Author: Joyce, BlockBeats

Editor: Jack, BlockBeats

After a week of consolidation, the AI sector is taking off again. Judging from the time scale of the past six months, the tokens of various projects in the AI sector have continued to rise, and tokens such as WLD, RNDR, AGIX, and FET have all increased several times. In the month since the beginning of February, many new projects have appeared in the AI sector, with tokens rising more than five times or even dozens of times in less than two weeks. Why can the AI sector bloom everywhere and show lasting and strong growth? Increase? What are the new projects that have obvious wealth effects? How can AI narratives that were originally considered difficult to understand support the new projects that are now emerging? BlockBeats discusses these issues in this article.

Who is promoting the AI sector?

Encrypted VC continues to call for orders

Echoing the Web2 world, "AI" will be in 2023 The end of the year is a keyword that frequently appears in the annual outlook articles of major investment institutions. As Messari writes in Investment Forecast 2024 In that way, "AI has become the new favorite in the technology field. We have become bystanders again."

Has invested in 14 AI x Crytpo projects Delphi Digital's joint venture Founder Tommy once wrote, "I believe we We are heading towards a world with billions of AI models, whether everyone downloads and personalizes these open source models, or projects and companies build their own for specific use cases (e.g. Uniswap LP offers, exchange risk analysis, Delphi AI analysts) Model collection."

In-depth research on the AI sector is also in progress. Vitalik The article sorted out the application prospects and challenges of Crypto+AI. Galaxy Digital's long article analyzed the business models and limitations of current representative AI projects. , various signs indicate that in 2024, the market is very optimistic about the future of the AI sector.

Related reading: "Galaxy: Projects standing at the intersection of encryption and artificial intelligence》

Turning signals of "AI majors"

What ideas should be used to combine AI x Web3? It is obvious that if you want to speculate in the AI sector, the "source of fire" lies in the traditional AI manufacturers. The two sentences "AI represents productivity and Web3 represents production relations" and "do Web2 things again in a Web3 way" can be used to understand the stories told by most AI projects currently emerging in the encryption field.

Overview of the market performance this year, it can be seen that the popularity of the AI sector has remained high and has not stopped, and projects that have experienced impressive growth have also waxed and waned. blossom everywhere.

On February 16, OpenAI’s new large AI model Sora turned out, attracting great attention in the AI industry. A meme with the same name Sora appeared on Ethereum, and It rose more than a thousand times in 12 hours. After this, Worldcoin, an AI project founded by OpenAI founder Sam Altman, rose by more than 300% in two weeks.

NVIDIA chips that meet computing power requirements are still a hot commodity among major manufacturers. In the early morning of February 22, NVIDIA released its fourth-quarter financial report. Revenue was $22.1 billion, well above analysts' expectations of $20.4 billion. According to reports, Nvidia stock is up 63% in the first two months of the year.

Previously, although the development space of AI has been recognized, compared with other tracks such as DeFi and GameFi, the AI track used to be because the market did not understand it. And "it's popular but not popular." The emergence of Sora and the strong performance of NVIDIA have drawn more people's attention to the development potential of AI projects. In early February, the AI sector experienced general gains.

Retail investors are afraid of shortfalls, and new projects are becoming more popular

Why does the continued rise of WLD make everyone excited? surprise? One possible reason is that most of the AI projects that entered the community's field of vision at that time had already gone through the "value discovery" process.

The Render Network, a GPU-based decentralized rendering solution, has seen its token RNDR rise by more than 450% in the past six months, reaching a peak of 2022. Near the currency's early highs, the market value has exceeded US$2.7 billion. The artificial intelligence ledger Fetch.AI, which was born in 2019, has increased by more than 240% in the past 20 days, which is twice the high of the last bull market. Other AI sector tokens such as AGIX, ARKM, etc. have also increased by 2 times and 3 times in two weeks.

Left: RNDR daily line ; Middle: FET weekly line; Right: AGIX daily line

The willingness to pay in the crypto market is already strong enough, but most AI projects appeared a year ago. For For AI concepts that have not yet undergone value verification and whose use case scenarios are not yet clear, the transaction mentality of buying new rather than old has blocked some onlookers.

So, whether you are starting from tight computing power, using Web3 to tell an attractive story, or directly applying AI technology to the Web3 field , as an application layer Dapp empowerment ecosystem, it seems that as long as the narrative makes sense, even if it is a copy of the previous project concept, it can attract a large wave of liquidity driven by the anxiety of fear of heights and fear of shortfalls.

Which AI projects are rising?

It should be noted that unlike other tracks, the valuation model and track of AI are not yet clear, and many small-cap AI projects are carried out in early stages by Alpha hunters. It is more appropriate to view these projects as "MEME with technical narratives" for the first wave of spreading and successfully attracting liquidity.

At present, newly emerging AI projects have successively reached an increase of about 10 times compared with the earlier period, which is similar to the trend of AI projects that appeared in the last bull market. But what is different from before is that due to the influence of NVIDIA and OpenAI, the AI sector in this round of bull market has attracted more attention and carried more expectations than before. Therefore, we cannot simply apply the curve of the past bull market to look at the AI market in this round.

Small market capitalization is blooming everywhere

In the AI sector, the best and most understandable narrative is decentralization In this direction, "providing a two-sided market for GPU hardware" has been familiar to the market.

Last month, "GPU Sharing Model" projects focusing on decentralized computing power/cloud services appeared in droves, and they have all had a good upward curve in the near future. . BlockBeats once published in "AI concept coins have surged, these 10 Alpha projects Are you in the car? " mentioned the GPU rental project Node AI ($GPU). At that time, the price was US$0.22. After a week of consolidation, $GPU exceeded US$0.3 on Monday, and then rose to around US$1.2. .

In addition to Node AI ($GPU), NetMind.AI ($NMT) and NodeSynapse ($NS), which appeared at the same time and focused on GPU sharing business, also have the same It is worth noting that NetMind.AI’s official website has released specific information about the founding team, and all the members are Chinese.

Left: Node.AI ; Middle: NetMind.AI; Right: NodeSynapse

However, GPU rental services are not a new story in this bull market. Clore.ai appeared last year ( $CLORE) also had an increase of more than ten times, but it did not stay at the peak for long before it began to fall back. The AI craze in early February also drove $CLORE, but it still did not exceed its previous high.

Related reading: "LD Capital: POW+AI dual narrative, computing power rental platform Clore.AI increased 10 times in the month》

Akash, which was founded in 2022 and focuses on providing cloud computing market, also launched a testnet focusing on GPU leasing last year. Its token AKT has increased nearly 5 times in the past six months. However, such achievements are still far behind compared with newly emerging projects.

TAO Ecology

As we all know, the three core elements of AI are data, algorithms and computing power. Bittensor aims at the direction of algorithms and builds a network architecture connected by many subnet networks, allowing anyone to create subnets with customized incentives and different AI model use cases. Currently, TAO has a market capitalization of over $4 billion, and its price has been trading sideways between $600-$700 for a month. In the short term, TAO may not bring high profitability to its holders, while many projects on the Bittensor ecosystem are flourishing.

OpSec is positioned as a decentralized physical infrastructure network provider on Bittensor. Its products include decentralized project deployment portal OpSecCloud Bot, agent OpSecure Mesh and RDP product OpSec Cloudverse.

Since OpSec launched the V2 testnet on February 14, its token has started to rise, reaching a peak after rising by more than 150% in the past week. Currently, Has pulled back 10%. OpSec is still constantly updating news. It announced the launch of Cloudverse Epoch 1 on March 4, which will make it easier for users to deploy nodes. It also launched Discord Community. According to the team, Cloudverse sold over 500 nodes within 24 hours of launch.

In addition to OpSec, Bittensor Network The online lending protocol Tao Bank ($TBANK) also appeared in Alpha Hunter’s tweets, and the experimental token standard Tao Accounting System ($TAS) also had an astonishing increase of 7 times in 3 days.

How to start the AI project pipeline quickly?

The technology is complex and difficult to understand, the construction cycle is long, and "slow results" are one of the reasons why the AI sector was not optimistic in the past. But what’s the mystery behind the emergence of so many AI projects in a short period of time? BlockBeats found that these early projects had similar "starting" postures.

Choose the best narrative

Among the new AI projects that appeared around February , many projects position themselves as the GPU rental market. Since there have been precedents in previous years, the market's buying sentiment is very strong. But in fact, there is no way to know what power these projects rely on to schedule and utilize the collected computing resources.

They have repeatedly broken new highs, rising by nearly 20% in two weeks. Node.AI (GPU), which has doubled and is still rising, is an example. Although its official website has released the number of active nodes and the prices for renting GPUs of different specifications, the steps that Node.AI has completed so far are only "launching the NodeAI website and Dapp" and "$GPU Fair Launch".

Previously, some communities pointed out that Node.AI only provided a Google form to collect customers who needed to rent GPU computing power, and there was no actual implementation plan. Before users can actually provide their own computing power nodes for rent, they still need to go through several stages such as open token staking and the launch of an invitation plan.

Not all projects are It can last for several days. The DecentraNode project token ($DENODE), which also introduced the GPU rental business in the white paper, has been rising since its launch. It has increased by more than 20 times in 4 days, and it has also increased in the next 2 days. It fell by more than 80%.

On March 4, a new GPU rental project Rent AI announced the launch of its token ($RENT). As can be seen from its trend chart, $RENT The price increased by more than 20 times within four hours after it went online, but then began to fall. 16 hours after the token went online, its price returned to near the initial value. Unlike Node.AI, Rent AI has already opened the token staking channel at the beginning of its launch.

In addition, February 29 GPUBot, which appeared on the 24th, uses the selling point of allowing users to sell and rent CPU/GPU on Telegram without going through KYC. It has increased by more than 440% in the past 24 hours, but the number of currency-holding addresses is only more than 700.

In addition to GPU rental services, AI intelligent conversational robots are also a popular direction for new projects. The AI prediction robot SpectreAI ($SPECTRE) has increased sixfold in two weeks. The LBP price of mocai, an AI robot project based on the parallel EVM network Monad, is $0.125. Although it was discovered that its Beta version may only be the ChatGPT API, this does not hinder its token It has risen by more than 360% in the four days since its launch.

NVIDIA Developer Program per Capita

After launching the official website and white paper, how to attract the attention of the community ? First of all, of course, it was mentioned by KOLs. "It is an AI project and it is still in its early stages" is the best selling point. Familiar Alpha Hunters can often be found in the early focus lists of some AI projects, and in the project's TG group, there are often There is a reminder robot on site to monitor token purchases.

In addition, BlockBeats observed that the vast majority of new AI projects announced that they have joined the NVIDIA Developer Program, and used the words "to establish a partnership with NVIDIA" when announcing ” statement.

In fact, the Developer Program is an activity launched by NVIDA to provide developers, researchers and students with tools, resources and training to help teams develop technologies based on NVIDIA s application. Joining the NVIDIA Developer Program does not mean that the project party has "established a cooperative relationship with NVIDIA." The project team only has access to the SDK repository, NVIDIA GPU catalog, tools, training and other resources.

Join the NVIDIA Developer Program Some of the projects

In addition to the NVIDIA Developer Program, the IBM Elite Program, Google and Microsoft Developer Programs are also among the "partnerships" of many AI projects.

Work together as a team

Are the project parties doing their job? The implementation and operation cycle of AI projects is often very long. Generally speaking, when the community observes whether a project is reliable, its cooperative relationship will often become one of the important indicators for reference. Therefore, you can see that some AI project partnerships are updated very frequently.

For example, L1 blockchain Vault, which was established in 2023, has cooperated with 8 AI projects within 11 days, including the shared GPU project MineAI, the server hosting project NodeSynapse, the AI design tool SyntaxErc, the AI prediction robot SpectreAI, and the GPU Rental service DecentraNode, AI DEX MultiDexAI, AI audit tool SmartAudit AI, AI-driven on-chain trading tool SmartMoney.

For AgentX, which is positioned to help Web3 projects customize AI-driven operation solutions, this partnership can be a win-win situation, with nearly half of Over the past few months, AigentX has announced partnerships with 14 AI concept projects, including NodeSynapse, SmartAudit AI, DecentraNode, SmartMoney, GPU sharing project Blendr Network, AI-driven betting platform BetAI, AI gambling project ShellifyAI, and intelligent chat robots. VirtuMate, AI trading tool Artemisai, TG tool BuildAI, Bittensor subnet aph5nt, AI trading tool Volumint, decentralized cloud service DeCloud, GPU rental project Node.AI.

Conclusion

A large number of AI projects have appeared together, and Alpha Hunter’s orders are on the chain. In the hot transaction list, the AI sector has become a frequent visitor. Some gains last for a long time, while others end the next day.

The leader of the AI project is who? This is a difficult question to answer. Many people will mention Bittensor (TAO), probably more because Bittensor's market value ranks first in the AI sector, but Bittensor currently has no actual use cases, and it is impossible to find a second AI project that does similar business to Bittensor. How much room for appreciation does Bittensor have? What is the development rate? There are no similar projects for comparison, and it is a unique project in the AI sector.

In the direction of decentralized computing, Render Network, a project backed by the strong rendering business of traditional major manufacturers, is facing the challenge of projects such as io.net Such an opponent whose strength cannot be underestimated appears. However, it seems that these projects are currently opening up GPU supply resources to each other, and this direction is still in the stage of supporting each other and accumulating energy.

The lack of a leader may be the best time to tap into the wealth effect. Unlike other tracks, DeFi projects can be analyzed from aspects such as project TVL and the ecology of the chain to which they belong. The DeFi mechanism itself can also be understood based on drawing on traditional financial models. GameFi can be experienced from the game studio, economic system design, game development progress, community ecology, etc.; but from what angle should an AI project be analyzed?

From the perspective of short-term profit, Twitter updates, website front-ends, white papers, Telegram operations, Discord ecology, etc. can all convey whether the project party is doing something. ” and what the market’s expectations are. To a certain extent, the logic of rushing early projects is similar to that of rushing meme. Look at the market value, the number of addresses held, and whether there are KOL mentions. Be bold and careful, and take profits in a timely manner. Judging from the project trends that have emerged, as long as you rush early enough and retreat in a timely manner, you can make good profits.

In the long term, unlike other tracks, the various subdivision directions in the AI track are very different, and they are still being explored. Is decentralized computing power AI or DePIN? In addition to shelling GPT, what other story does the application layer have? In addition to the recent emergence of a large number of AI projects that are temporarily regarded as memes, there are also "veteran" players in the market that were launched in the previous round, such as Bittensor, Render, Arkham, etc. This round also includes io.net and Scopechat. , Ritual is a project that continues to build and has high expectations but has not yet issued coins.

Just last night, Fetch.aiannounced the launch of the US$100 million infrastructure investment project "Fetch Compute", and at the same time io.net announces the completion of a US$30 million Series A financing from star investment institutions such as Hack VC and Multicoin Capital. It is still unclear whether 2024 will usher in AI summer, but what is certain is that the AIxCrypto narrative will become increasingly clear.

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