Written by: Haotian

Many people are puzzled as to why $PHA has become so popular out of nowhere. To be frank, even @PhalaNetwork may not have thought about how it suddenly became the chosen one. Because the popularity of PHA is both accidental and inevitable, and it is indeed not caused by any conspiracy or conspiracy. There are three key points: TEE technology is well prepared, ai16z has been trusted, and the AI ​​Agent is in the right place:

1) Phala Network’s efforts in TEE technology are the “inevitable” reason for this. Why do you say that?

Although TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) is not a new concept, it has always been a "side door" in the mainstream technology narrative of Crypto in the past few years. For example, there have been many high-performance chains competing with language advantages such as RUST and MOVE, and there has also been a ZK technology trend with ZK as the main theme. TEE and MPC, FHE, Blind Compute and other encryption technologies occasionally appear in the differentiated positioning of individual projects, but they are not at the same level as the popular ZK.

In fact, mainstream chains are focusing on the efficiency of "block space" usage (MEV, TPS, Gas, etc.), and ZK technology is only applied to the most basic trusted state changes between layer1 and layer2. The advantages of ZK technology in more aspects such as the zkVM virtual machine underlying layer and zkSNARKs iterative chain data structure have not yet been put to use, let alone the achievement of a larger scale of Mass Adoption.

The main reason is that previous technical narratives all pursued a pure "on-chain" environment. ZK is the first step to separate off-chain computing + on-chain verification, but the overall goal is still to serve the "on-chain". The trusted execution environment of TEE is naturally a "preprocessing" process of the "off-chain" secure enclave environment.

It can serve on-chain, and is also the result of the gradual expansion of the new narrative of Pre-confirmation by leading projects such as Unichain and Flashbot. In other words, without combining with the chain, TEE is a mature technology of pure web2. When combined with the chain, it can bring about trusted preprocessing, isolated privacy computing and other wonderful uses.

Therefore, people or projects that dare to apply TEE technology to the blockchain field must be able to endure loneliness and have a unique and wise vision. In this regard, PhalaNetwork does have a mature TEE solution, no doubt;

2) Unexpectedly for Phala Network, a mysterious customer named “ai16z” suddenly emerged and adopted its own TEE solution. This was the biggest “accidental” factor in the popularity of PHA.

After I saw AI-Pool’s official AI Agent’s self-issued tokens, I immediately tweeted a technical interpretation of the TEE solution (TEE allows AI to autonomously manage private keys and sign applications in an invisible and secure enclave environment), as well as the historic opportunity that phala and ai16z may have in their cooperation. (That is also a great place to get on board for most retail investors).

There is no need to say much about ai16z's current status as a super commercial IP in the AI ​​Agent track. AI-POOL uses Phala's TEE solution, which at least shows two things:

  • Phala’s TEE solution has many mature business cases and was selected by ai16z;

  • Phala's TEE solution will be the first to take advantage of AI Agent PumpFun's big business idea of ​​AI controlling private key coin issuance.

If you understand this, you will naturally understand what Phala can gain from AI-Pool, the phenomenon of intelligent agent self-issuing coins. It is a natural logic that when the AI ​​Agent coin issuance trend continues to drive, the private key management and remote authentication services provided by TEE will become a "must-have" business, and a complete set of on-chain verifiable consensus adapted to the TEE off-chain environment will become a plus point, which can be said to be a new infrastructure in the AI ​​Agent era.

So, after investing in PHA, I may not really understand Phala Network, but it doesn’t matter. I think I understand more about the market potential and incremental opportunities that AI Agent+TEE and AI Agent+Chain may bring.

3) What really gave Phala Network a push was the currently popular AI Agent narrative. I have pinned several articles about AI Agent narrative on my Twitter Profile hiligihts. New friends who follow me can take a look. There are only four words between the lines in those articles: "Don't miss it, don't miss it, don't miss it."

Because AI Agent is derived from AI MEME, then there are launchpad platforms such as Virutual and Vvaifu, and then

@aixbt_agent, Zerebro and other single AI, and then ELIZA, ARC and other frameworks and standards, until old chains like Phala are blown to the forefront, everything is evolving rapidly, almost beyond everyone's imagination. Why?

Just one point, because this is a historic opportunity, the main upward trend of the DeFi Summer level. In this process, the burst of innovative gameplay, the thirst for hot money inflow, the opportunity of information asymmetry, etc. are destined to remain "hot and hot".

That’s why I shouted the slogan so loudly, just hoping that more retail investors can seize the Alpha growth opportunities, and more project parties can get out of the "inability to deliver" dilemma of the old narrative of pure VC coins in the past.

A new narrative tornado is blowing, and its purpose is not just to throw dust (chicken feathers) in your face, but to send you to the outlet and make you that rich little piglet.

By the way, the subtext of this sentence is that don’t worry about missing out on PHA, because Phala is just one of the companies on the cusp of the trend and the first to reap the benefits of the trend. If you follow the logic and direction of the narrative evolution that I have sorted out, please believe that there will definitely be more opportunities.