As the main plot closely linked to the pulse of global technology in 2024, the AI & Web3 track once set off a small market climax after Binance launched the leading project Bittensor (TAO) in April. Related tokens ushered in a general rise, but unfortunately failed to form a sustained heat. Under the water, Binance's bet on AI is clearly accelerating:
This year, whether it is Aggregata being selected for the latest MVB accelerator program, or Binance Labs officially announcing large investments in Sahara AI and Myshell, as well as Sleepless AI, io.net and others being listed on Binance, Binance's multiple investment vehicles have frequently made moves in the field of AI & Web3, and the pace has greatly accelerated .
The hidden clues are far-reaching. Binance's increased investment in the AI track is undoubtedly stirring up the waters as a new variable, and it is likely to give birth to a batch of new Alpha projects with amazing growth and size, taking over the banner of TAO.
In this context, who will become the catalyst for a new round of "AI & Web3" market, and which project will become the new explosion point to receive the overflow of Binance funds and ecological resources?
Binance's AI layout strategy and investment tools
First of all, we need to understand how Binance views the AI & Web3 narrative?
In a recent interview, Binance co-founder He Yi publicly shared his views on the development of AI and its integration with blockchain technology, saying that "AI technology is triggering a productivity revolution, and its influence is far beyond our imagination. In other words, blockchain technology mainly changes labor relations and profit distribution patterns, while AI is a revolutionary technology that directly improves user productivity."
In terms of specific investment strategies, He Yi divides it into several key modules. At the application level, the most common are products like OpenAI chatbots, which can assist in diverse tasks such as writing, design, and video production; behind them is the large language model (LLM) development team; further upstream are the computing power providers. NVIDIA's dominant position in this field makes it difficult for other competitors to catch up.
To put it bluntly, Binance's focus on the AI & Web3 track spans almost all product dimensions. As long as high-quality products and services can be provided and have the potential to become a successful business model, they are all potential investments .
So if we want to dig into Binance’s existing projects in AI narrative, where should we start? In fact, as long as we grasp the three main lines, we can get a hold of any popular narrative that Binance has laid out.
That’s right. Currently, Binance mainly uses three “investment levers” in the project development stage: incubator model (MVB, Binance Labs incubation plan), Binance Labs, and exchange-listed tokens to complete the stage layout of the entire life cycle (early incubation, investment support, and online trading) of track projects such as AI :
The incubator model, including MVB and Binance Labs incubation programs, covers a large number of startup teams through an incubation process similar to YC, digs out early potential projects in a wide-ranging manner, provides multi-dimensional support covering market strategy and user growth, and invests in some projects after the final screening, with relatively small amounts, to help complete the incubation from 0 to 1;
Binance Labs, as Binance's venture capital and incubation department, is committed to high-quality projects in various tracks and fields of Web3. The product architecture, business model, and team of the investment targets are more mature, and the investment amount is larger . It aims to provide in-depth resource integration for the projects to promote the rapid growth of the projects in the market competition and gain a leading position;
· Listing tokens on exchanges is an important market goal for mature crypto projects, which can help them gain huge exposure and directly reach the largest user and capital pool;
Through these three "investment levers", Binance has almost covered the entire life cycle of different projects in the AI track (early incubation, investment support, and listing and trading), thereby promoting the development of AI projects at different stages from various dimensions and sharing the overall growth dividend of the AI track.
A Panoramic Review of Binance AI Layout
So based on these three "investment levers", what projects does Binance's current AI map include (Note: In view of the continued strengthening trend of integration between AI and Web3, the AI projects listed below do not involve other track projects that combine AI technology, but mainly target native AI projects that have core elements of artificial intelligence (data processing, model algorithms, computing power training, etc.) and actual application scenarios) ?
1. Incubator Model (Selection and Investment)
It should be noted that, as mentioned above, the general process of the Binance incubator model (MVB, Binance Labs incubation program) includes audition - selection - incubation camp - observation - selective investment. Therefore, AI projects related to the incubator model can often be divided into two categories: only selected for the incubator, and selected for the incubator and further investment. Here we mainly focus on projects that have been selected and received investment :
· Privasea (formerly Nulink): a decentralized artificial intelligence network that realizes the circulation of data value through FHEML and provides distributed computing resources for FHE AI operations. In May 2022, it was selected into the Binance Labs Season 4 incubation program. In March 2024, it announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, with Binance Labs and others participating in the investment;
DIN (Web3Go): A modular AI-native data preprocessing layer, DIN (Web3Go) was selected for the MVB Accelerator Program in 2023 and completed a $4 million seed round led by Binance Labs in July;
Sleepless AI: A virtual companion game based on AI blockchain, using AIGC and LLM to create rich story-based gameplay and organic interactions with characters. In April 2023, Sleepless AI was officially selected for the 6th MVB Accelerator Program, and in August 2023, it further received investment from Binance Labs through the 6th MVB Accelerator Program;
QnA3.AI: An AI-driven Web3 knowledge sharing platform. It was selected into Binance Labs Season 6 Incubation Program in September 2023 and further invested by Binance Labs in March 2024. Its current FDV is US$77 million.
NFPrompt (NFP): An AI-based Web3 content creation platform that allows users to create, own and profit from digital art and NFTs through various AI tools and interfaces. Selected for Binance Labs Season 6 Incubation Program in September 2023, further investment from Binance Labs in March 2024;
MyShell: A decentralized AI ecosystem that allows everyone to build, own, and share artificial intelligence applications. In September 2023, MyShell was selected for the sixth season of the Incubation Program. In August 2024, Binance Labs officially announced its investment in MyShell through the sixth season of the incubation program.
Aggregata: A decentralized data market based on AI, which enables users to fully control the ownership of their AI elements by aggregating high-quality data in the AI field and decentralized storage systems. In March 2024, Aggregata was officially selected for the 7th MVB Accelerator Program, and in August 2024, it further received investment from Binance Labs through the 7th MVB Accelerator Program;
2. Binance Labs (direct investment)
Unlike projects that are selected for incubators and further receive incubation investment from Binance Labs, projects that receive direct investment from Binance Labs have larger investment amounts, higher valuations, and are overall Web3 projects with more mature product architectures, business models, and teams .
Arkham: An AI-driven blockchain intelligence and data platform that provides sophisticated information and visualization tools for on-chain activities.
Labs officially announced its investment in Arkham’s native token ARKM;
Sahara AI: The first to create the concept of "AI assets", dedicated to building a blockchain-based AI platform to provide users and developers with secure control and "copyright" protection of their AI assets, so that all participants can obtain fair ownership and rewards for their contributions. In August 2024, Sahara AI
Officially announced the completion of a $43 million financing round, led by Binance Labs, Polychain, etc.;
3. Exchange Listed Tokens
Fetch.ai (FET): A blockchain-based machine learning platform that aims to enable traditional products to access AI through Fetch.ai tokens without changing the underlying business applications. It was launched on Binance in February 2019 and currently has a FDV of $2.8 billion.
NFPrompt (NFP): After being selected for the 6th season of the Binance Labs incubation program and receiving investment from Binance Labs, NFP was launched on Binance Launchpool in December 2023, with a current FDV of $190 million;
Sleepless AI (AI): After being selected for the 6th season of the MVB Accelerator Program and receiving investment from Binance Labs, AI was launched on Binance Launchpool in January 2024 and listed on Binance. Its current FDV is $360 million;
Bittensor (TAO): A decentralized AI network that operates as a central network consisting of smaller, specialized subnetworks, each dedicated to a different area of AI. Binance launched TAO in April 2024, with a current FDV of $11.4 billion.
io.net: A decentralized cloud computing platform that aims to aggregate GPU resources for AI and machine learning companies. In June 2024, Binance Launchpool launched IO, with a current FDV of $1.2 billion;
In general, Binance has mainly used the incubator model (MVB, Binance Labs incubation program) to cast a wide net in the field of AI in the past; and Binance Labs direct investment, which has a larger investment amount and truly involves resource integration, undoubtedly has the greatest weight in Binance's layout. So far, there are only two projects, Sahara AI and Arkham .
However, it is worth noting that since ARKM has already been listed on Binance, among Binance’s direct investment AI projects, Sahara AI is the only one that has not issued a coin/listed on Binance.
Who is the Binance betting project with the most "Alpha" attributes?
As mentioned above, Binance’s layout strategy for the AI & Web3 track mainly focuses on promoting the combination of AI and blockchain technology, thereby promoting the development of decentralized applications (DApps), that is, preferring to use blockchain technology to empower the underlying infrastructure of the AI ecosystem.
From this perspective, if TAO has gradually become the Beta of the ballast in the field of AI, then Sahara AI, as a platform project that includes the application layer + model algorithm listed by He Yi, is likely to be the new Alpha leader that Binance will take over from TAO in the second half :
At present, AI narratives are essentially the game of giants, lacking a set of AI infrastructure that can truly allow small and medium-sized innovators and ordinary users to build and share together. Sahara AI is aiming at this differentiated direction - through the first AI asset concept and proprietary infrastructure, the development, deployment and monetization of AI assets (covering AI models, data sets, agents and other AI-related assets) are more democratized:
Whether you are a professional developer, entrepreneur or ordinary enthusiast, you can easily build or deploy personalized AI products based on Sahara AI, and earn income by contributing, developing, and deploying AI assets, and jointly build and share a more democratic and fair AI collaborative ecosystem.
Sahara AI consists of four layers of architecture: application, transaction, data, and execution, which form the foundation of the Sahara AI collaborative economy. Together, they provide a seamless experience for developers, data providers, and users, and are expected to catalyze a "Cambrian Explosion" of personalized, self-innovative AI use cases:
At the application layer, Sahara AI provides tools such as asset security vaults, decentralized AI markets, program-free toolkits, and Sahara ID to ensure data privacy and promote fair compensation, and further simplify the process of creating and deploying AI for all users;
The transaction layer, powered by the Sahara blockchain, is used to process all transactions related to AI assets, ensuring that every operation can be securely recorded, authenticated, attributed and verified, plus
Sahara AI’s native pre-compilation function is designed specifically for optimizing AI processing, and can perform efficient calculations directly in the blockchain environment to improve system performance;
The data layer manages on-chain data (key AI asset metadata, attribution, commitment, and proof) and off-chain data (important data sets, AI models, and supplementary information) in a unified manner, focusing on irreversible operations and records, ensuring the credibility and transparency of the system, and ensuring the integrity and security of data through encryption technology;
The execution layer, which serves as the off-chain AI infrastructure of the Sahara AI platform, interacts seamlessly with the transaction layer and the data layer, executes and manages protocols related to AI computations and functions, securely extracts data from the data layer, and dynamically allocates computing resources for optimal performance;
In a nutshell, Sahara AI is expected to develop into an AI platform infrastructure open to all users, thereby bringing together the largest user group. Whether they are professional developers, entrepreneurs or ordinary enthusiasts, they can easily build or deploy personalized AI products based on Sahara .
On this basis, Sahara AI can leverage the vast majority of users, funds and market attention in the AI track, bringing new vitality and possibilities to the entire AI track.
This may also be the reason why top investment institutions such as Binance, Pantera Capital, Polychain Capital, and AI industry giants such as Together AI, Midjourney, and Anthrophic are willing to support it - a platform that can truly achieve co-construction and sharing and attract a large number of users and funds is undoubtedly of great appeal .
summary
Looking back, Binance's layout in the AI field is now comprehensive and in-depth, almost replicating He Yiwen's initial insights and judgments on the AI industry . It is indeed based on the huge potential of AI in the future financial field and even the entire society to promote Binance's development in this field:
From early project incubation to mid-term strategic investment and then to later promotion of listing, it covers the entire life cycle of AI projects from incubation to investment and then to listing, and builds a complete AI ecosystem with a multi-level support strategy.
The narrative leader often has a benchmark effect on the valuation ceiling of the entire track. In theory, if Binance and other top venture capital institutions want to ignite the entire AI track and project layout, they will undoubtedly need a spark that can ignite market sentiment.
Although we still don’t know who this new leader will be and when it will arrive, it must at least have enough room for imagination and valuation ceiling. Therefore, with the support of top institutions such as Binance + differentiated infrastructure positioning , Sahara AI has to some extent shown its posture of taking over Bittensor (TAO).
Some of the hidden clues that have been building up in the early stages will undoubtedly gradually emerge in the future. Let us wait and see.
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