Original author: OurNetwork
Original translation: TechFlow
The Crypto x AI space is an emerging area within our industry with profound implications for the wider tech industry. While it is an elusive category that we are just beginning to explore more deeply, the past 18 months have seen the emergence of some exciting projects that leverage AI in a variety of ways across infrastructure, consumer, and decentralized finance (DeFi).
Whether it’s decentralizing computation to create a peer-to-peer marketplace that turns machine learning into tradable products or leveraging AI to build the first decentralized self-managed artist, the natural intersection of blockchain technology and AI is bringing about a steady stream of innovation.
So, let’s explore some of these emerging projects!
1.Bit tensor
Jack Forlines Bhavin Vaid | Website | Dashboard
TAO’s market cap drops $1 billion from all-time high
The Bittensor protocol builds a trading market that transforms machine learning intelligence into tradable commodities through a decentralized process and creates a peer-to-peer market for assets. Despite market volatility, trends do not indicate a significant cooling of the project's AI craze - the market value of Bittensor's token TAO fell from a peak of approximately $3.5 billion in May to a low of approximately $1.5 billion in July. However, despite the recent overall correction in the crypto market, TAO's market value rebounded to approximately $2.5 billion at the end of July. This roller-coaster pattern shows that despite frequent pullbacks, investor interest in AI-related tokens remains strong.
CoinGecko
An analysis of one of Bittensor’s 32 subnetworks shows that the main source of income is validators with large stakes. Moreover, the top earner makes less than $8,000 per day with over $350 million staked. This raises questions about the decentralization of the network and its ability to facilitate an open AI market.
Taostats.io
Bittensor’s economic model does not appear to be favorable to most miners. In the text prompt subnetwork, the average miner earns around $50 per day, regardless of their ranking. The top 30 miners barely earn more than $58 per day. The lack of a significant difference in revenue suggests that model performance is not rewarded appropriately.
Taostats.io
Transaction Level Information: Bittensor has not allocated any tokens to venture capital firms (VCs). They stated that if VCs want to build a position in Bittensor, they must purchase tokens on the market or learn how to mine/validate. This is in stark contrast to most AI-related crypto projects. 65% of TAO remains unissued; if Bittensor can achieve its decentralization goals, the protocol may provide a more attractive case for investment than its competitors.
2.Covalent
Anthony Loya | Website |Dashboard
Covalent has unlocked 848.12 million CXT tokens, worth about $5.67 million
Covalent is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol that provides a unified API across multiple blockchains to access on-chain data. It offers a range of products, including customizable data solutions and a verifiable AI infrastructure powered by the Ethereum Time Machine. The platform has converted its native token from CQT to CXT for staking and governance. Their staking dashboard allows users to manage staking, monitor network health, and earn rewards.
Dune Analytics - @covalent
Covalent’s token unlocking schedule reveals important developments that stakeholders should take note of. On August 22, 9.6 million tokens will be unlocked, contributing approximately $64,730 to the market cap. Subsequent unlocks in September and October will be 21.78 million and 9.6 million tokens to be released, respectively.
cryptorank.io
The price of CXT has dropped significantly over the past week, dropping 24.2% in 24 hours and 42.6% in the past seven days. This sharp drop is likely due to broad market dynamics.
Dune - @covalent
Transaction Level Information: There has been significant staking volume from a small number of key users recently within the Covalent X Token (CXT) staking community, indicating strong confidence in the token’s future. In particular, on August 7, 2024, a significant transaction was recorded where a user staked $91,350.65 worth of CXT. This large stake not only highlights users’ confidence in the potential rewards for staking CXT, but also reflects the overall positive sentiment.
3. Bang
miguel rubio | Website | Dashboard
Botto distributes 23% of sales revenue to art AI contributors
Botto is a decentralized art AI experiment that distributes proceeds from weekly 1/1 art sales to users who train its taste model. Botto’s 1/1 sales peaked at 100 ETH by 2024 and are now averaging 6 ETH, with additional revenue coming from secondary sales, curated collectibles, and collaborative projects. Botto excels in its revenue distribution model, with a 50% revenue share implemented in the DAO, generating over 300 ETH for the community, which represents 23% of total revenue — a blueprint for human-machine collaboration.
Dune - @carbano
Revenue distribution is tied to training effort — voting point usage, VP is proportional to $BOTTO staked (either directly or as Uni-V2 stake). Thus, 27% of $BOTTO supply is locked, 6% is burned (via the old BBB system), and 5.7% is frozen as liquidity provider (LP) stake. Combined with protocol-owned holdings, circulating supply is reduced by 50%.
Etherscan Etherscan
Botto’s future will depend on its cultural impact (Sotheby’s proposed a solo exhibition) and its ability to attract artificial intelligence training manpower. The project was integrated into the Farcaster framework and considered a partial shift to Base, resulting in an increase of about 4 times in address participation (from 5,000 to 19,000).
Dunes - @carbon
Transaction level information: Botto is an experiment in decentralized governance AI, with an economic design that distributes value to those who provide inputs. Users vote to earn rewards for training the AI. To get voting points, they need to buy and stake BOTTO, or add BOTTO-ETH to Uniswap and stake LP shares. To get rewards, they must actively claim them. This requires paying a large amount of ETH fees. Botto strives for mainstream cultural relevance, both on-chain and off-chain. An L2 ecosystem may open a whole new chapter.
