Author: Yash Agarwal, Founder of SendAI
Compilation: Felix, PANews
On December 11, Solana announced the launch of the first Solana AI hackathon, aiming to build AI agents and tools on Solana, supported by SEND AI. The prizes range from 5,000 to 30,000 dollars, aimed at encouraging serious Crypto x AI projects that can attract venture capital or launch their own tokens. Submissions open on December 15, where project teams can provide all project details, including GitHub repositories, a 2-minute demo/pitch video, a 10-page pitch document, etc.
The Solana AI hackathon has been highly sought after, even giving rise to the phenomenon of FOMO for token issuance. SendAI founder Yash Agarwal has criticized this phenomenon, and here is the full content.
When we launched this hackathon, there was a simple vision: to make Solana the AI chain and grow it tenfold.
Hackathons are the best opportunity to achieve this goal - bringing everyone together to participate in Crypto x AI Agents in person, which I am very optimistic about.
In the past month, it is safe to say that 'Solana AI hackathon' has not only become a brand but has completely changed the landscape for Solana Agents. Completing over 400 projects in 15 days is no small feat, and my team and I are proud of our contributions to adding 5-10 billion dollars in market value to Solana AI.
Of course, at the beginning, due to this strange Crypto x AI Agent, I sensed that related tokens would be released. And if builders use tokens as a means of capital accumulation to build excellent products, that is perfectly fine. All 8 tracks are carefully designed to encourage truly useful Agents.
But at that time, I did not know that this would become a playground for degens. From the data, this hackathon had only over 40,000 visitors in one week. Now, every day, 2-3 hackathon projects quickly reach a market value of 50 million dollars, with a total value exceeding 500 million dollars. The Solana AI hackathon inadvertently became a platform for discovering AI tokens.
Current Situation
Submit projects in the hackathon and appear in the Solana AI hackathon project directory, leveraging Solana AI hackathon/SendAI to enhance credibility.
Launch tokens → targeted by whales and KOLs → generate hype, obtain 5-50 million dollars of initial funding.
In the eyes of Degens, early layout of hackathon projects can yield potential hundredfold returns, making hackathons the perfect playground for investment.
Nothing unusual - typical power-law distribution driven speculation.
While I am glad to see some builders launch tokens and use them as a means of capital accumulation, there is too much bubble now, just like any previous hot narrative.
While this is closer to a fair launch (similar to ICO) - this is not the best direction to move forward.
Builders tend to approach blindly
Over-tokenization makes builders shortsighted and blind.
Currently, 90% of Crypto x AI projects are like cat/dog meme coins. If this is completely clear, that's fine, but many projects promote their tokens as 'utility tokens', which is a total scam.
This phenomenon could cause long-term damage to real builders (especially weaker builders) - they are now forced to be shortsighted.
Most agency/infrastructure projects have found that tokens are the best way to gain attention: issue tokens → agency/framework goes 'viral' (but with no users) → token price rises → everyone is happy.
Many projects just casually release announcements or demos (even with a market cap over 200 million dollars) to please the audience, and then whales/conspiracy groups promote to retail investors that this is 'excellent technology'.
Many developers know that their products are not scalable or feasible in practice, so they just keep doing demos or casually releasing 'X X Y' announcements. Speak about some real-time, scalable, truly on-chain and Agent products.
Conspiracy groups/whales/KOLs are bad VCs without a reputation burden.
Conspiracy groups and whale players make this game very dirty: they fabricate stories ('backed by XX' - just a simple retweet or casually saying 'the technology is great') to seize market supply or convince builders to give token allocations and pump, promoting in their degen groups, then continue to sell (or eventually will sell), harming retail investors and builders.
Please remember that due to pump releases, most tokens have no lock-up restrictions.
Advice to Builders
Do not issue tokens just for the sake of issuing them - especially if you do not own a significant portion of the tokens. If you own less than 5% of the tokens - once the price starts to decline, you have no motivation to continue building.
Even if the token rises in the short term, you may quickly benefit from issuing tokens worth 50-100 million dollars, but once the price adjusts later, you will have no motivation to build - and a group of lousy token holders hopes you will continue to build because they are brainwashed by some conspiracy groups into thinking this is 'amazing technology'.
Tokens are technically an asset, but emotionally they are a huge liability. Issuing tokens is easy, but managing tokens over the past 6 months and going through all these downturns can tell you: managing tokens is not fun. The tokens themselves are a huge product that needs to be managed.
When the price drops, these communities, KOLs, or conspiracy groups will not help you at all - you are alone. They might even mock or criticize you.
Issuing tokens and raising funds for construction is certainly perfectly fine, just don't rush to issue coins if you are not prepared.
Think a little longer term, ask yourself: 'Even if the token market cap is below 500,000, will you develop it in the next 6 months?'
If the answer is yes, then issue tokens. Appropriately allocate them to the team during issuance, if necessary - as a complete builder, you have every right to accumulate long-term wealth for your project, rather than for random conspiracy groups or whale players.
For hackathon builders who have issued tokens but lack foresight - I wish you a happy management, and let's discuss this again in 6 months.
I won't name anyone here, but I will give a good example:
Umang developed Cleopetra in this hackathon, which is an Agent aimed at improving LP experience to address a real issue: improving LP experience. There are currently no plans to launch tokens, but we are harassed daily by fake tokens and requests to disclose CA from Degens.
If you are a weak builder without foresight, becoming a victim of these degens and issuing tokens, frankly, I will not respect you as a builder. No matter if your token market cap rises to 100 million or 500 million, I will call you out.
If tokens have not been released yet, how to solve this problem?
Stay strong, write 'no tokens' in your Twitter (X) bio, never hint at issuing coins, and keep building. There is really nothing you can do about fake token issuances - fighting them is useless. If someone is still buying in without any research, they deserve to lose - ignore them (block them if they DM you).
To KOLs and Degens
For KOLs, be responsible for what you promote - especially tokens. Guide builders well, and do not fall into the trap of quick token allocation or influence. When the price drops, you also do not want to be seen as a scammer.
Degens may apply to everyone - do not just FOMO buy something you do not understand or even want to understand just because your favorite KOL is shouting about it. You will ultimately be the loser in all of this because you are chasing 'quick money'.
Hackathon Results
Many industry insiders contacted me asking for:
Token list or preference
Hackathon results date
Even hackathon results
At least 50+ private messages, some even offering bribes/token allocation schemes.
Sorry, the exact end date and final results will not be disclosed to anyone (including the judges, each judge has a separate form) before the official announcement.
Blood, sweat, and tears
When we decided to start this hackathon, we did not receive any funding or support from anyone - everything was filled with hard work and tears, driven by an inherent passion to grow Solana AI by tenfold. SendAI was established after the Solana AI hackathon - we placed this bet, and the result was very good.
At this point, we want to take ethics seriously and do our utmost to be honest - no matter who you are.
In order to reduce speculation, a tough decision was made to cancel the demo day and announce the results directly through Solana or SendAI. Developers need not worry, there will be more exciting events than demo day afterwards.
What’s next?
To be honest, I still do not know what the best solution is regarding capital structure and token issuance issues. However, I hope to figure something out - personally, I will also think about it in my spare time. This is a recently emerged issue (less than a month), so it is still too early to find a solution.
In any case, I am very optimistic about Crypto x AI Agents; this is definitely a field worth over 100 billion dollars. SendAI, Solana AI hackathon, Solana Agent toolkit, all are completely autonomous public products and have been delivered within the past month. The market is not even ready for what we are about to do next.
When my brain tells me to wait for the results before publishing this article, but I followed my heart and published it now. From the industry's perspective, we need to shout loudly, otherwise, we will soon see a major disaster.
May everything go smoothly. The casino continues to exist. The house always wins...
The above is purely personal opinion and does not represent anyone else. Non-financial advice. I will definitely write about my optimistic view on Crypto x AI Agents on a later date, but I will not recommend any tokens.
Further reading: A quick overview of the 12 quality projects in the Solana AI hackathon.
