The Solana AI Hackathon held in 2024 was a huge success, with many participating projects sparking widespread discussion in the community. However, curator SendAI founder Yash Agarwal recently wrote that although he was proud of the success of the event, the subsequent speculation wave was not what he wanted to see.
Yash Agarwal pointed out that there are now 2-3 hackathon projects issuing tokens almost every day, each with a valuation between $50 million and $500 million. The Solana AI Hackathon has inadvertently become an AI token discovery platform, with many projects leveraging the Solana AI Hackathon or SendAI brand to establish credibility as a way to issue tokens and attract speculators.
Yash Agarwal further pointed out that if these projects are serious about developing AI products, there will be no problem. But the fact is that 90% of Crypto x AI projects now are more like cat and dog meme coins. What’s worse is that some of them also package their tokens as “utility tokens.”
Whales and KOLs play the role of irresponsible venture capitalists in this game. They use their influence to secure early supply, drive up prices, and sell at a profit at the peak.
Yash Agarwal suggested that developers should not issue coins for the sake of issuing coins, especially when the team itself only holds less than 5% of the tokens, because when the price falls back, developers will lose the motivation to continue building, but holding Speculators of the token will demand “keep building”.
"Tokens are not only assets, but also a heavy emotional burden... If your project is still willing to continue building even when the token market value is less than $500,000, then you should only consider issuing tokens."
On the other hand, Yash Agarwal also called on KOLs to be responsible for the tokens they promote, and speculators should not invest blindly just because of the recommendation of a certain KOL, otherwise they will end up being the biggest losers.
"Casinos still exist, and the house always wins."
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