A summary of OKX Ventures' investment dynamics from January to February 2024, covering investment logic and innovative projects.

With the popularization of the internet and the acceleration of the digitalization process, massive data has become easier to access and utilize. At the same time, the development of cloud computing and distributed computing technologies has made it easier and more cost-effective to process this data, providing richer resources for AI model training and optimization. This has enabled the development of more intelligent and complex systems, driving the advancement of the AI field, especially in the widespread application scenarios of deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and more.

Especially in the past year, led by ChatGPT and NVIDIA, the AI field has experienced a complete explosion. For example, ChatGPT surpassed 100 million monthly active users in just 2 months, becoming the fastest-growing application in internet history. In addition, its recent launch of the Text To Video product, Sora, has attracted significant market attention, leading the AI video trend. NVIDIA's net profit in 2023 surged by 581% year-on-year, and its stock price skyrocketed from over $100 per share at the beginning of the year to over $800 per share now, with a market value growth of over $1 trillion. Furthermore, the founder of OpenAI even intends to raise $7 trillion to create chips, and new AI entrepreneurial projects are emerging one after another.

In this context, the new AI trend has begun to spread to the cryptocurrency industry. OKX Ventures believes that there is a natural coupling between the AI and Crypto fields. In addressing decentralized computing power, data ownership, enhancing AI transparency, and model training and reasoning, Crypto is an important complement to AI, and currently, Crypto + AI is becoming one of the most exciting frontiers of innovation.

Wide Range of Crypto + AI Application Scenarios

According to OKX Ventures, there are currently a large number of developers and researchers worldwide dedicated to the development and application of AI technology, forming a large and active community. The emergence and collaboration of these talents have promoted continuous innovation and progress in AI technology. In particular, the Crypto + AI field is becoming the most noteworthy Alpha track within this industry cycle.

The most direct use case of Crypto is to help realize the assetization of various production factors in AI scenarios, such as AI Agents, decentralized computing power, and data, all of which are areas that can be assetized first and rapidly explode.

In terms of AI Agents, OKX Ventures believes that there will mainly be three innovative directions based on AI agents in the future. First is the intelligent and agentization of assets, enabling assets to act and interact autonomously, expanding their usage scenarios and value. Second is the interoperability between agents, efficiently enabling different AI agents to interact and collaborate by establishing standards and frameworks, enhancing the overall performance of the ecosystem. The last one is the creation of a completely new agent economic system, leveraging the combination of AI and blockchain technology to open up new economic models, enabling AI agents to play a key role in content creation, financial services, and other fields. A typical case is MyShellAI, which allows global players to train their AI agents from game clips, creating a new on-chain Agent Economy. This indicates the formation of a completely new economic system, where AI agents can not only participate in content creation and game interaction but also act as independent economic entities, promoting the development of the creative economy and the integration of AI in the cryptocurrency field.

In terms of decentralized computing power, in response to the demands of AI large-scale model training and reasoning, solutions such as secure multi-party computation, differential privacy, and federated learning are provided. Faced with technical challenges and bottlenecks, decentralized computing power has greater opportunities for landing in reasoning. io.net demonstrates how to provide highly scalable GPU resources for ML teams while ensuring economic benefits and reducing resource costs through token incentives and hardware aggregation. Decentralized computing power networks will continue to explore and may provide effective solutions for large-scale AI training and reasoning.

In terms of data, OKX Ventures believes it mainly includes decentralized AI data markets, data incentive mechanisms, privacy protection, and data rights. In the decentralized AI data market, transparency, tamper resistance, and traceability of data transactions are achieved, while smart contracts automatically execute transactions and distribute profits, enhancing market efficiency. Data incentive mechanisms reward participants for contributing data and computing resources through tokenization, promoting the self-growth and prosperity of the ecosystem. Privacy protection and data rights use encryption algorithms and technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs to ensure the privacy and ownership of user data, ensuring that users have control over their own data. These development trends collectively drive the progress and application of decentralized AI technology, creating a more secure, efficient, and fair digital economic environment. In this regard, 0xScope has fine-tuned Crypto industry models based on on-chain data and blockchain industry data, generating practical corresponding value.

In summary, the Crypto + AI field has spawned numerous subfields, including infrastructure-level model training, data, decentralized computing power, and hardware, model-level AI agents, ZKML, FHE, and application-level metaverse, games, AIGC, and Meme, as well as blockchain-level RAAS, oracles, coprocessors, UBI, and more. Among them, projects at the infrastructure and application levels are developing rapidly, such as Io.net in the computing power field, Flock in the basic model level, ZeroGravity in blockchain infrastructure, Myshell in AI agents, and 0xScope in the application level.

A Quick Look at AI Projects Invested by OKX Ventures

Currently, OKX Ventures has invested in numerous innovative projects in the Crypto + AI field. In addition to financial support, it also provides diversified comprehensive support in technology, community, and resource docking.

0xscope

• Project Overview

￮ 0xScope is the AI Data layer of Web3, focusing on providing datasets suitable for Agent training and supporting the operation of Agents for Web3 projects. Most mainstream Web3 AI DAPPs currently use 0xScope's data services.

• Project Highlights

￮ 0xScope has launched data analysis products such as ScopeVC and ScopeScan. The total number of users has exceeded 500,000.

￮ Based on the current data foundation, 0xScope has launched Web3 AI Q&A Agent—Scopechat, which is currently the only data analysis Agent on the market that can simultaneously answer real-time knowledge data and ONCHAIN data. ScopeChat has integrated with OKX Wallet, with a total user base exceeding 500,000 and a DAU exceeding 10,000 (excluding witch users).

￮ In the next phase, 0xScope will collaborate with Ritual, Flashbots, and Chainlink to create a universal decentralized Web3 AI Agent, addressing the accessibility issue of Web3.

￮ Overall, 0xScope's development has gone through five stages of upgrades, including data analysis tools, data infrastructure, AI data analysis, AI data infrastructure, and universal Agents, continuously deepening its moat around high-quality data foundations. The team has been actively exploring the market, trying new approaches, and has received positive market feedback.

Flock

• Project Overview

￮ FLock is an innovative end-to-end AI co-creation platform that integrates decentralized machine learning technology into the blockchain. The platform redefines the process of training, fine-tuning, and inference of AI models, enabling the public to contribute knowledge and enrich AI models while protecting privacy. FLock's vision is to democratize AI technology through community-owned models, privacy-protected data, and decentralized computing. The platform encourages the creation of diverse AI models, from intelligent agents to complex trading and aggregation robots, ushering in a new era of easy access to AI tools.

• Project Highlights

￮ Features include community-owned models, privacy-protected data, and decentralized computing. FLock uses cutting-edge technologies such as federated learning, zkFL, homomorphic encryption, and secure multi-party computation (SMPC) to protect user data privacy and trains and fine-tunes AI models through decentralized computing power. Additionally, FLock encourages the community to actively participate in the expansion and refinement of AI models through a co-creation platform and provides a federated learning client to developers to support decentralized model training and validation, while maintaining a commitment to data privacy.

￮ FLock addresses the limitations of centralized control of AI models, such as restricted access, model bias, and unfair compensation for data contributors. Through decentralized learning, local models are trained on decentralized training nodes and synchronized with global models, ensuring that user data is securely retained locally. FLock also employs technologies such as zkFL, homomorphic encryption, and secure multi-party computation to provide additional protection for data privacy and governs the entire training process through blockchain, which is automatic, transparent, and immutable.

￮ Through these features, FLock achieves decentralized machine learning and resolves a series of issues caused by centralized control of AI models.

Zero Gravity

• Project Overview

￮ ZeroGravity (0G) is the first data availability system with a built-in universal storage layer, boasting strong scalability and decentralization. It achieves scalability by dividing the data availability workflow into data publishing channels and data storage channels. A large amount of data transmission occurs on the data storage channels supported by the storage layer, which achieves horizontal scalability through carefully designed partitions, while the data publishing channels ensure data availability attributes through consensus sampling, avoiding broadcast bottlenecks by flowing minimal data through the consensus protocol.

￮ The current product design of ZeroGravity includes the Data Availability Layer (0G DA) system and the Storage Layer (0G Storage).

• Project Highlights

￮ Features of 0G DA (Data Availability): The 0G DA system is a scalable data availability (DA) service layer built directly on decentralized storage systems, solving scalability issues by minimizing the amount of data transmission required for broadcasting. Its universal decentralized storage design also enables it to support various types of availability data from diverse scenarios, not limited to second-layer networks, including decentralized AI infrastructure. 0G DA focuses on providing high-security and high-throughput data availability guarantees.

￮ Features of 0G Storage: The storage layer of 0G consists of a storage network connected to a separate consensus network. Each storage node actively participates in the mining process by submitting proofs of accessibility for specific data to smart contracts deployed on the consensus network. Once the smart contract verifies the proof, the storage node receives corresponding rewards. Partitioning is enabled by providing more rewards to nodes in the same partition as specific data. This incentive-based mechanism rewards node contributions rather than punishing them for misconduct, better encouraging node participation in network maintenance and promoting better scalability in practice. 0G Storage is also designed as a multi-layered and structured universal storage system, including an append-only log layer for archiving unstructured data and a key-value layer for managing variable and structured data. This enables 0G to support reliable data indexing and a wider variety of availability data types from Layer2 and AI scenarios.

Myshell

• Project Overview

￮ MyShell was born from a profound reflection on the closed-source model ecosystem that has emerged in the current development of artificial intelligence technology. MyShell's vision is to create a fair and open AI ecosystem where every participant can find their place of value. MyShell advocates for the democratization of AI, including supporting the development of the AI industry centered on open-source models, stimulating the vitality and innovation potential of the entire ecosystem through comprehensive incentive mechanisms, ensuring that creators and users receive their fair share of benefits from their data and creations, and allowing users and developers to freely choose different AI models and decentralized computing and storage without worrying about reliance on a single model or technology and potential monopolies.

• Project Highlights

￮ Support for open-source models and an open-compatible development platform: MyShell focuses on driving the prosperity of AI technology through multi-contributors, promoting the development of the AI industry centered on open-source models. Creators can use the same method to call different models and external APIs, while third-party model and API providers can integrate their services into the platform for developers, lowering the barrier to innovation.

￮ Ecosystem incentive mechanisms and value redistribution: Ensuring that creators and users receive their fair share of benefits from their data and creations, redistributing the value generated in the ecosystem through a transparent benefit allocation mechanism; a transparent reward system that fairly distributes rewards to contributors in the ecosystem, including model providers, application developers, users, investors, etc., stimulating the vitality and innovation potential of the entire ecosystem and maximizing the passion for innovation and contribution.

￮ Application creation and distribution promotion platform: An app store that helps creators publish and manage AI applications, where creators can see trends of popular AI applications and purchase advertisements to promote their works.

￮ Freedom of choice: Allowing users and developers to freely choose different AI models and decentralized computing and storage, avoiding reliance on any single model or technology and potential monopolies.

￮ Currently, Myshell's GitHub has over 14.9k Stars and 1.3k Forks, with a peak daily active user count exceeding 100k, making it the most active creator and user community in the AI + Crypto field.

io.net

• Project Overview

￮ io.net is an advanced decentralized computing network based on Solana, aiming to allow machine learning engineers to access distributed cloud cluster resources at a significantly lower cost than traditional centralized services. By aggregating underutilized GPU resources from independent data centers, crypto miners, and projects like Filecoin and Render, io.net has created a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN), providing engineers with a large amount of computing power that is both efficient and easy to implement, meeting a wide range of task requirements, from preprocessing and distributed training to hyperparameter tuning, reinforcement learning, and model services.

• Project Highlights

￮ io.net is an advanced decentralized computing network based on Solana, aiming to allow machine learning engineers to access distributed cloud clusters at a significantly lower cost. The platform's mission is to integrate one million GPUs in a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN), providing engineers with large-scale computing power that is more cost-effective, customizable, and easier to implement than traditional centralized services.

￮ Cost efficiency: io.net can provide up to 90% lower computing costs than traditional cloud service providers like AWS by leveraging underutilized resources such as independent data centers and crypto miners' GPUs.

￮ Rapid access and deployment: Compared to traditional cloud providers, io.net users can access supply and deploy clusters within 90 seconds without facing cumbersome KYC processes or long-term contracts.

￮ Flexibility and control: io.net offers high flexibility and user control, supporting a wide range of GPU and CPU options, including the NVIDIA RTX series, AMD Ryzen series, and the Apple M2 chip with unparalleled neural engine.

￮ Optimized for machine learning: Built on the ray.io machine learning framework, io.net supports a wide range of machine learning workloads, from reinforcement learning to deep learning, tuning, and model services, meeting the needs of machine learning engineers.

• Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN): As the first and only GPU DePIN, io.net provides a platform connecting computing capacity providers and users for machine learning and all GPU use cases. By aggregating underutilized GPU resources from independent data centers, crypto miners, and projects like Filecoin and Render, io.net addresses this issue. These resources are combined in the decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN), enabling engineers to access a large amount of computing power.

• io.net supports batch inference, model services, parallel training, parallel hyperparameter tuning, reinforcement learning, and various other tasks, aiming to provide general-purpose computing services for Python workloads. Starting from the Solana Hackathon in February 2023 and the Solana Austin Hacker House, io.net has demonstrated its powerful capabilities and efficiency in providing training and inference workflows on a distributed GPU network for machine learning teams.

Empowering Diversity, OKX Ventures Will Continue to Support Crypto + AI Innovation Projects

Crypto + AI will play a crucial role in the digital future, empowering various services and products with higher levels of intelligence, and driving the digitization and intelligence of various fields, such as intelligent investment, risk management, anti-fraud systems, etc., to enhance the intelligence of financial services, reduce risks, and improve efficiency, bringing more convenience and opportunities to human society.

The field of AI is experiencing rapid technological innovation, with the emergence of new algorithms, models, and application scenarios, unleashing tremendous market potential in many industries such as healthcare, finance, retail, manufacturing, and more. In particular, the fusion and innovation of Crypto + AI will bring more efficient, secure, and intelligent transactions and services to the crypto industry, driving the development and application of cryptocurrency technology, while also providing new scenarios and opportunities for the application of AI technology.

As a frontline participant in the industry, OKX Ventures will continue to focus on the innovative track of AI combined with Crypto, adopting a pragmatic and forward-looking strategy, actively participating in market development, and supporting high-quality innovative projects and entrepreneurs.

Although the current AI token market may experience bubbles, OKX Ventures' long-term goal is to surpass this stage, deeply explore and invest in projects that bring true technological innovation, solve practical problems in the AI field, and ultimately sustainably survive and develop in the market. We firmly believe that only those AI+Crypto projects that are technologically groundbreaking and can provide substantial value will achieve true success and sustainable development in the future.

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