🌵 The Intersection of Crypto & AI 🌵

Big Brain Breakdown

Market Metrics

Total Crypto Market Cap: up 0.2% to $2.758T
Total AI Sector Market Cap: down 2% to $24.1B

Top Movers (24hrs):

📈 Bridge Oracle (BRG): up 23.8% to $0.00236
📈 Kizuna (KIZUNA): up 13.5% to $0.0₇1909
📈 Arbius (ARBIUS): up 17.1% to $195

🧠 Big Brain Breakdown

Welcome back to another Big Brain Breakdown, where we help you understand the fundamentals of blockchain AI projects so you can stay ahead of the herd and invest in projects poised for outperformance.

Today, we're diving into Initial Model Offerings (IMOs), a nascent concept that could kickstart a wave of enthusiasm reminiscent of the 2017 Initial Coin Offering (ICO) era.

If you were in crypto back in 2017, you probably just read that sentence again. Yes, this could get really exciting.

For anyone who wasn't around to experience ICO mania, it was a wild time. Projects with nothing more than a whitepaper were raising millions of dollars, and investors were seeing returns of 10-1000x in a matter of weeks or months. The hype was driven by the narrative that ICOs were the future of fundraising and that getting in early was the key to massive profits.

Given the current hype around AI, we believe there's a good chance that IMOs could become the next big narrative in the crypto space, leading to similar levels of excitement and mania.

But first, what the heck are IMOs?

IMOs, like ICOs, enable AI projects to raise funds for model development through token issuance. In exchange for their investment, token holders are entitled to revenues generated through either: a) The model being used for cash-flowing "business" activities, or b) The sale or "leasing" of the model to other users via a subscription.

This shared ownership mechanism aims to help project teams monetize their contributions, fostering long-term benefits and encouraging community engagement and funding.

The permissionless nature of IMOs is a key feature that could drive widespread adoption. Any project can decide to conduct an IMO, which means we could see a diverse range of AI models being tokenized and offered to investors.

The IMO concept is currently being pioneered by Ora Protocol, an oracle protocol that brings AI and complex compute onchain.

Ora's first IMO, $OLM, is set to launch on today, April 12th, tokenizing the OpenLM model. OpenLM is a language modeling (LM) repository designed to facilitate research on medium-sized LMs. Funds raised through the IMO will help OpenLM nurture a sustainable ecosystem, democratize access, and propel continuous development.

Our Take: We believe there's a unique, multi-faceted opportunity here that could easily bootstrap a new narrative around the IMO concept, with Ora Protocol capturing a significant share of the attention. As we know, crypto markets are extremely reflexive, meaning that as prices go up, investor perception changes.

This reflexive nature could be particularly powerful in the context of IMOs. If one or two IMOs perform exceptionally well, it could lead to a surge in interest and investment in the space, driving up prices and generating significant returns for early investors. This is similar to the dynamics we saw during the ICO boom of 2017, where the success of a few projects fueled widespread hype and speculation.

Additional alpha - Ora Points Program Alongside the announcement of their first IMO, Ora Protocol also unveiled the ORA Points Program to reward its community for interacting with the ecosystem. Users can start earning Ora points by pre-registering for the first IMO. For those new to the space, points programs often hint at future token releases. It's worth noting that Ora Protocol is currently tokenless and raised a $3 million pre-seed funding round led by Sequoia Capital in January 2023.

As always, this is not financial advice, conduct your own research and invest responsibly. But keep an eye on IMOs and Ora Protocol – they might just be the next big thing in the blockchain AI space.

In Other News

🟠 Inference Labs released Omron on Bittensor Subnet 2. Omron aims to optimize yield in LRT protocols by relying on the open intelligence of miners to produce the best allocation.

🟠 Node AI has introduced a platform that allows non-technical AI users to easily launch Python workspaces, Google Collab workspaces, and other pre-made AI and ML applications without the need for technical server management.

🟠 io.net has partnered with WOMBO, an AI avatar app, allowing WOMBO products to leverage io.net’s decentralized computing infrastructure.

🟠 An Oraichain WIP proposal has been shared, outlining a plan to rebrand the Oraichain DAO Treasury as an Ecosystem Growth Fund.

🟠 Synesis One has partnered with Dither to offer Train 2 Earn campaigns, allowing participants to earn DITH by contributing to AI data tasks.

🟠 @serdarplg dropped a detailed analysis on Arbius’ approach to AI model hosting and inference. Worth checking out!

🟠 Spectre AI released a new tier system for AI product and feature access.

🟠 VAIOT announced its AI Legal Assistant, set to launch on April 16th, which will allow participants the opportunity to earn rewards for their involvement.

X Post of the Day

💸 AIOZ Network posted a thread highlighting the emergence of monetized AI models and their potential to spawn autonomous cash-flowing businesses. This thread hit the feed after a flurry of other posts relating to agentic protocols and model monetization were posted by other analysts and projects.

Are we seeing the onset of a new narrative within the AI x crypto intersection?

Jobs Board

🟠 Senior Machine Learning Engineer @ Coinbase ($185k)
 Apply here
🟠 Director of AI Engineering @ Foundry ($150k - $220k)
 Apply here
🟠 Software Engineer, Machine Learning @ Coinbase ($140k - $165k)
 Apply here