The wave of AI strikes again, a glimpse into the holdings of the grayscale AI fund

Author: Asher, Odaily Planet Daily

Recently, with the strong rise in Bitcoin prices, the altcoin market has welcomed a rare "big rebound." Among them, the price performance of popular sectors such as Meme and AI has been particularly outstanding. Last night, Grayscale announced the establishment of a new decentralized artificial intelligence fund—Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund LLC. This fund will focus on funding three key areas: AI services, addressing issues related to the use of centralized AI, and developing infrastructure related to AI.

In addition, Grayscale announced some decentralized AI projects already included in the fund, which include TAO, FIL, LPT, NEAR, and RNDR. Following the announcement, the AI sector generally rose, with these projects held by Grayscale experiencing an increase of over 5% in a short period. Below, Odaily Planet Daily will quickly introduce a basket of projects from Grayscale's newly established decentralized AI fund.

Bittensor (TAO)

Introduction

Image source: Official Twitter

Bittensor is a decentralized network that connects global machine learning models, improving the accuracy and efficiency of solving complex problems by collaborating multiple specialized AI models. This approach integrates the unique advantages of each model, resulting in more precise and comprehensive outcomes, outperforming traditional single-model methods. Furthermore, Bittensor (TAO) is the first AI sector coin to be listed on Binance this year.

Key Points

Capital backing: According to Fortune magazine, Bittensor has secured over $200 million in venture capital. Insiders revealed that Polychain, a venture capital firm founded by former Coinbase employee Olaf Carlson-Wee, incubated Bittensor in 2019 and holds approximately $200 million worth of Bittensor tokens TAO. Additionally, another insider mentioned that Dao 5, an investment fund founded by Polychain alumni Tekin Salimi, holds $50 million worth of TAO and is also an early supporter of the Bittensor ecosystem. Digital Money Group is another supporter of Bittensor, holding approximately $100 million worth of TAO.

Encountered theft: After an attack on July 3, Bittensor immediately halted all on-chain transactions to minimize losses. After fixing the vulnerabilities, the Bittensor mainnet reopened on July 13 and released version 7.3.0.

Filecoin (FIL)

Introduction

Image source: Official Twitter

The Filecoin project is a decentralized storage system. The Filecoin protocol was first proposed in 2014, originally developed as an incentive layer for the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a peer-to-peer storage network. Like IPFS, Filecoin is an open protocol built on the properties of IPFS, sharing the same underlying P2P network and content addressing capabilities.

Key Points

According to Messari's Filecoin Q1 2024 status report, several noteworthy points include:

• Active trading volume increased by 9% quarter-over-quarter, with utilization rising from 18% in Q4 2023 to 23% in Q1 2024;
• As of the end of Q1 2024, over 2,000 clients have loaded data onto Filecoin, with 508 clients loading large datasets (over 1000 TiB), a 9% increase from 465 in Q4 2023;
• Pyth and Uniswap V3 (Oku.trade) launched in Q1 2024, with deposits on GLIF increasing more than twofold;
• As of March 31, 2024, over 3,400 unique contracts have been deployed on FVM, a 26% increase from 2,700 contracts at the end of Q4 2023;
• The Filecoin FVM TVL exceeded $600 million in Q1 2024, nearly doubling quarter-over-quarter.

Additionally, the Filecoin Foundation recently established partnerships with AI platform developer SingularityNET and data ecosystem collaboration infrastructure provider Nuklai.

Livepeer (LPT)

Introduction

Image source: Official Twitter

Livepeer is a decentralized video streaming network built on Ethereum, serving as a scalable platform-as-a-service for developers looking to add live or on-demand video to their projects, providing solutions for the real-time media layer in a decentralized development stack. Livepeer can enhance the reliability of centralized broadcast service video streams while reducing associated costs by up to 50 times. Following the release of Sora by OpenAI on February 16 this year, Livepeer announced that the community would work to integrate these features into the Livepeer network in the coming months as part of an AI video initiative, officially starting a new narrative for AI video.

Key Points

According to Messari research data, driven by live streaming platforms, the usage of the Livepeer network increased by 31% quarter-over-quarter, reaching an all-time high in Q1 2024. In addition to transcoding, Livepeer also plans to introduce AI video computing capabilities to its network.

Livepeer network usage increased by 31% quarter-over-quarter in Q1 2024

Moreover, Livepeer announced the launch of a subnet with AI computing capabilities. The Livepeer AI subnet allows hardware providers to earn fees by contributing GPUs to AI inference tasks (such as text-to-image, text-to-video, and image-to-video). This subnet is a branch of the Livepeer main network, supporting new AI features while still using the Livepeer protocol for node discovery and payments. The Livepeer AI subnet is expected to launch in three phases, with the first phase completed and currently being optimized, aiming for mainnet launch in Q3 2024.

Near (NEAR)

Introduction

Image source: Official Twitter

NEAR Protocol is a first-layer blockchain based on sharding and PoS, designed to incentivize a computer network to run a platform for developers to create and launch decentralized applications. Unlike other blockchains, the NEAR protocol network is built from the ground up, making it easy for developers and their end users to adopt while still providing the scalability needed to serve those users. NEAR currently has three main narratives: chain abstraction (CA), data availability (DA), and artificial intelligence (AI).

Key Points

According to Messari research data, NEAR Protocol is one of the biggest winners in Q1 2024. NEAR's TVL in the first quarter was $335 million, a 163% quarter-over-quarter increase, and a 547% increase over the previous six months. The number of daily active addresses reached 1.2 million, a 42% quarter-over-quarter increase, and a 377% increase over the previous six months. The market capitalization of NEAR's stablecoins increased by 176%, reaching $214 million. The total number of NEAR accounts exceeded 100 million.

NEAR Protocol related data

Additionally, from the official updates in Q2 this year, there is a focus on developing AI-related products, including plans to utilize AI chatbots to help individuals with no coding experience create DApps, collaborating with the NEAT protocol designed for scaling AI applications on NEAR, and launching an incubation program by the NEAR Foundation to build infrastructure for user-owned AI.

Render (RNDR)

Introduction

Image source: Official Twitter

Render Network is a decentralized rendering solution provider based on GPU, offering decentralized graphics processing capabilities for next-generation 3D content creation. RNDR is its native functional token. As a decentralized GPU rendering platform, Render Network aims to advance next-generation rendering and AI technologies, allowing artists to scale GPU rendering tasks on-demand to high-performance GPU nodes around the world.

Key Points

Currently, the reasons for Render's popularity and the surge in actual application demand include:

• The rapid development of LightField Labs' holographic imaging technology, invested in by Render Network's parent company OTOY in February this year, which requires rendering work for digital restoration processes;
• The partnership with Stable Diffusion, where large language models generate images, and scenarios such as text-to-video/3D can be supported by Render Network;
• Apple briefly mentioned the creative workflow software Octane, powered by Render Network, during its keynote presentation showcasing the latest M4 chip on its iPad.