As artificial intelligence reshapes every sector, from finance to education to national defense, the importance of human agency, data provenance, and ethical training data has never been greater. Sapien, a decentralized protocol co-founded by entrepreneur Trevor Koverko, is built to meet this moment. The platform ensures that humans not only remain part of the loop but are properly compensated for their role in the development of intelligent systems.
Koverko’s own path was shaped by disruption. Drafted by the NHL’s New York Rangers in 2005, his pro hockey career ended abruptly after a life-threatening car crash. Left with a traumatic brain injury and temporary paralysis, he spent months in recovery. From his hospital bed, he discovered a new purpose by watching Y Combinator startup videos and immersing himself in tech entrepreneurship.
Since then, Koverko has become a serial founder in Web3, launching Polymath in 2017, one of the first major platforms for security tokens. Polymath powered more than 200 asset tokenizations, generated 8-figure revenues, and spun out Polymesh, a dedicated Layer 1 blockchain designed for regulatory-compliant real-world assets. Koverko later co-founded or invested in companies like Tokens.com, DeFi Technologies, Matador, EigenLayer, Sei, XAI, and Coinbase, giving him a front-row seat to the evolution of decentralized infrastructure.
As foundation models began to dominate the AI landscape, Koverko saw a critical limitation: AI performance depends on the quality of training data. Most data today is sourced through low-wage gig platforms or synthetic generation, both of which compromise quality and ethics.
Sapien solves this by decentralizing the data collection and labeling process. Through its gamified platform and native mobile app, Sapien enables millions of individuals to contribute high-quality human data, from prompts and image tags to model feedback. Contributors retain ownership of their input and receive immediate rewards in crypto or stablecoins.
Under the hood, Sapien uses on-chain task matching, reputation-weighted scoring, and zero-knowledge proof attestations to ensure that task completion is verifiable, fraud-resistant, and privacy-preserving. Its modular protocol design makes it interoperable with leading AI frameworks, LLM fine-tuning pipelines, and decentralized compute environments.
Sapien has already surpassed one million users and signed 27 enterprise customers, including names like Midjourney, Alibaba, Baidu, and the United Nations. Its network generates data for use cases ranging from computer vision and speech-to-text, to prompt alignment and adversarial testing.
But beyond the numbers, Sapien represents a broader paradigm shift. As AI becomes concentrated in the hands of a few tech giants, Sapien gives individuals a way to actively shape and benefit from the intelligence economy.
Koverko’s journey, defined by resilience, reinvention, and action, reflects Sapien’s core belief: the next era of AI is not only powerful, but human-led, transparent, and aligned with the people it impacts.
