Original｜Odaily Planet Daily
Author: Wenser
Recently, the on-chain proxy machine intelligence network Spectral announced the launch of the first quarter airdrop of SPEC tokens, with a total supply of 100 million tokens. The first quarter airdrop distribution tokens accounted for 8% of the total, or 8 million tokens. According to the highest average price of $90 per token on May 6, the total value of the project is equivalent to $720 million. Of course, this is only a calculation of the extreme case. The circulation, liquidity and coin price are difficult to support such a project. As of the time of writing, the price of SPEC tokens is $6.1, the remaining liquidity is $2.9 million, and the market value has also fallen back to about $16.7 million. When the explosive attention brought by the airdrop gradually fades, it may be the best time to review a "serious project". Today, Odaily Planet Daily will share with you more information behind the Spectral project.
SPEC Token Season 1 Airdrop Analysis
On May 6, Spectral officially announced that the first quarter airdrop was officially launched. A total of 8% of the SPEC token supply was used for the first quarter distribution, and a total of 52,992 addresses were eligible for the first distribution.
SPEC token airdrop population segmentation: platform users, AI field contributors, NFT community
According to the announcement, the first season of SPEC token airdrop targets mainly include four groups of people:
An early adopter of Spectral;
Data scientists and open source AI developers;
Generate art collectors and community members;
AI and Web3 supporter.
In addition, core developers who have made significant contributions to the development of Ethereum and created decentralized infrastructure that is important for the development of AI also have a certain share of token airdrops.
SPEC Token Economics: Community, Contributors, and Investors
In the specific distribution of 100 million SPEC tokens, Spectral’s division ratio is simple and crude, among which:
The community accounts for 40%, that is, 40 million SPEC tokens. TGE tokens will unlock 10.3% when they are launched. Cliff unlocks them over 12 months, followed by 10% unlocked each month. The vesting period is 30 months.
Core contributors account for 22%, which is 22 million SPEC tokens. TGE tokens will unlock 0 when they go online. Cliff unlocks in 12 months, and then unlocks 10% every month. The vesting time is 30 months.
Investors account for 38%, or 38 million SPEC tokens. 0 TGE tokens will be unlocked when they go online. Cliff will unlock them over 12 months, followed by 10% unlocked each month. The vesting time is 18 months.
It can be seen that Spectral is quite generous in distributing returns to the core contributors of the project and investors, and the main distribution rhythm is "community first-even unlocking".
SPEC Token Distribution Model
Notable airdrop targets: AI tool users, blue chip NFT holders, Farcaster active users
Combining the token airdrop list and the airdrop inspection interface, we can find that in addition to regular Spectral platform users, past contributors, and active community users, users of the well-known AI tool platform Huggingface, Pudgy Penguin NFT holders, Artblocks NFT holders, and Farcaster active users also have different proportions of SPEC token airdrop shares.
Among them, Farcaster active users can receive 8.125% of SPEC token airdrops, and the corresponding qualification criteria are: from January to May 2024, with 10+ likes, 10+ followers, 10+ content releases, and 10-200 interactive contacts (original text: Users with over 10 likes, 10 followers, 10 posts on Farcaster, and between 10 and 200 contract interactions on Base from January 2024 to May 2024). The real example of 182 SPECs being able to exchange for 1200+ USDT has once again made the value of Farcaster active users soar.
In addition, AI platform users, digital art collectors and creators, data scientists, machine learning engineers and other groups have also become important roles that Spectral has mentioned many times in the airdrop announcement and called on to join the ecosystem construction. Different from many previous AI projects that "look like AI, but are actually Memes", it has to be said that in the token airdrop, Spectral still gave due respect to AI.
Spectral Project Background: On-chain AI Agent Platform with $30 million in Financing
Looking back at the past development history of the Spectral project, the explosion of AI can be said to have provided a new "breakthrough" for the project, leading to the next turning point.
Spectral: From a Programmable Reputation Protocol to an On-Chain AI Agent Platform
Judging from the current official introduction, the Spectral project positions itself as a machine intelligence network that allows users to build on-chain AI agents and participate in the on-chain agent economy. Its main products are AI conversation tools similar to ChatGPT - Spectral Syntax and Nova, which can help users create on-chain agents and access decentralized machine learning reasoning for smart contracts. These tools are integrated through Inferchain to ensure transparency and decentralization.
As early as November 2021, when Spectral announced the completion of its first round of financing, it was still a programmable reputation protocol based on Ethereum, mainly used to assess credit risks in Web3. With the help of an on-chain credit scoring system, it provides lenders with an improved mechanism for assessing borrower risks and grants users full control over their identities and pseudonyms on the blockchain.
But in a place like Web3 that emphasizes "Don't Trust, Just Verify", due to the complexity and anonymity of decentralized networks, on-chain credit assessment is a difficult and "thankless" task. Therefore, although the project later received a new round of financing in August 2022, the multi-asset credit risk oracle (MACRO) scoring system it created is still difficult to gain deep understanding and strong recognition from the market and users.
In March 2024, Coindesk reported that Spectral launched the artificial intelligence application Syntax, which can help anyone launch smart contracts for Ethereum and dozens of other blockchains. Users can compile, debug and deploy Solidity code generated by artificial intelligence. NFT, arbitrage robots and transaction aggregation are all possible use cases for this technology. Spectral CEO Varghese believes that retail cryptocurrency traders, rather than experienced programmers, will be the main users of Syntax.
It was not until this point that Spectral officially completed the transformation from a programmable reputation protocol to an on-chain AI agent platform, and the originally somewhat obscure product positioning became easier to understand: a platform that helps users implement smart contract AI programming.
This is how the story unfolds. After all, simplicity is power, and complexity often leads to misunderstanding.
Spectral Syntax Product Interface
Investment institutions: Polychain Capital, General Catalyst, Social Capital and other star institutions
In November 2021, Spectral completed a financing round of US$6.75 million, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital, Chamath Palihapitiya's Social Capital, ParaFi Capital, Edge Node Ventures (The Graph), and MetaPurse Ventures.
In August 2022, Spectral completed US$23 million in financing, led by General Catalyst and Social Capital, with participation from Samsung, Gradient Ventures, Section 32, Franklin Templeton, Circle Ventures, Jump Capital and others.
To date, the company has raised approximately $30 million in financing.
Spectral official website interface
Spectral follow-up and potential airdrop speculation
Based on the above information, for Spectral, the possible development direction of the project and potential airdrop opportunities mainly lie in the following two aspects:
Spectral development direction: one-click coin issuance platform or smart contract education platform
Although Spectral’s current platform positioning is much clearer than before, it still has a certain threshold for many market users. Therefore, based on the existing technology accumulation and project development, Spectral may consider launching a "one-click coin issuance platform" that is more in line with the existing market needs, referring to platforms such as Pump.fun and Rug.fun. While earning the corresponding issuance fees, it provides more data set accumulation and technical support for the smart contract writing, review, and deployment of on-chain AI agents.
In addition, another development direction of Spectral may be to try to build a smart contract education platform, which coincides with the development of public goods in the Ethereum ecological network. According to the Electric Capital 2023 Developer Report, in 2023, only 22,411 active open source developers contributed to the encryption field each month, and the number of monthly active developers decreased by 24%. If Spectral can make some efforts in developer education, it is expected to make some contributions to the growth of blockchain network developers.
Spectral product demo interface
Spectral potential airdrops: first season airdrop targets and platform points
After the first season of airdrops gradually came to an end, Spectral's subsequent potential airdrops mainly focused on two parts: first, it continued the object-oriented idea of the first season of airdrops, especially groups such as Huggingface platform users and Farcaster active users, who may still be important distribution targets of potential airdrops; second, according to the Spectral Syntax interface, users can currently obtain platform points by inviting new users to deploy smart contracts in order to seek the possibility of obtaining subsequent airdrops.
Summary: Token prices may continue to fall, and the long-term trend depends on project financing performance
Overall, Spectral's latest project positioning has certain innovative value, and its previous financing performance is also quite impressive. However, the overly simple and crude token economics model and the tool platform with a certain threshold may not lead to a continued increase in the price of its SPEC token. The development direction of subsequent projects and the long-term trend of token prices still depend on the subsequent financing performance of the project.
As we are on the eve of the upcoming release of AGI by ChatGPT 5, perhaps we need to think more about how to better combine AI with Web3 and how to present its applications.
Odaily Planet Daily reminds users to carefully choose investment targets and pay attention to asset security.