Thoth Transparency Post for January 2026

Thoth Overview

Thoth was first described in the post, Here is a complete framework for a Generation-5 voting service..

Without repeating too much detail about the project, I think the key incentive changes that power Thoth to improve the ecosystem are these:

1. Every post creates a self-contained team whose individual interests are in alignment.
2. Self-votes are transformed into mutual aid.
3. Authors can receive rewards for their already existing posts for as long as the blockchain keeps running.
4. Delegators (sponsors) can receive rewards without a need for daily posting.
5. Thoth offers a step in the direction towards Jaron Lanier's concept of data dignity - the idea that when AI derives benefits from a human's creativity, the original creator should receive a share of the benefits. (IMO, this capability of the Steem blockchain is extremely underappreciated.)

Additionally, Thoth tries to comply with the suggestions in this draft netiquette proposal for Steem automatons.

Summary

Here we are in the middle of January, so it's time for another Thoth transparency post.

In the last 30 days, as a result of Thoth beneficiary settings, the blockchain has distributed 407 STEEM to 150 authors, 558 STEEM to 11 delegators, and it has burned 228 STEEM. The @thoth.test account has collected 322 SP in curation rewards.

Since the project launch, the blockchain has used Thoth beneficiary settings to distribute 4,502 STEEM to 781 authors, 1,784 STEEM to 18 delegators, and it has burned 1,148 STEEM. The @thoth.test account has collected 1,312 SP in curation rewards.

Reminder: All numbers are estimates and subject to error. For caveats, see the November post.

Here are summary tables with estimates:

Summary of PowerBI visuals

@thoth.test info from SteemWorld

And here are the updated visuals

All rewards / all time

All rewards / 30 days

Non-delegating authors / all time

Non-delegating authors / 30 days

Delegators / all time

Delegators / 30 days

Details about beneficiary rewards to the top authors (by count) / all time

Details about beneficiary rewards to the top authors (by count) / 30 days

More details about rewards to delegators

More details about rewards to the top authors (by count)

Conclusion / Acknowledgements

At this point, I believe that the @thoth.test account has proved the fundamental use case. Delegators are seeing returns that are higher than the previous generation of delegation bots, authors are receiving rewards after their posts primary payout windows have closed, and the bot is contributing to the ecosystem by burning rewards.

The two key factors to make this concept scalable are: (1.) Owned stake of the Thoth operator; and (2.) Thoth's ability to attract readers and voters (this is summarized, here).

I should also mention that, due to changes with Google Gemini's free tier, I'm now using their paid tier for Thoth's daily runs (gemini-3-flash-preview). The API cost (for now) is about $2 per month. A Thoth agent can still be run with Gemma models form Gemini's free tier or from ArliAI, but there are noticeable quality differences. Previously, Thoth was using Google's gemini-2.5-pro, and it was delivering even better quality, but now that it was removed from the free tier, it costs about 3x as much as gemini-3-flash-preview. IMO, the quality improvement from the pro model doesn't justify tripling the cost.

Finally, I remain grateful to the delegators, authors, voters, followers and other community members who are supporting this initiative.