TAOs market value has rebounded to about US$2.5 billion, and investor interest remains strong

Original author: OurNetwork

Original translation: TechFlow

The Crypto x AI space is an emerging area within our industry that has 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, covering areas such as 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. Bittensor

Jack Forlines Bhavin Vaid | Website | Dashboard

TAOs market cap drops $1 billion from all-time high

• The Bittensor protocol establishes 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 projects AI craze - the market value of Bittensors 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, TAOs 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. Furthermore, 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 seem to be very favorable to most miners. In the text prompt subnet, the average miner earns about $50 per day, regardless of their rank. The top 30 miners rarely earn more than $58 per day. The lack of significant differences in earnings suggests that model performance is not being 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 buy tokens on the market or learn how to mine/validate. This is in stark contrast to most AI-related crypto projects. 65% of TAOs remain 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 approximately $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, falling 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: Recently, a few key users in the Covalent X token (CXT) staking community have made significant staking amounts, indicating strong confidence in the future of the token. In particular, on August 7, 2024, a significant transaction was recorded, with a user staking $91,350.65 worth of CXT. This large staking not only highlights the users confidence in the potential returns of staking CXT, but also reflects the overall positive sentiment.

3.Botto

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 is 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 (directly or as Uni-V2 shares). Therefore, 27% of the $BOTTO supply is locked, 6% is destroyed (via the old BBB system), and 5.7% is frozen as liquidity provider (LP) shares. Combined with the protocols holdings, the 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 ).

Dune - @carbono

• Transaction level information: Botto is an experiment in decentralized governance of AI, with an economic design that distributes value to those who provide inputs. Users vote to earn rewards for training 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.