Who will be the next leader in AI & Web3 storytelling?
As the main plot closely following the pulse of global technology in 2024, the AI & Web3 track once set off a small market climax after Binance launched the leading project Bittensor ($TAO) in April, and related tokens ushered in a general rise. Unfortunately, it failed to Create continuous heat. Under the water, Binance’s bet on AI is obviously accelerating:
Since the beginning of this year, whether Aggregata has been selected into the latest MVB accelerator program, or Binance Labs has officially announced large investments in Sahara AI, Myshell, and Sleepless AI, io.net, etc. have successively listed on Binance, many of Binance’s investment focuses are on The AI & Web3 industry has made frequent moves, and the pace has accelerated significantly.
The gray line of grass and snakes lies thousands of miles away. Binance’s increased investment in the AI track is undoubtedly stirring up a pool of spring water as a new variable. There is a high probability that a number of new Alpha projects with amazing growth and volume will be spawned to take over the banner of TAO.
In this context, who will become the catalyst for the new round of "AI & Web3" market, and which project will become the new hot spot for the spillover of Binance's funds and ecological resources?
Binance’s AI layout strategy and investment focus
First, we need to understand, what exactly does Binance think of the AI & Web3 narrative?
In a recent interview, Binance co-founder He Yi publicly shared his views on the development of AI and its integration with blockchain technology, saying, “AI technology is triggering a productivity revolution, and its impact is far beyond our imagination. Blockchain technology mainly changes labor relations and profit distribution models, while AI is a revolutionary technology that directly improves user productivity.”
In terms of specific investment strategies, He Yize divides them into several key modules - at the application level, the most common ones are products like OpenAI chatbots, which can assist with diverse tasks such as writing, designing, and making videos; behind the scenes It is a large language model (LLM) development team; further upstream is the computing power provider. NVIDIA's dominant position in this industry makes it difficult for other competitors to keep up.
To put it bluntly, Binance’s focus on the AI & Web3 track spans almost all product dimensions. As long as it can provide high-quality products and services and has the potential to become a successful business model, it is among the potential investments.
So if we want to dig into Binance’s laid-out projects in AI narrative, where should we start? In fact, as long as we grasp the three main lines, we can hold the key to any popular narrative laid out by Binance.
That’s right, Binance currently completes AI and other track projects through three “investment focus points” in the project development stage—incubator model (MVB, Binance Labs incubation plan), Binance Labs, and exchange-listed tokens. Stage layout of the full life cycle (early incubation, investment support, online trading):
The incubator model, including MVB and Binance Labs incubation plan, covers a large number of new startup teams through an incubation process similar to YC, uses a wide net to tap early potential projects, and provides multi-dimensional support covering market strategy and user growth, and Invest in some projects after the final screening, and the amount is relatively small to help complete the incubation from 0 to 1;
Binance Labs, as the venture capital and incubation arm of Binance, is committed to high-quality projects in various Web3 tracks and industries. The product structure, business model, and team of the investment target are more mature, and the investment amount is larger, aiming to provide The project provides in-depth resource integration to promote the project's rapid growth and leadership in market competition;
Exchange-listed tokens are an important market target for mature crypto projects, helping them gain huge exposure and directly reach the largest users and capital pools;
It is through these three "investment focus" that Binance almost covers the entire life cycle (early incubation, investment support, listing and trading) of different projects in the AI track, and then promotes AI projects at different stages from all dimensions. development and share the overall growth dividends of the AI track.
Panoramic inventory of Binance AI layout
Based on these three “investment focus points”, what projects does Binance’s AI landscape currently include? (Note: In view of the continued strengthening of the integration trend of AI and Web3, the AI projects listed below do not involve other track projects that combine AI technology. , mainly targeting native AI projects with core elements of artificial intelligence (data processing, model algorithms, computing power training, etc.) and practical application scenarios.
1. Incubator model (selection and investment)
It should be noted that, as mentioned above, the general process of the Binance incubator model (MVB, Binance Labs incubation program) includes audition-selection-incubation camp-observation-selective investment, so the AI projects related to the incubator model It can often be divided into two categories: only being selected for an incubator, and being selected for an incubator and receiving further investment. Here we mainly focus on projects that are selected and receive investment:
Privasea (formerly Nulink): A decentralized artificial intelligence network that realizes the circulation of data value through FHEML and provides distributed computing resources for FHE AI operations. In May 2022, it was selected into Binance Labs’ fourth quarter incubation program. In March 2024, it was announced that it had completed a US$5 million seed round of financing, with participation from Binance Labs and others;
DIN (Web3Go): Modular AI native data pre-processing layer, DIN (Web3Go) was selected into the MVB Accelerator Program in 2023 and completed a $4 million seed round of financing led by Binance Labs in July;
Sleepless AI: A virtual companion game based on AI blockchain, using AIGC and LLM to create rich story-based gameplay and organic interaction with characters. In April 2023, Sleepless AI was officially selected into the Season 6 MVB Accelerator Program, and in August 2023, it further received investment from Binance Labs through the Season 6 MVB Accelerator Program;
QnA3.AI: AI-driven Web3 knowledge sharing platform. It was selected into Binance Labs’ sixth season incubation program in September 2023. It received further investment from Binance Labs in March 2024. Its current FDV reaches US$77 million;
NFPrompt ($NFP): An AI-based Web3 content creation platform that allows users to create, own and profit from digital art and NFTs through a variety of AI tools and interfaces. Selected for Binance Labs’ sixth season incubation program in September 2023, and received further investment from Binance Labs in March 2024;
MyShell: A decentralized AI ecosystem that allows everyone to build, own and share artificial intelligence applications. In September 2023, MyShell was selected for the sixth season of the Incubation Program. In August 2024, Binance Labs officially announced its investment in MyShell through the sixth season of the incubation program;
Aggregata: A decentralized data market based on AI. By aggregating high-quality data from the AI industry and a decentralized storage system, users can fully control the ownership of their own AI elements. In March 2024, Aggregata was officially selected for the Season 7 MVB Accelerator Program, and in August 2024, it further received investment from Binance Labs through the Season 7 MVB Accelerator Program;
2. Binance Labs (direct investment)
Different from projects that are selected into incubators and further receive incubation investment from Binance Labs, projects that receive direct investment from Binance Labs have larger investment amounts, higher valuations, and are overall Web3 projects with more mature product architecture, business models, and teams.
Arkham: An AI-driven blockchain intelligence and data platform that provides detailed information and visualization tools for on-chain activities. It will be listed on Binance in July 2023. In November 2023, Binance Labs officially announced its investment in Arkham’s native token ARKM;
Sahara AI: The first "AI asset" concept, committed to building a blockchain-based AI platform to provide users and developers with security control and "copyright" protection of their AI assets, so that the contributions of all participants can Receive fair attribution and rewards. In August 2024, Sahara AI officially announced the completion of US$43 million in financing, led by Binance Labs, Polychain and others;
3. Tokens listed on exchanges
Fetch.ai ($FET): A blockchain-based machine learning platform designed to allow traditional products to access AI through Fetch.ai tokens without changing the underlying business applications. Listed on Binance in February 2019, the current FDV reaches US$2.8 billion;
NFPrompt ($NFP): After being selected for the Binance Labs incubation program in Season 6 and receiving investment from Binance Labs, in December 2023, $NFP was listed on Binance Launchpool, with the current FDV of $190 million;
Sleepless AI ($AI): After being selected for the Season 6 MVB Accelerator Program and receiving investment from Binance Labs, in January 2024, Binance Launchpool launched $AI and listed it on Binance. The current FDV reaches $360 million;
Bittensor ($TAO): A decentralized AI network operated by a central network composed of smaller, specialized subnets. Each subnet is dedicated to a different industry of AI. In April 2024, Binance went online $TAO, current FDV is $11.4 billion;
io.net ($IO): A decentralized cloud computing platform designed to aggregate GPU resources for AI and machine learning companies. In June 2024, Binance Launchpool launched $IO, and the current FDV reaches $1.2 billion;
Generally speaking, Binance used to mainly use the incubator model (MVB, Binance Labs incubation plan) to cast a wide net in the AI industry; while Binance Labs, which has a larger investment amount and is truly involved in resource integration, directly invests in Binance’s layout. There is no doubt that it has the largest weight in the territory. So far, there are only two projects, Sahara AI and Arkham.
However, it is worth noting that since ARKM has already been listed on Binance, among Binance’s direct investment AI projects, Sahara AI is actually the only one that has not yet been issued or not listed on Binance.
Who is the Binance Bets project with the most “Alpha” attributes?
As mentioned above, Binance’s layout strategy for the AI & Web3 track mainly focuses on promoting the combination of AI and blockchain technology to promote the development of decentralized applications (DApps), which means it prefers to use blockchain technology to empower the underlying infrastructure built by the AI ecosystem.
From this perspective, if TAO has gradually become the beta that is the ballast stone of the AI industry, then Sahara AI, as a platform project that includes the application layer + model algorithm listed above, has a high probability that Binance will take over the baton in the second half. $TAO’s new Alpha faucet:
At present, AI narrative is essentially a game for giants, and lacks a set of AI infrastructure that can truly allow small and medium-sized innovators and ordinary users to build and share it. Sahara AI aims at this differentiated direction - through the first AI asset concept and proprietary infrastructure to democratize the development, deployment, and monetization of AI assets (covering AI models, datasets, agents, and other AI-related assets):
Whether they are professional developers, entrepreneurs or ordinary enthusiasts, they can easily build or deploy personalized AI products based on Sahara AI, and earn profits by contributing, developing, deploying AI assets, etc. to build and share a more democratic and A fair AI collaborative ecosystem.
Sahara AI includes a total of four-layer architecture of application, transaction, data and execution, which forms the basis of Sahara AI collaborative economy. It jointly provides developers, data providers and users with a seamless experience, and is expected to catalyze an environment that meets the needs of personalization and autonomy. Innovative AI applications "Cambrian Explosion":
Application layer: Sahara AI provides tools such as asset security vaults, decentralized AI markets, programless toolkits, and Sahara ID to ensure data privacy and promote fair compensation, and further simplify the process of creating and deploying AI for all users;
Transaction layer: Powered by the Sahara blockchain, it is used to process all transactions related to AI assets, ensuring that every operation can be safely recorded, confirmed, attributed and verified. In addition, Sahara AI's native pre-compilation function is a professional Designed to optimize AI processing, it can perform efficient calculations directly in the blockchain environment and improve system performance;
Data layer: Unified management of on-chain data (key AI asset metadata, attribution, commitment and certification) and off-chain data (important data sets, AI models and supplementary information), focusing on irreversible operations and records, ensuring the system's Credibility and transparency, and ensuring data integrity and security through encryption technology;
Execution layer: As the off-chain AI infrastructure of the Sahara AI platform, it interacts seamlessly with the transaction layer and data layer, executes and manages protocols related to AI calculations and functions, securely extracts data from the data layer, and dynamically allocates computing resources to Achieve optimal performance;
Sahara AI is expected to develop into an AI platform infrastructure open to all users, which can then bring together the largest user group, whether they are professional developers, entrepreneurs or ordinary enthusiasts, who can easily build or deploy based on Sahara Personalized AI products.
On this basis, Sahara AI can activate the largest number of users, funds and market attention dividends in the AI track, and bring new vitality and possibilities to the entire AI track.
This may also be the reason why top investment institutions such as Binance, Pantera Capital, and Polychain Capital, as well as AI industry giants such as Together AI, Midjourney, and Anthrophic, are willing to support - an enterprise that can truly realize co-construction and sharing and attract a large number of users and funds. The platform undoubtedly has huge appeal.
summary
Looking back, Binance’s current layout on the AI track is comprehensive and in-depth. It is almost replicating He Yiwenchu’s insights and judgments on the AI industry. It is indeed centered around the huge potential of AI in the future financial industry and even the entire society. To promote Binance’s development on this track:
From early project incubation, to mid-term strategic investment, to later promotion of listing, it covers the entire life cycle of AI projects from incubation to investment to listing, and builds a complete AI ecosystem with a multi-level support strategy.
The narrative leader often has a benchmark effect on the valuation limit of the entire track. In theory, if Binance and other top venture capital institutions want to ignite the entire AI track and project layout, they will undoubtedly need a project that can ignite market sentiment. Tinder.
Although we still have no way of knowing who this new leader will be and when it will arrive, it must at least have enough room for imagination and a valuation ceiling. Therefore, with the support of top institutions such as Binance + differentiated infrastructure positioning, Sahara AI To some extent, it has shown its attitude of taking over Bittensor (TAO).
Some shady lines that have been secretly gaining momentum in the early stage will undoubtedly gradually emerge in the future, let us wait and see.
[Disclaimer] There are risks in the market, so investment needs to be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions contained in this article are appropriate for their particular circumstances. Invest accordingly and do so at your own risk.
This article is reprinted with permission from: "Foresight News"
Original author: Tyler Web3
