders.","independent":{"value":"The 80/20 split is measurable from the two DeFiLlama streams we already hold and it computes exactly: $36,058,888 protocol revenue against $180,294,425 gross fees, all-time, re-read 2026-09-18, which is 20.0% to the protocol and the rest to GPU operators. On-chain: 80% of service fees flow to GPU operators (supply-side), the protocol retains ~20%; there is no fee distribution to token holders and no buy-and-burn. Holder value accrual is indirect and thin.","source":"Own on-chain service-fee split + emission_honesty analysis, 2026-06-09"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"info"},{"metric":"current_supply","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"claim","verdict":"match","claim_holds_up":true,"claim":{"quote":"With a total supply of 42 billion tokens, Aethir has meticulously strategized its token allocation to ensure optimal ecosystem growth and balance stakeholder interests within both the short and long-term.","source_url":"https://docs.aethir.com/aethir-tokenomics","archive_url":null,"date":null},"reported":{"value":"42 billion ATH total supply","source":"Aethir docs, Aethir Tokenomics","self_reported":null},"independent":{"value":"On-chain totalSupply exactly 42,000,000,000; circulating ~20.13B (47.9%) per CoinGecko. Team vesting to Dec 2028.","source":"Ethereum RPC totalSupply + CoinGecko, 2026-08-09"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"info"},{"metric":"hard_cap_enforcement","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"finding","verdict":"established","claim_holds_up":false,"finding":"The 42B ATH supply is enforced in code and fully minted: mint() cannot exceed the MAX_SUPPLY constant, totalSupply() already equals it, and the contract has no burn, so no more ATH can be minted.","independent":{"value":"AethirToken declares MAX_SUPPLY = 42,000,000,000 ATH as a constant, and the owner-only mint() requires totalSupply() + amount <= MAX_SUPPLY. totalSupply() reads exactly 42B and there is no burn function, so the owner (a 2-of-3 Gnosis Safe, no timelock) cannot add supply. Its remaining power is an owner-only whitelist that pays out the small balance held by the contract itself.","source":"Sourcify full-match verified source (contracts/AethirToken.sol, Solidity 0.8.18) + Ethereum RPC totalSupply(), MAX_SUPPLY() and owner(), 2026-09-25"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-25","severity":"info"},{"metric":"service_fee_revenue","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"claim","verdict":"match","claim_holds_up":true,"claim":{"quote":"Total Network Revenue (Since June 2024) $ 194,648,687","source_url":"https://dashboard.aethir.com/protocol/demand-metric","archive_url":null,"date":"2026-10-13"},"reported":{"value":"$193,756,174 total network revenue since June 2024","source":"Aethir GPU Dashboard, Demand Metrics (read 2026-10-13, Chrome)","self_reported":null},"independent":{"value":"DeFiLlama's all-time gross fees for Aethir read $183.4M (2026-10-20), about 5.8% under the dashboard's $194.6M. DeFiLlama's daily series now posts in lumps (one $188,894 day on 13 Oct, nothing since), so it trails a running counter. Our own index of the AETHIR_CORE fee contract reproduces the trailing year: $78.7M against DeFiLlama's $82.1M, 4.1% apart (2026-09-18).","source":"DeFiLlama Aethir fees adapter (all-time), cross-checked against our own index of AETHIR_CORE 0x226DC7D2AA1F9a565e82faf04772FDbBaF2da42d (Arbitrum)"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"info"},{"metric":"revenue_headline_basis","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"finding","verdict":"established","claim_holds_up":false,"finding":"Aethir's headline revenue figure is gross developer spend; the protocol keeps about a fifth, and GPU operators receive the rest.","independent":{"value":"The protocol's own take, the 20% fee cut, is $36,058,888 all-time on DeFiLlama's Revenue series against $180,294,425 gross fees, re-read 2026-09-18; the other 80% flows to GPU operators.","source":"DeFiLlama Revenue and Fees series + our on-chain 20% split, re-read 2026-09-18"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"high"},{"metric":"arr","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"claim","verdict":"outdated","claim_holds_up":false,"claim":{"quote":"In just twelve months, Aethir's Annual Recurring Revenue has skyrocketed from $12 million to over $166 million","source_url":"https://aethir.com/blog-posts/aethirs-record-breaking-q3","archive_url":null,"date":"2025-10-10"},"reported":{"value":"Over $166 million ARR (Q3 2025)","source":"Aethir blog, Record-Breaking Q3 (10 October 2025)","self_reported":null},"independent":{"value":"Measured against our own index. Over the 13 months the price history covers, deposited service fees convert to $78.7M at daily ATH prices, and the monthly figure fell from $12.5M in September 2025 to $3.0M in July 2026.","source":"OYM Aethir service-fee index (scripts/refresh-aethir-fees.ts), Arbitrum DepositServiceFee logs converted at daily ATH prices"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"medium"},{"metric":"liquidity_depth","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"finding","verdict":"established","claim_holds_up":false,"finding":"ATH trades on many venues, including large centralised exchanges, with steady daily turnover.","independent":{"value":"58 tickers, including centralised exchanges (Upbit, Bybit, LBank, CoinW, HTX); about 5.5% daily turnover of market cap; about 97% below the all-time high.","source":"CoinGecko (tickers + market_data), 2026-08-09"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"info"},{"metric":"thesis_real_revenue","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"finding","verdict":"established","claim_holds_up":false,"finding":"Aethir's gross service-fee revenue is on-chain and reproducible: our own index of the fee contract tracks the independent aggregators closely.","independent":{"value":"Our own on-chain index of the AETHIR_CORE fee contract reproduces the trailing year within 4.1% of DeFiLlama ($78.7M against $82.1M), and matched DeFiLlama and Token Terminal to about 0.2% on calendar 2025. DeFiLlama's all-time gross fees read $180.3M (2026-09-18).","source":"Own on-chain service-fee index + DeFiLlama + Token Terminal, 2026-06-09"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"info"},{"metric":"thesis_gpu_network","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"claim","verdict":"unverifiable","claim_holds_up":false,"claim":{"quote":"This computational delivery is powered by Aethir's decentralized network of over 435,000 enterprise-grade GPU containers spanning 93 countries.","source_url":"https://aethir.com/blog-posts/aethirs-record-breaking-q3","archive_url":null,"date":"2025-10-10"},"reported":{"value":"Over 435,000 GPU containers in 93 countries","source":"Aethir blog, Record-Breaking Q3 (10 October 2025)","self_reported":null},"independent":{"value":null,"source":"The hardware footprint is off-chain, closed-source, and self-certified; not independently verifiable (per the WS1 off-chain-reality rule). Not contradicted by Aethir's own surface, unlike io.net."},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"medium"},{"metric":"thesis_durable_demand","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","record_type":"claim","verdict":"outdated","claim_holds_up":false,"claim":{"quote":"Quarterly revenues demonstrated strong momentum, with an impressive 22% growth from Q2 to Q3, underscoring the company's accelerating sales trajectory, as ARR reached $166M.","source_url":"https://aethir.com/blog-posts/aethirs-record-breaking-q3","archive_url":null,"date":"2025-10-10"},"reported":{"value":"22% quarter-on-quarter revenue growth, Q2 to Q3 2025","source":"Aethir blog, Record-Breaking Q3 (10 October 2025)","self_reported":null},"independent":{"value":"Demand has fallen, and the token-denominated counter-reading does not overturn it. Monthly service fees ran $12.5M in September 2025 against $3.0M in July 2026 on our own index. Deposits measured in ATH rose over the same window, which prompted the question of which denomination measures demand, and the logs answer it: across 11 months the correlation between log ATH deposited and log ATH price is -0.90, with an elasticity of -0.48. If compute were priced in ATH there would be no reason for deposit volume to track price inversely at all, so pricing behaves as fiat-denominated and settled in ATH. The elasticity is about -0.5 rather than -1, which is the part that matters: a pure settlement artefact would leave dollar spend flat, and dollar spend roughly halved. So the ATH rise is mostly the token falling, and real demand fell underneath it.","source":"OYM Aethir service-fee index, both denominations, plus the price-elasticity test over 11 months"},"assessed_date":"2026-09-23","severity":"high"}],"facts":[{"metric":"revenue_headline_basis","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","kind":"measured","flag":"definitional-gap","positive_control":false,"severity":"high","detail":"Aethir's '$176.7M total network revenue' and '$166M ARR' headlines are GROSS developer service-fee throughput. The protocol retains only the 20% fee cut: DeFiLlama 'Revenue' = ~$33.6M all-time / ~$20.8M per year, and our own 20% split of the on-chain fees = ~$32.7M all-time. The other 80% flows to GPU operators (supply-side). Headline 'revenue' overstates protocol-level revenue roughly 5x.","assessed_date":"2026-06-09"},{"metric":"technical_claims","assessment_level":"onchain-reconciled","kind":"limit","flag":"unmeasurable","positive_control":false,"severity":"high","detail":"Device and compute claims (GPU container count, compute hours, container performance) remain closed-source and self-certified (zero public GitHub repos). Only the service-fee revenue stream is on-chain-verifiable; the hardware and utilisation claims are not.","assessed_date":"2026-06-09"}]}}