This article comes from: Yash Agarwal, head of SendAI
Compiled by Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Translated by Azuma ( @azuma_eth )
Editors note: The Solana AI Hackathon hosted by SendAI has been launched for some time, but as the AI narrative continues to heat up, the communitys enthusiasm for related projects has not diminished in the slightest.
Pine Analytics, an on-chain analysis research organization, calculated yesterday that there are as many as 65 tokens created or directly associated with the projects participating in the hackathon, with a total market value of US$482 million, an average market value of US$7.5 million, and a median market value of US$1.7 million; 13 tokens have a market value of more than US$10 million, and 42 tokens have a market value of more than US$1 million.
However, with the community so excited, SendAI founder Yash Agarwal published a long article today criticizing the current hype. Yash emphasized that the hackathon homepage had only 40,000 visits in the past week, but any token could quickly reach a market value of 50 million... SendAI wanted to build a platform to boost the development of Solanas ecological AI, but now it has become a casino for the fallen. In Yashs view, the current bubble will cause developers to be blind and short-term, which is not conducive to the long-term development of Solana AI. Therefore, it is necessary to point out some absurd situations, otherwise the industry will see a disaster soon.
The following is the full text of Yash, compiled by Odaily Planet Daily.
When we kicked off this hackathon, I had a simple vision — to make Solana the AI blockchain and grow it 10x.
I think hackathons are the best possible way to achieve this goal, we can gather everyone under one roof, and I can personally invest in those Crypto x AI Agent projects that I am very optimistic about.
Over the past month, I can say that the Solana AI Hackathon has not only established a brand, but has completely changed the landscape of Solana AI Agents. Completing 400+ projects in 15 days is no small feat, and my team and I are extremely proud of our contribution to adding $500-1 billion in market value to the Solana AI ecosystem.
Of course, when we launched this hackathon, we had a hunch that there would be some token issuance due to this strange Crypto x AI Agent model. If developers are using tokens as a means of capital accumulation, the purpose is still to build great products, thats completely fine. We also carefully designed all 8 tracks (sponsors have no say in this) to encourage truly useful AI Agents.
But we didn’t expect it to become a “casino for the fallen.” To give you a clearer idea of the numbers, the Solana AI Hackathon project homepage had just over 40,000 visitors in the past week, but now every day 2-3 hackathon project-related tokens pass through a $50 million market value, and the cumulative value of all related tokens has exceeded $500 million. Inadvertently, the Solana AI Hackathon has become a discovery platform for AI tokens.
Speculation driven
The current situation is basically as follows:
Submit your project in the hackathon and have it listed in the Solana AI Hackathon Project Directory.
Leverage Solana AI Hackathon/SendAI to gain credibility;
Release tokens → Get targeted/promoted by whales and KOLs → Boom! A $5-50 million token launch is done instantly;
In the eyes of gamblers, through early ape in operations, they can obtain potential 100x returns in hackathon-related projects, which makes hackathons a perfect place for speculation .
This is not a new story; it is a classic case of power-law distribution driving speculation.
While it’s great to see some developers launching tokens in order to achieve necessary early capital accumulation, the problem is that the bubble is too big right now.
While this is closer to a fair launch (similar to an ICO), I don’t think it’s the best direction for us to go.
Developers are going blind
This frothy pace of token issuance is making developers shortsighted and blind.
Currently, 90% of Crypto x AI projects are no different from cat/dog meme tokens. Of course, if they know this, then it’s completely fine... However, many projects promote their tokens as utility coins, which is actually a bigger scam.
The current pace is not beneficial to real developers (especially the weak ones) from a long-term perspective because they now have to think about short-term issues.
Most Agent/Infra projects have realized that tokens are the best way to get attention: token issuance → Agent/Framework viral spread (but with 0 users) → token pump → everyone is happy...
Many projects just make some random announcements or demonstrations (even if they have a market cap of more than 200 million US dollars) to please token holders and achieve a quick pump (stimulating the dopamine of token holders), and then the whales and conspiracy groups start to hype up awesome technology to dump it on retail gamblers.
Many developers know that their products can never be promoted or run in production, so they can only keep demoing or making some X x Y announcements. Please name some live, scalable, real on-chain agent products, I will be waiting in the comments.
Cabal/whales/KOLs are worse VCs, and they don’t have reputation baggage
The cabal and whales are making this game more and more dirty.
They target early supply by making up lies (saying it’s “backed by xxx” but it’s actually just a retweet or a casual boast) or convincing developers to allocate a certain share. They also confuse people among their own groups of gamblers and then keep selling (or will eventually sell), which harms the interests of retail investors and developers.
Keep in mind that there is no lockup limit on their tokens, as most tokens will be issued through pump.fun.
Some suggestions for developers
Please don’t issue coins just for the sake of issuing coins, especially if you don’t hold a significant percentage of the tokens. Believe me, if you hold less than 5% of the tokens, once the price starts to fall, you will have no motivation to continue building.
Yes, the token may go up in the short term and you get a quick dopamine rush from issuing $50 or $100 million worth of tokens, but once the price pulls back you lose the motivation to keep building. And there are a bunch of crappy “shareholders” who want you to keep building because they’ve heard so much hype from the cabal/KOLs about how great “this project is”.
Always remember that a token is an asset technically, but it is also a huge emotional liability. It is very easy to launch a token, and having managed one over the past 6 months and having experienced all the lows, I can tell you that managing a token is not fun. The token itself is a large product that needs to be managed.
When the price drops, those communities, KOLs or conspiracy groups can’t help you, you can only fight alone, and they will only laugh or criticize at best.
There is nothing wrong with issuing tokens for the purpose of accumulating start-up capital, but if you are not prepared, dont rush to catch the current ride.
Take a longer-term view and ask yourself: Are you willing to continue building this project over the next 6 months even if the market cap of the token is less than $500,000? If the answer is yes, then launch your token. If necessary, you should reserve appropriate funds and team shares at the time of issuance - as a project developer, you have every right to get rich from your baby (project) in the long run.
For those hackathon developers who have launched tokens, if they don’t have a vision, then good luck managing their tokens and we’ll talk in 6 months.
I wont criticize anyone by name for now, but I can give you a good example. My little brother Umang created Cleopetra during this hackathon, an AI Agent designed to improve the DEX LP experience. They have no plans to launch a token yet, but they are harassed by fake coins and gamblers every day, and the community is shouting for them to release the CA every day. Of course, he is strong and has not launched a token yet. After the hackathon, I will personally help him.
If you are a weak developer with no vision who launches a token because you can’t resist the temptation of this casino-like temptation, I have no respect for you as a developer and you are also a fraud. It doesn’t matter if your token is $100 million or $500 million, I will scold you when the time comes.
What to do if you haven’t launched a token yet?
Hang in there! Also put no tokens in your X, never hint at a token launch, keep building and developing. Theres really nothing you can do about those fake token launches, fighting them is useless. If anyone is still ape in like a monkey and buying in without doing any research, they deserve it. Ignore them or just block them.
To KOLs and gamblers
To Crypto x AI KOLs, we are all friends, but we hope you can be responsible for what you promote (especially tokens). Guide developers well and don’t be fooled by rapid token distribution or influence. You don’t want to be treated as a scammer when the price drops.
As for gamblers, or simply all of us, don’t buy into something you don’t understand or even don’t want to understand just because your favorite KOL says so. If you seek temporary gratification, you will end up paying the price.
About the results of the hackathon
Many respected people in the industry have asked me for things like listing a token list or popular choices, revealing the end date of a hackathon, or even revealing the results of a hackathon.
I received at least 50+ private messages, some even offering bribes/token distribution packages.
Sorry, we wont reveal the exact end date and final results to anyone until they are officially announced (including the judges list, each judge will have a separate sheet and we will sort all of this out).
Blood, Sweat and Tears
When we decided to launch this hackathon, we had no funding or backing, it was all blood, sweat, tears, and our inherent passion to grow Solana AI 10x. SendAI was formed as an umbrella organization after the Solana AI hackathon. We made this bet, and it worked out great.
At this point we want to take our work ethics seriously and be as honest as possible in our thinking. We really dont care who you are.
In order to reduce speculation, we have also made a difficult decision to cancel the demo day and instead have Solana or SendAI officially announce the hackathon. Developers don’t have to worry, we will have more exciting events than the demo day later.
Whats next?
I honestly don’t know what the best solution to the token issuance problem is in terms of capital structure yet. But hopefully we can figure something out and I’m personally thinking about it in my free time. Given that this is a recent problem (less than 1 month old), we’re still early in the process and there’s still a chance to figure it out.
In conclusion, I am very bullish on Crypto x AI Agent, which is definitely an industry worth more than $100 billion.
SendAI, Solana AI Hackathon, Solana Agent Toolkit, all of these are completely self-initiated public products that were delivered in the past month. The market is not ready for what we are going to do next.
Although my brain told me to wait for the results before publishing this article, I listened to my heart and published it now. From an industry perspective, we need to point out some ridiculous things, otherwise we will see a big disaster soon.
Remember, casinos will always exist and the house will always win.
These contents are purely my personal opinions and do not represent anyone else. Thank you for listening to my long speech. I will definitely write about my optimism about Crypto x AI Agents someday, but there will be no token recommendations.
