Latest news with #Sapien
Forbes
22-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
20 Side Gigs That Rival Full-Time Wages, Earning Up To $4K Monthly
Experts are advising that side gigs are not a luxury anymore. American workers worry daily about losing their jobs as the economy tightens and technological advances cause massive layoffs. If you're a full-time employee, side gigs are becoming a necessity for extra income to make ends meet and as an insurance policy in case your job ends unexpectedly. The American workforce has learned they can call their own shots, have more flexibility and make more money working online with quick cash side gigs. Side gigs are becoming the new normal because workers are tired of the stress and uncertainty of their jobs. They're seeking the autonomy of being in charge of their own fate, instead of leaving that to corporate America that they can no longer trust to have their interests at heart. There are all types of side gigs that you can choose from. You can work from home online for some that do not require experience. Others take you into the community. Some are supplements for full-time workers, while other side gigs can be full-time pursuits that rival full-time wages like some of the ones listed below. Many gig jobs are those that AI can't handle like spotting bias, checking content or giving feedback. One platform behind this trend, Sapien, has 800,000 users across 100+ countries. They've completed over 75 million tasks for clients like Lenovo, Alibaba, MidJourney, and the UN. According to Rowan Stone, Sapien's CEO, 'If we can find a way to tap into that knowledge and reward people fairly for it, gig work won't just improve; it'll fundamentally change how we think about work, technology and value creation.' Stone explains that Sapiens is not your typical gig working platform. They do things differently; we use token-ized incentives and an on-chain reputation system to enure the highest possible data quality,' Stone explains. 'Contributors stake both tokens and reputation as collateral against the quality of their work, which means everyone is incentive aligned to deliver great data. More rep = more responsibility, and importantly, higher income potential via both advanced tasks and peer-QC (users validating the work of other users). Ensuring everyone has real skin in the game has been the single biggest unlock for Sapien since we launched 1.5 years ago.' The researchers at Topture calculated the hourly rate and estimated monthly income of 22 of the most popular side gigs. They researched the typical lowest and highest hourly rates using publicly available sources such as job boards, freelancer platforms and market rate reports. These values were used to establish a realistic earning range for each job. They assumed a consistent workload of 20 hours per week to reflect part-time engagement alongside full-time employment. Using this rate and workload, they projected monthly income estimates by multiplying the average hourly rate by 20 hours per week and then by 4.33 (average weeks per month). Average hourly rate was calculated as the midpoint between the high and low estimates. They used Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner to analyze public interest in each side hustle. Each data point is divided by the total number of searches within the US to measure relative popularity. This ensures that more populous states don't automatically rank higher due to higher total search volume. The resulting values are then scaled from 0 to 100, based on the keyword's proportion to all searches in the US. Note: identical interest scores across states do not indicate equal search volume, but rather similar relative interest. They used this normalized state-level data to identify the top three states with the highest interest in each side hustle. The same approach was used to calculate the overall Side Hustle Popularity Ranking. Most of these gig jobs rival full-time incomes, bring in thousands of dollars monthly, require little to no formal education--just a practical skill and a few focused hours each week--and have the flexibility to be done remotely at home. Here are 20 of the most popular side hustles with average monthly/yearly salaries and brief job descriptions. 1. Voiceover work ($4,500/$54,000). A voiceover side hustler provides voice recordings for a variety of media. 2. Selling Digital Products ($3,100/$37,200). This side gig involves creating and selling items like templates or e-books online. 3. E-Commerce Seller ($2,050/$24,600). E-commerce side jobs include selling handmade or vintage items online through platforms like Etsy. 4. Handyman Services ($1,750/$21,000). This side gig allows you to perform minor repairs and maintenance tasks. 5. Photography ($1,400/$16,800). In this gig job, you're paid to capture images for events, portraits or commercial use. 6. Freelance Copyrighting ($1,270/$15,240). Copyright freelancers write marketing materials, articles or website content for customers on the side. 7. Graphic Design ($1,000/$12,000). In a graphic designer side hustle, you would create visual content for businesses like logos and marketing materials. 8. Lawn Care ($950/$11,400). Side hustles of this type would involve you mowing lawns and maintaining gardens. 9. Online Tutoring ($690/$8,280). Online tutors who side hustle help students with subjects like reading or math, some online and some face-to-face. 10. Social Media Management ($650/$7,800). In a social media manager side hustle, you would manage and grow social media presence for clients. Work ($650/$7,800). This gig job involves completing various tasks such as furniture assembly or moving help. 12. Proofreading ($610/$7,320). Proofreader side hustlers are in the business of reviewing and correcting written content for errors. 13. Car Sharing ($540/$6,480). As a gig job car sharer, you must have a valid driver's license which allows you to rent out your personal vehicle. 14. Bookkeeping ($460/$5,500). Bookkeeper side hustlers must have accounting knowledge to manage financial records usually for small businesses. 15. Virtual Assistant ($450/$5,400). Virtual assistant side hustlers provide administrative support remotely, which can include technological aid such as email management. 16. Rideshare Driver ($450/$5,400). Ridesharers have a side gig that uses their personal vehicles to provide transportation services to clients. 17. Delivery Driver ($400/$4,800). Delivery drivers have side gigs in which they make deliveries to customers such as restaurant food or groceries. 18. Notary Public ($400/$4,800). To side hustle as a notary public, you must have a state certification that allows you to witness and authenticate legal documents. 19. Pet Sitting/Dog Walking ($350/$4,200). This side hustle requires a love for animals and involves taking care of pets while the owners are away. 20. Online Surveys ($160/$1,920). As a side job responding to online surveys, you need no experience, just the willingness to participate in online market research surveys. 'Some of these side hustles can rival full-time wages," Benny Rehwald, founder of Topture, points out. 'Voiceover work or digital product sales can bring in thousands a month once the skills are in place. What stands out is how many of them require little to no formal education, just a practical skill and a few focused hours each week.' Rehwald says the fact that many can be done entirely from home makes them even more accessible, especially for people balancing full-time work, family or health. 'Income from side gigs has become more than just a backup plan,' he concludes. "For many, it's a key part of long-term financial strategy.
Associated Press
07-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Sapien Launches Sapien Squad with Airdrop for Base Communities
First activation begins with Toshi, 50K claimable spots now live TORONTO, May 6, 2025 (Bitwire) -- Sapien, the open protocol connecting human intelligence with AI systems, has launchedSapien Squad, a new campaign on Base to rally some of the network's earliest and most active communities around a shared data foundry powering real-world AI systems. The first activation begins with Toshi, and launched today . A snapshot of the top 100,000 wallets in the Toshi ecosystem, based on recent activity and engagement, was taken. From that group, 50,000 wallets can claim aSapien Squad badgeon a first-come, first-served basis. The badge is an NFT that confirms airdrop eligibility and unlocks access to upcoming quests, mints, and rewards. Claiming is now live at . Minting is free for eligible wallets. Each wallet may only claim one Sapien Squad badge for the Toshi phase. If you've already claimed, you're good - no need to mint again. Sapien Squad brings together aligned communities on Base. Think of it like a MegaZord for decentralized AI: each group contributes its own energy, ethos, and member base to build something greater than the sum of its parts. The result is an open,human-powered data foundry built to make AI more accountable, diverse, and useful. 'Sapien connects real people to the data pipelines that train AI. We're building open infrastructure for one of the most powerful forces in tech, and Base is where that work should live. It's cultural, it's collaborative, and it's home to some of the most based builders out there. We're starting with Toshi and opening the door to more,' said Rowan Stone, co-founder and CEO of Sapien. By integrating with Base, Sapien is showing what becomes possible when data infrastructure is made accessible to everyone. Through collaborative onchain activations, shared quests, token-linked NFTs, and community airdrops, Sapien Squad gives communities new ways to participate, contribute, and earn. This is just the start. More quests, drops, and partner activations are coming soon. About Sapien Sapien is building the first decentralized data foundry, a permissionless protocol enabling enterprises, AI models, and agents to source expert knowledge at scale. By combining onchain technology, reputation systems, and gamification, Sapien aligns incentives to produce high-quality data for AI while empowering contributors globally. Learn more at .
Int'l Business Times
05-05-2025
- Business
- Int'l Business Times
The Data Economy's New Architect Trevor Koverko Pioneering the Future of AI
AI and crypto are converging into the most transformative technological duo of our era. Together, they're catalyzing a trillion-dollar shift in how data is generated, shared, and monetized. At the center of this evolution is Trevor Koverko—serial entrepreneur, former NHL draft pick, and cofounder of Sapien, a decentralized data foundry powering the future of enterprise AI models Artificial intelligence (AI) is already being applied to enhance blockchain systems, enabling dynamic gas fees, faster fraud detection, and more efficient scaling. At the same time, blockchain infrastructure promotes openness, improves interoperability, and can help safeguard AI models from bias. More critically, AI relies on vast, continuous data flows, and blockchain offers a secure, decentralized way to produce and share that data while letting individuals and organizations retain ownership. It also introduces new incentive structures, giving contributors the opportunity to earn rewards, monetary or otherwise, for supporting this data-driven ecosystem. Turning the Data Bottleneck Into a Global Opportunity In the world of AI, data is the new oil—and perhaps the biggest opportunity of all. While others chased compute infrastructure, serial entrepreneur (and former pro hockey player) Trevor Koverko saw something more scalable, accessible, and urgent: the human side of AI training. That vision gave rise to Sapien , a decentralized, crypto-powered network designed to incentivize and democratize data labeling—a critical step in AI development traditionally reserved for centralized vendors with deep pockets. Sapien functions as a human-powered data foundry, matching enterprise AI models with a global network of "AI Workers" who earn real rewards for labeling data directly from their mobile phones. Each worker is intelligently routed to tasks aligned with their skills and preferences, ensuring both quality and scalability. Since launching in 2023, Sapien has seen explosive growth: Over 500,000 contributors have completed tens of millions of tasks, Daily volumes have surpassed one million data tasks, And major clients like Midjourney, Baidu, and Alibaba now rely on Sapien to fuel their AI models. Backed by a recent $10.5 million seed round, Sapien is accelerating development to meet demand—and laying the groundwork for AI's next frontier. View on X From OpenAI's Playbook to a Public Protocol At TOKEN2049 Singapore, Koverko shared what inspired the idea: while exploring how top AI companies operate, he noticed that even OpenAI—arguably the leader in the space—relied heavily on human labor to fine-tune its models. "In fact," Koverko noted, "the more humans you have fine-tuning data, the better your model performs." But this process is expensive and gated. OpenAI is reportedly spending billions per year to maintain its labeling infrastructure. Koverko saw an opportunity to open this up to the world—and make it exciting, efficient, and rewarding. So he built Sapien from first principles. On the demand side, companies can simply upload raw data—drag and drop—and watch it flow through the network. On the supply side, users engage with a gamified Web3 interface where they get paid to label data, with performance-based airdrops to boost engagement. See the game mechanics Building Standards, Not Just Products To go a step further, Sapien is now developing its own AI data labeling standard—one that can be easily adopted across the industry. The team is taking inspiration from ERC-1400, Ethereum's tokenization standard co-authored during Koverko's time as founder of Polymath, which raised $60 million and helped shape the regulated asset tokenization space. This isn't Koverko's first moonshot. He's backed a range of pioneering ventures across crypto and AI, including: EigenLayer, Blockone, Ethereum, Sei, ether fi and hundreds of others Notably, he's also an investor in xAI, Elon Musk's ambitious AI company dedicated to "understanding the true nature of the universe." A Vision Bigger Than Sapien Taken together, Koverko's track record paints a clear picture: this is a founder who consistently spots high-leverage opportunities and builds infrastructure to unlock them. With Sapien, he's not just creating a protocol—he's redefining how the AI economy is built, who gets to contribute, and who gets to benefit. By decentralizing access to AI training data and rewarding contributors directly, Sapien turns a multi-billion-dollar bottleneck into a global opportunity. And with Koverko leading the charge, the future of decentralized AI looks not just promising—but inevitable. In fact, Data is the biggest opportunity in AI, which serial entrepreneur and former professional hockey player Trevor Koverko has been capitalizing on via Sapien, a powerful decentralized solution that uses crypto to incentivize data labeling for AI models. It is basically a human-powered data foundry that matches enterprise AI models with a decentralized network of AI Workers who get paid to produce data from their phones. Here, AI Workers are matched with optimal data tasks based on their skills and preferences. Koverko launched the project in 2023 and in this short period, Sapien has achieved massive success . It boasts over half a million global players who have completed tens of million tasks. In fact, recently, as Koveroko noted , the protocol saw one million data tasks being completed in a day. Moreover, Sapien counts Midjourney, Baidu, and Alibaba among its clients who rely on the network for their high-quality AI training data. A few months ago, the project also raised $10.5 million in its seed funding round to optimize AI performance. All this success may seem sudden, but that is not the case. As Koverko shared as a featured speaker at the TOKEN2049 Singapore event late last year, he first ventured into AI a few years ago. Now, AI is about two things: data and compute. While many focus on the compute side, which makes AI models magical, Koverko was "more excited about the data side" because it's more scalable and relevant to his background. As he started exploring how data is currently structured for AI models and how it's being done by the biggest companies in the world, he found that organizations like OpenAI outsource their data labeling, and humans are extremely important in this process. "In fact, the more humans you have fine-tuning data, the better the model is going to perform," Koverko noted at the time. OpenAI was the first company to use industrial-scale humans to fine-tune the data and is spending billions of dollars a year on this because that's how you build performance models. And everyone wants in, but of course, this is not possible for everyone to achieve, given how resource-intensive the process is. To make this messy and expensive process simple, exciting, and lucrative for all, Koverko decided to build from first principles and introduced a new way to do data labeling. "If you're a company that wants human feedback, which is any model that you want to perform well, all you do is upload your raw data to the network," which is as simple as a drag and drop, explained Koverko. Now, on the supply side, Sapien built a Web3 game where people get paid to label data. On top of it, performance-based airdrops are integrated to make it even more fun and lucrative for users. And that's not all. They are also developing their own AI data standard, allowing anyone to integrate with the Sapien front end seamlessly. For this, the Sapien team will take inspiration from ERC 1400, the default standard for tokenization on Ethereum, which was created during Koverko's time at Polymath. Koverko founded Polymath in 2017 as an early tokenization platform, which successfully raised $60 million. Over the years, he continued building transformative solutions to help advance the crypto space forward. Koverko even helped other promising projects with his investments including Eigen Layer, Sei, Arca, Coinbase, ShapeShift, Matador, OpenLedger, Portal, Sentinel, Immutable, Limitless, and many others. Another major investment of Koverko has been xAI, tech billionaire Elon Musk's AI company that aims to build AI specifically to advance human comprehension and capabilities. The goal of xAI is "to understand the true nature of the universe." All these investments make Koverko stand out as a true visionary who's helping bring high-potential solutions to the world. With Sapien, he's now reimagining how data is sourced and labeled for AI, empowering everyday people while tackling one of the biggest bottlenecks in the AI industry. So, with a tenacious and forward-thinking leader like Koverko at the helm, the future of decentralized AI certainly looks bright and powerful!
