Recently, the hotly discussed decentralized AI project AO released its token economics. Why did the closely related AR token plummet? What are the AI track projects with real potential in the current crypto market? At the beginning of the year, a batch of AI track projects in the crypto market gradually faded away. What kind of market changes are foreshadowed behind this alternation?
AO Token Economics Announced, Why Did AR Take a Big Fall?
As the AI track is developing rapidly, the AI solution AO (Actor Oriented) proposed by Arweave, a veteran decentralized storage solution, was once very popular in the market. However, after the announcement of AO token economics, AR tokens began to fall sharply, from a high of around $49.5 to a low of $22.6, a drop of 54.3%. AO tokens can still be minted by AR token holders, so why did they plummet?
AO token economics has significantly reduced the attractiveness of AR. AO imitates Bitcoin's 100% fair issuance of tokens, with a total supply of 21 million tokens, a halving cycle of 4 years, and distribution every 5 minutes, with a monthly distribution of 1.425% of the remaining supply. Before the launch of the pre-bridge on June 18, all AO tokens were 100% minted by AR token holders. After the launch of the pre-bridge, AO tokens will be partially minted by AR token holders. According to official information, 1 AR will mint approximately 0.016 AO in the next 12 months. In the end, AR token holders minted approximately 36% of the total AO supply.
64% of the total AO tokens are used to provide external returns and introduce assets into AO, minted over time to incentivize its economic growth. According to official information, in the initial stage, users can deposit stETH (ETH staked with Lido) to accumulate token rewards in AO. As AO begins to open up to more ecosystems, other proof-of-stake assets may also be eligible. AO tokens are expected to begin circulating after reaching approximately 15% of the total supply (3.15 million) around February 8, 2025.
Overall, although holding AR can also obtain AO tokens, its attractiveness has actually decreased significantly. For example, the cost-effectiveness of holding stETH is high enough. The assets of stETH are more stable than AR. stETH itself can also earn Ethereum staking income. Now holding it can also mint AO, which is much more cost-effective than holding AR. This is also the reason why the hype funds have receded. In addition, the AI track has recently added new favorites, and the attractiveness of AO seems to have decreased a lot.
A new favorite in the AI track: Why is ATH favored by the market?
Recently, the decentralized cloud computing platform Aethir has attracted market attention, adding some new features to AI projects in the crypto market.
Aethir essentially integrates idle GPU resources and then pools them to form a powerful computing resource sharing pool for use by AI high computing demand parties. From an economic structure point of view, Aethir Network is a decentralized economy composed of miners, developers, users, token holders and Aethir DAO. The three key roles to ensure the successful operation of the network are containers, indexers and inspectors. Containers are the core nodes of the network and perform important operations to maintain network activity, including verifying transactions and rendering digital content in real time. Inspectors, as quality assurance personnel, continuously monitor the performance and service quality of containers to ensure reliable and efficient operation for GPU consumers. Indexers act as matchmakers between users and the best available containers. In June, research and consulting firm Mythos Research released a report analyzing the GPU as a service (GPUaaS) platform Aethir, which disclosed that Aethir has $24 million worth of GPU rendering equipment in 25 locations in 13 countries.
Aethir's ecosystem has also begun to take shape. With the support of airdrops from ecological projects, Aethir may continue to be strong. On June 17, Aethir published a post on X stating that its six AI and gaming partner projects will conduct exclusive airdrops for Aethir Checker Node holders. Specifically, Moemate, PlayFi, Hybrid, Cookie3, and ZKcandy will distribute their tokens to node holders; in addition, Deverse World will also provide rewards to ATH pledgers with its native tokens. Officials pointed out that staking ATH can not only get ATH rewards, but also get the native tokens of Aethir partners as additional rewards. In addition, according to Aethir official news, Aethir's potential airdrop partners also include: Web3 cloud phone project APhone, CARV, which provides modular data layers for the gaming and AI industries, game developer Delabs Games, decentralized computing network io.net, AI data infrastructure Rivalz Network, and decentralized AI infrastructure Zero1 Labs.
The market has plummeted. Which AI projects are worth paying attention to?
In addition to AO and ATH mentioned above, io.net is also a popular project that integrates the three narrative directions of AI+DePIN+Solana to some extent. io.net is based on the Solana decentralized AI computing power platform, dedicated to providing AI and ML companies with GPU resource integration from model training to reasoning, and providing low-cost and high-efficiency cloud computing services. The platform can integrate GPUs from independent data centers, cryptocurrency miners, and crypto projects such as Filecoin or Render to obtain computing power, providing target companies with more cost-effective cloud computing services. KOL Haotian believes that io has been highly anticipated since its birth. Whether it is VC, miners, or retail investors, they are eager for io to be able to set a good sign in the direction of Crypto's integration with AI, and there are great expectations for leading projects in the AI direction.
Although io.net and Aethir look similar, they are also different. Ebunker co-founder 0xTodd said that AI companies do not want to buy a large number of graphics cards themselves, so a decentralized facility is very important, which is also the market demand discovered by the two projects IO and Aethir. In terms of building an ecosystem, the ideas of IO and Aethir are somewhat different. In the early days, IO accumulated a batch of user graphics cards through token subsidies. At its peak, there were hundreds of thousands of graphics cards hanging on IO. Later, IO reached a cooperation with AI companies. Aethir previously sold a virtual mining machine called CheckerNode, and later sold Edge mining machines. This method is very effective in maintaining the basic base of the community. In addition, IO is a SOL ecosystem, while Aethir is mainly in Ethereum and Arbitrum. So from an ecological perspective, the two projects vaguely have a kind of independent governance and divided spheres of influence, but the two projects themselves have cooperated and exchanged tokens.
In addition to the above projects, Bittensor (TAO) is also a project that has been receiving much attention in the market. Bittensor (TAO) is committed to building the world's first blockchain neural network so that network participants can exchange machine learning capabilities and predictions. Dynamic TAO is one of Bittensor's most anticipated proposals, which will introduce crypto incentives in subnets, second only to the launch of subnets last year. Dynamic TAO is currently under testing and is expected to be fully launched soon.
The decentralized infrastructure RNDR is also worth paying attention to. At this year's WWDC conference, Apple released Apple Intelligence, its new AI feature suite for all devices. Among them, OctaneX, a 3D design software supported by Render Network, was demonstrated on the latest iPad Pro. When more users use OctaneX, it means an increase in demand for Render services, which is expected to increase the value of RNDR tokens.
Summarize
At present, more and more traditional institutions and large companies are joining the AI track, which makes the first batch of AI projects at the beginning of the year seem to gradually fade out of people's sight. The latest and hottest AI projects are more targeted at the rigid demand scenarios in the AI and encryption tracks, which has also been recognized by the market. For example, IO is committed to integrating GPUs from independent data centers, cryptocurrency miners, and encryption projects such as Filecoin or Render to obtain computing power, thereby serving AI start-ups, etc., and its market prospects have been recognized by the market. This essentially means that the development of the AI track in the encryption market is gradually starting to focus on actual application scenarios from bold design, and is committed to solving actual needs.
