OriginTrail (TRAC) is the utility token of the OriginTrail protocol, an ERC-20 token on Ethereum deployed on 2018-01-24. The protocol secures a Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG) used to verify and trace data such as supply-chain and AI-related information.
The DKG itself runs on NeuroWeb, a Polkadot parachain built by the OriginTrail team, and TRAC can be bridged between Ethereum and NeuroWeb via the "Teleport" bridge (Snowbridge). Node operators stake TRAC to store and serve "Knowledge Assets" on the network.
OriginTrail positions its Decentralized Knowledge Graph as trust infrastructure for AI systems rather than a general-purpose data ledger. This lets AI models and agents verify the provenance of information they retrieve or train on.
This differentiation is tied directly to TRAC: node operators stake TRAC to publish and serve Knowledge Assets, and delegators stake TRAC to node operators for a share of rewards, linking network trust guarantees to token demand. Enterprise integrations include Microsoft, Oracle, Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), the British Standards Institution (BSI), and the World Federation of Hemophilia.
TRAC is a utility token, not a governance token: no on-chain TRAC-holder voting mechanism was identified.
Holders use TRAC primarily through staking: a DKG Core Node requires a minimum stake of 50,000 TRAC to persistently store and serve Knowledge Assets and take part in random-sampling proofs for rewards. Holders who do not run a node can delegate TRAC to a node operator and receive "node share tokens" in return, earning a share of that node's rewards. TRAC also pays for publishing data to the DKG.
TRAC launched via an Initial Coin Offering held January 15-17, 2018, priced at $0.10 per token (then called "Trace"/TRACE).
The $10 million presale hard cap was reached within 18 minutes of opening, and the overall $22.5 million ICO hard cap was reached. Listed backers include European Blockchain Sandbox, Open Data Incubator Europe (an EU Horizon 2020-linked program), 10X Capital, AMYP Ventures, and Block.IS. The TRAC ERC-20 contract was deployed on Ethereum on 2018-01-24, shortly after the sale closed; the OriginTrail project itself was founded earlier, in September 2013, as a food-supply-chain traceability platform.
TRAC is deployed as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, its native and most liquid chain.
The OriginTrail protocol's Decentralized Knowledge Graph runs separately on NeuroWeb, a Polkadot parachain built by the OriginTrail team. TRAC is bridgeable between Ethereum and NeuroWeb via the "Teleport" bridge (Snowbridge).
OriginTrail was founded in September 2013 by Tomaž Levak, Žiga Drev, and Branimir Rakić, described in some sources as CEO, COO, and CTO respectively.
Ongoing protocol development is carried out by Trace Labs, described across multiple sources as "the core developers behind OriginTrail," a for-profit company building the open-source OriginTrail protocol.
OriginTrail is maintained by Trace Labs, described as the core development company behind the open-source OriginTrail protocol, alongside a related entity, OriginTrail d.o.o., registered in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Trace Labs Ltd. is registered in Hong Kong, though its team is described as based mostly in Slovenia. In 2025/2026, Trace Labs became a founding shareholder in Umanitek, a separate venture built on the DKG's "symbolic-AI foundation" for information trust and data ownership.
OriginTrail's governance is technical and staking-based rather than a token-voted DAO: no formal on-chain TRAC-holder voting mechanism for protocol changes was identified.
The DKG (v8) organizes Core Nodes into fixed "sectors"; nodes stake TRAC and earn rewards for storing and serving Knowledge Assets, while delegators stake TRAC to node operators through a delegation model modeled on Uniswap V3's LP-token design. Protocol changes are proposed through an OT-RFC improvement-proposal process led by the core team. A separate token, NEURO, incentivizes NeuroWeb blockchain collators and knowledge publishers.
Recent development has centered on expanding the DKG's role as AI-trust infrastructure rather than a single named protocol release.
A December 2025 "Metcalfe Convergence" update was referenced in connection with enterprise AI data-provenance integrations for Microsoft Copilot and AWS. In 2026, the DKG was cited as powering "Trusted Factory by SCAN" after the Supplier Compliance Audit Network (SCAN) was named "Best Supply Chain Integrity & Risk Management Network 2026." TRAC was also grouped among DePIN-sector tokens in coverage following an August 4, 2026 Anthropic/Volta Infra Holdings AI-compute deal.
CertiK's Skynet platform lists one third-party audit in OriginTrail's history without naming the firm, alongside a Code Security score of 20%.
A previously listed Cyberscope audit page for OriginTrail is no longer available online. On-chain, DEX liquidity relative to market cap is flagged as high risk at approximately 0.28%, and the top 10 holders control roughly 51% of total supply, as of 2026-09-01.