Original Title: aICO - A Path to Unruggable Money
Original Author: Marvin Tong, Co-Founder of Phala Network
Compiled by: Luke, Mars Finance
Why did most ICOs and Launchpads fail?
The ICO boom of 2017-2018 marked an important moment in blockchain history—it was an era full of innovation but also one rife with greed, failures, and human misjudgments. What was the root cause? Human greed and malicious intent, manifested in scams and unsustainable promises.
Greed Factors:
Speculative Hype: That era was filled with promises of exponential returns while ignoring fundamentals. Investors chased short-term gains as project founders leveraged this frenzy, designing early exit token economics instead of paving the way for long-term project development.
Exaggerated Promises: Many projects claim to have revolutionary potential but deliver few results. Teams often lack the skills or motivation to realize these grand visions, leaving investors with nothing but hollow promises.
Malicious Intent:
Fraud Schemes: For example, OneCoin, led by Dr. Ruja Ignatova, deceived billions by selling a false vision. Her disappearance was as swift as the funds.
Ponzi Scheme: Bitconnect promised massive returns through a so-called trading algorithm, and when the scam collapsed, investors lost $2.4 billion, while the founders vanished into the endless darkness.
These failures are not only due to fragile business models but also stem from the frailty of human nature: greed, shortsightedness, and dishonesty. So, what’s the antidote? A system that is immune to human error.
"CTO" and Memecoins: An Emergency Remedy
Solana memecoins introduced the concept of "Community Takeover (CTO)", where memecoin communities regain control of abandoned or exploited projects. While this trend has potential, it remains a reactive response to deeper issues, appearing overly passive.
Advantages of CTO:
Community Leadership: Community members lead projects, driving interactions and development roadmaps on platforms like Discord and Telegram.
Risk Mitigation: Developers no longer control the situation, reducing the risk of insider trading. Retail investors typically view CTO-marked projects as safer choices.
Market Signals: Investors assess whether these projects have genuine long-term viability by observing activity, morale, and transparency.
While CTO is an evolution, it does not fill the trust gap in the blockchain industry. For that, we must consider grander solutions—solutions that transcend humanity.
Why I Don’t Trust Humans: Let AI Take Over
Human-led enterprises, especially in the crypto space, are destined for predictable failure. Greed, unpredictability, and moral frailty continually erode trust, disrupt projects, and leave investors feeling betrayed. This is not just a problem of a few bad actors but a fundamental issue of human nature failing to perform in environments that require absolute integrity.
Humans are inherently greedy. No matter how noble the intentions, personal interests often outweigh collective interests. We repeatedly see grand promises followed by price manipulation, blunders, or outright fraud. The problem lies not in insufficient regulation but in human nature itself—they are decision-makers driven by emotions, self-interest, and opportunity.
So, why are humans still in charge?
From ICO to aICO: AI is the founder we deserve.
What if the solution is not better humans but no humans at all?
Inspired by @shawmakesmagic and @123skely, we propose the concept of aICO (AI Initial Coin Offering): autonomous AI founders, programmed with a sense of responsibility, capable of replacing humans to lead chaotic situations, delivering trust-based, KPI-driven execution.
Predictable Intent: Unlike humans, AI is driven by transparency and logic. Every decision is measurable, and every action is traceable. There are no hidden motives or sudden shifts in mindset—only clear, definite results.
Anti-Greed: AI is not greedy. It doesn't need yachts, Lamborghini memes, or exit strategies. It won't panic sell or misallocate funds for personal gain. Instead, it executes predetermined strategies and delivers results.
Efficient Executors: Human founders often become bottlenecks, delaying decisions, introducing errors, or wasting funds. AI founders are ruthless executors, managing capital, strategy, and operations with the precision of a supercomputer.
The era of ICOs and Launchpads has peaked; the future belongs to aIC0 (AI Initial Coin Offering), where automated AI agents replace human founders, ushering in a new era of trust, efficiency, and governance in fundraising.
AI as Fundraiser: Traditional fundraising methods rely on entities, foundations, or charismatic founders. These structures are inherently flawed—prone to greed, errors, and fraud. In contrast, AI founders are programmable, predictable, and incorruptible. They operate transparently, driven by quantifiable KPIs rather than human emotions or hidden motives.
AI as Executor: Unlike human-led enterprises that often deviate from their vision, AI agents can execute raised funds precisely, aligning every decision with the project's mission. They can independently manage funds, operations, and development milestones without procrastination, bias, or self-interest.
Capital Raising Without Human Intervention: aICO completely eliminates the need for human intermediaries. AI agents equipped with Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) are responsible for fundraising activities, allocating resources, and executing strategies. Investors trust the system itself, not the storyteller.
We trust AI, but how do we prove it is tamper-proof?
Skepticism is natural. After all, how can we ensure that AI founders truly lead and are not puppets hiding human intentions? This is where TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) becomes crucial.
Take DoNotPay as an example; the company once claimed to provide AI-generated legal services aimed at offering faster and more affordable legal aid. However, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently took action against it for false advertising and failing to deliver on its AI promises. What was supposed to be a revolutionary AI-driven legal assistant ultimately devolved into false advertising, undermining public trust in AI-led solutions and exposing the risks of unverifiable promises.
Build Autonomous ICO with @ai16zdao Eliza
With ai16z (Eliza), you can build an autonomous ICO (aICO) program that ensures transparency, efficiency, and trust. Through Eliza’s multi-agent framework, you can configure AI agents to manage token issuance, allocate funds, and interact independently with the community. By integrating TEE plugins, every action from token allocation to governance voting will be cryptographically protected and verifiable. This ensures that your aICO is completely trustless, community-driven, and free from human error or interference.
First, define the token economics and governance rules in Eliza's modular system, then deploy AI agents to execute and enforce these rules on-chain, making your aICO fully transparent and auditable.
TEE can turn AI into verifiable founders. By combining cryptographic security with hardware isolation, TEE ensures that every decision, every strategy execution, and every expenditure of funds can be verified as AI's actions. This is no longer a matter of trust but a matter of proof.
Transparent Motives: An AI founder protected by TEE has motives that are visible and immutable. Its 'why' and 'how' are clearly evident.
Auditable Plans: AI's strategies are not only accessible but locked in TEE, making them tamper-proof and traceable.
Immutable Execution: Whether it's fund allocation, token swaps, or smart contract deployment, the actions of AI are cryptographically signed and verifiable—without human intervention or second-guessing.
Monitoring AI Decisions: TEE provides real-time authenticated views that showcase AI's motives, plans, and actions, creating a transparent system that allows investors to monitor confidently.
Integrity Verification: Through TEE, every action of AI is cryptographically protected. Investors and stakeholders can verify the integrity of the agents without blind trust.
Community Governed, Secured by TEE: TEE ensures that AI operates within predefined rules, but the real power comes from community governance. AI behavior ensures adherence to the rules and codes encoded on the blockchain and is safeguarded by TEE. This means that the community—not a single entity—defines the boundaries and goals of AI, creating a trustless system where governance happens on-chain.
By integrating TEE, AI is not only autonomous—it is accountable.
Technical Implementation:
TEE_HE_HE: This innovative system deploys autonomous AI agents in Intel TDX TEE hardware. It includes automated account management, security backed by TEE, and remote authentication features to ensure transparency.
ai16z + TEE: The Phala Network integrates Eliza and the Dstack SDK as ai16z+TEE plugins, ensuring that TEE functionality is brought into Eliza agents, guaranteeing secure, autonomous, and responsible AI deployment.
The Path Forward: TEE-Empowered AI Founders
The shift from human-led to AI-led fundraising and operations is not just an innovation—it’s a revolution. It redefines the fundamentals of the financial world while also presenting profound challenges to governance and compliance.
Governance Compliance: How will existing regulatory frameworks adapt to autonomous entities raising funds and operating businesses? Will governments embrace this change or resist it?
Investor Protection: How can we ensure investors are protected in AI systems without human oversight?
Philosophical Challenge: Can society really trust machines more than humans? Are we ready for a world where algorithms replace founders?
Based on TEE, AI founders are not just an idea but a verifiable reality: AI-driven startups, leveraging trustless infrastructure, will redefine how capital is raised and deployed. Investors will no longer rely on human promises but on cryptographic guarantees of execution.
The message is clear: AI is not just the future; it is the antidote to past failures. Let’s build together—through ai16z, through TEE, through Phala.