Building the future of AI-powered trust

Overview

The ratingCount ecosystem is a rating-aggregation platform that plans to add infrastructure services, liquid staking, and governance into a single coherent protocol. The native token, RATE, is designed to be the unit of account, access, and influence across every layer.

This whitepaper describes the protocol architecture, the role of the RATE token, the distribution mechanism, the Fair Launch sale, and the multi-year roadmap toward a fully decentralized AI economy.

Vision & Mission

Our vision is a future where verified reputation and AI infrastructure are open infrastructure — not walled gardens. ratingCount began as a consumer-facing rating aggregator and is evolving into the RATE Protocol: a decentralized layer for trust data and AI services across the internet.

Mission

• Make consumer trust data effortless, transparent, and free at the point of use
• Planned: enterprise-grade AI infrastructure accessible via Rating-as-a-Service (RaaS)
• Planned: liquid staking that makes staked reputation composable
• Distribute governance to a broad community of token holders, not insiders

Technology Stack

The RATE token is deployed on Ethereum; the RATE Protocol plans to integrate emerging primitives for AI agent communication and privacy-preserving identity.

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

MCP is an open standard for how AI agents share context, discover resources, and collaborate. RATE plans to use it as the communication layer for AI agents in its ecosystem.

Zero-Knowledge Reviewer Verification

Planned: reviewers will be able to prove they meet eligibility criteria (purchase history, reputation threshold, jurisdiction) without revealing personal information, preserving privacy while raising the bar against fraud and Sybil attacks.

Liquid Staking (stRATE)

Planned: staked RATE would be represented by a tradeable derivative — stRATE — usable as DeFi collateral.

Token Utility

RATE is designed for utility-first ownership. The planned protocol layers are to be denominated in, or governed by, the token.

• Infrastructure access (planned). Pay for AI services, agent deployment, and computation within the ecosystem.
• Liquid staking via stRATE (planned). Staked positions represented by a tradeable derivative.
• Governance rights (planned). Influence platform development, parameter adjustments, and treasury allocation.
• Reputation staking (planned). Stake to build reputation and unlock premium platform features.

Tokenomics

Total supply is fixed at 100,000,000,000 RATE. Distribution is engineered to maximize broad community ownership, fund long-term ecosystem development, and align team incentives with multi-year vesting.

TGE (token generation event) is a one-time action by the contract owner, available once vesting is configured. It does not happen automatically when the sale ends.

Vesting periods are 30 days, not calendar months.

How the project is funded

The sale contract does not pay sale proceeds to the team. On successful finalization, the ETH raised is supplied as Uniswap V2 liquidity, and the resulting LP tokens are locked for 365 days from finalization. If the sale is cancelled, contributors can claim refunds.

ratingCount is funded in RATE, from the allocations the project holds:

• Founders, Team & Advisors (22%): 20% at TGE, then continuous linear vesting over 36 periods of 30 days.
• Seed Investment (5%): fully claimable 30 days after TGE.
• Ecosystem (15%): a 360-day cliff after TGE, then continuous linear vesting over 1,080 days.
• Marketing (10%): continuous linear vesting over 1,080 days from TGE.
• Treasury (8%): held directly in the project treasury wallet; not subject to on-chain vesting.

Vested tokens must be claimed. The project may sell these tokens or use them to pay for development, operations and marketing. Selling adds supply to the market and can push the price down.

Trading tax. The configured rates are 3% buy / 3% sell on taxable trades with the contract's designated AMM pairs. Transfers involving a fee-exempt address are not taxed. Collected RATE can be swapped to ETH and sent to the treasury wallet; this does not happen on every trade. The contract owner can change either rate up to 10%, change fee exemptions, and change the treasury wallet.

What the contract owner can do.

• Set the tax rates (0–10%), change fee exemptions and change the treasury wallet.
• Blacklist addresses, except the RATE token contract and its main Uniswap pair.
• Move all vesting schedules belonging to one beneficiary, together, to a new address.
• Pause an active sale, resume a paused one, or cancel it while it is active or paused.
• Trigger TGE.
• Once liquidity exists and the 365-day lock has expired, withdraw the LP tokens held by the sale contract.

No callable function can mint additional RATE after deployment, and the contracts are not upgradeable.

TGE (token generation event) is a one-time action by the contract owner, available once vesting is configured. It does not happen automatically when the sale ends. Verify the contracts →

Fair Launch Sale

40 billion RATE tokens — 40% of total supply — are offered through a public Fair Launch sale across five pricing tiers. Each tier is more expensive than the last; a tier ends when it sells out or after 14 days, whichever comes first, and each tier's price is fixed in the sale contract.

Tier Structure

Liquidity Guarantee

100% of ETH raised in the sale is paired with RATE at finalization and deposited as Uniswap V2 liquidity. The resulting LP tokens are time-locked on-chain for 365 days with no early withdrawal possible; after the lock expires, the contract owner can withdraw them. Unsold tokens are burned. If the sale is cancelled, contributors can claim a full ETH refund directly from the contract.

Roadmap

The protocol roadmap is structured in five deliberate phases, executed from Fair Launch through full ecosystem maturity.

Governance

RATE holders are planned to govern protocol parameters, treasury allocation, and strategic direction. Phase 2 introduces the on-chain governance framework with proposal thresholds, voting periods, and execution timelocks. By Phase 5, governance is fully community-controlled, with autonomous AI governance primitives augmenting — not replacing — human deliberation.

Risk Factors

Participation in the RATE Fair Launch and the broader ecosystem carries risk. Key categories include smart contract risk, regulatory risk across jurisdictions, market and liquidity risk, and operational risk during early protocol phases. Contributors should review the full risk disclosures and conduct their own diligence before participating. Cryptoassets are high risk; be prepared to lose all the money you put in.