Market Metrics

Total Crypto Market Cap: up 2.8% to $2.596T
Total AI Sector Market Cap: up 1.4% to $28.5B

Top Movers (24 hrs):

📈 NodeAI (GPU): up 33.2% to $1.33
📈 PaLM AI(PALM): up 32.6% to $0.7071
📈 AIOZ Network (AIOZ): up 28% to $0.644

Daily News

🟠 Data collected by Santiment shows that NEAR Protocol, Oasis Protocol, and Oraichain are the top three AI & Big Data cryptocurrencies by notable development activity in the past 30 days. The ranking includes ten projects in total, with directional indicators representing each project's rise or fall since the previous month, providing insights into the most actively developed projects in the AI and Big Data crypto space.

🟠 ORA released details on its points program, launching May 13th, 2024, which will offer tasks worth 3-10 points each, including a $500,000 prize pool hackathon, and features a referral system where referrers earn 10% of their referees' points.

🟠 NEAR Protocol is teasing a hackathon that will take place during ETH Bangkok in November, featuring a $500k prize pool and focusing on the intersection of AI and Web3.

🟠 Drawing parallels to IBM's declining market share in the computer industry, open-source and decentralized computing networks could potentially disrupt NVIDIA's current dominance in the AI hardware market, much like how standardized PCs and operating systems broke IBM's mainframe monopoly.

🔊Soundbites: Ilia Polushkin @ NEAR

In a recent episode of The BlockCrunch podcast, host Jason Choi sat down with Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol and co-author of the groundbreaking "Attention is All You Need" paper. The discussion covered the convergence of AI and blockchain technology more broadly before delving into NEAR's ambitious plans to create user-owned AI and revolutionize Web3 development. From novel crypto-economic models to AI-powered smart contract verification, Polosukhin shared some absolute bangers.

Let’s dive into the key points 👇

User-Owned AI & Why it Matters

NEAR Protocol is pioneering "user-owned AI," contrasting with corporate-controlled models like ChatGPT. Imagine an AI assistant that prioritizes YOU rather than a big corp trying to make more money.

For example, your financial AI assistant would prioritize your financial growth rather than keeping you engaged for ad revenue. It might analyze your spending habits and suggest personalized investment strategies, with its success measured by your wealth growth rather than its usage time. This approach could lead to more aligned AI products and potentially new investment opportunities in user-centric AI services.

Develop Web3 Applications Like Never Before

NEAR's AI R&D lab is developing an "AI developer" tool that could generate thousands of Web3 applications. Unlike traditional no-code platforms, this tool aims to create fully functional dApps from natural language descriptions. For instance, a user might say, "Create a decentralized prediction market for crypto prices," and the AI would generate the necessary smart contracts and front-end code. This could dramatically lower the barrier to entry for creating Web3 apps, potentially leading to a surge in innovative dApps and new investment opportunities.

Chain Abstraction is NEAR

Sick of constantly bridging your assets to different chains to buy different tokens or use different protocols? If your answer is no, you aren’t degenning hard enough (time to LOCK IN) and if your answer is yes, well, maybe NEAR will save us.

Illia talked about chain abstraction on NEAR and how they are aiming to make cross-chain interactions seamless. Imagine swapping Bitcoin for a new token on an Ethereum L2 without worrying about which blockchain you're using. This could significantly enhance liquidity across the crypto ecosystem and create new opportunities for cross-chain DeFi products, as well as drastically reduce the barriers for new, non-technical entrants into web3. For investors, this will also mean easier portfolio diversification and access to a wider range of crypto assets at all times.

How NEAR is Positioning for AI

NEAR's unique positioning for AI development includes its scalability and "proof of response" technology. This latter feature ensures that when an AI agent or decentralized service promises to perform a task, it actually follows through. For example, in a decentralized cloud computing network, it would ensure that when you pay for computation, the service is actually delivered. This could enable more reliable decentralized services, potentially opening up new areas for investment in blockchain-based cloud computing or AI services.

By focusing on AI, the existing apps built on NEAR, and those that come in the future, are all likely to be AI-enabled. For instance, a decentralized exchange might use AI to provide personalized trading strategies or detect potential market manipulations. A blockchain-based social media platform could use AI for content moderation or personalized feed curation. These enhancements could lead to more sophisticated and user-friendly dApps, potentially driving greater adoption and value in the Web3 ecosystem.

Enhanced Security with AI

We listened to Illia’s keynote speech at OpenAGI Summit in Brussels, which was focused on security in the age of AI (our TL;DR is here). In this keynote, he spoke about how everyday AI tools like ChatGPT are on-par with experienced hackers and have the capabilities to be used to exploit vulnerabilities at a rate never seen before. This is creating serious concerns about the security of many traditional tech stacks.

NEAR's focus on AI-driven formal verification of smart contracts could significantly enhance security in Web3, which is essential given that smart contracts often hold significant amounts of capital and are ideal targets for AI-powered hackers. Imagine an AI system that can automatically audit smart contracts, detect vulnerabilities, and even suggest fixes. This could dramatically reduce the risk of hacks and exploits in DeFi protocols and other smart contracts.

Novel Crypto-Economic Models on NEAR

Illia discussed how NEAR is exploring novel crypto-economic models for sustaining user-owned AI. One potential model could involve staking NEAR tokens to access premium AI services. For example, staking 1000 NEAR might grant you access to a high-powered AI assistant for financial analysis. As more users stake to access these services, the demand for NEAR tokens could increase, potentially driving value for token holders. This aligns the economic interests of users, AI service providers, and token holders, creating a sustainable ecosystem for AI development and usage.

Meme of the Day

Can confirm: we lost money arguing about which contract address was in fact the next DOGE. Turns out, neither were.