MASA, the first token of the Bittensor ecosystem for AI data subnets.

By Frank, Foresight News

After TAO, who will be the next Alpha in the DeAI track?

In this first year of the Web3+AI narrative, Bittensor (TAO), the leading player in the AI track backed by top investment institutions such as Polychain and DCG, has led the DeAI field to a small climax after landing on Binance, triggering a series of concept token price increases.

Although the market is fluctuating, the AI narrative is still advancing rapidly. VanEck predicts that the AI market share may reach as high as $18 trillion by 2030, which means that the demand for DeAI will continue to expand. If it is possible to provide equal opportunities for everyone to participate in the AI era through a Web3-based collaborative architecture, allowing everyone to share the dividends of the AI era, it will undoubtedly be the biggest opportunity for the next wave of "AI & Web3" tide, and the potential scale may even exceed that of Bitcoin.

The Bittensor narrative is far from over, and the ecosystem has just begun. So, who will be the first Alpha in it? Just yesterday, as the first AI project to be publicly sold on CoinList in 2024, Masa announced the launch of an AI data subnet based on LLM on Bittensor, becoming the first data subnet with a token in the Bittensor ecosystem. MASA has become the only "new coin" that can be invested in the Bittensor ecosystem after TAO.

Against the backdrop of the ever-changing market, will the launch of Masa Bittensor subnet become a catalyst for a new round of "AI & Web3" market? Can Masa (MASA) become the focal point for the overflow of funds and developer resources in the Bittensor ecosystem?

Masa: The first tokenized data subnet in the Bittensor ecosystem

To some extent, the Bittensor ecosystem and the "AI & Web3" narrative can be said to be closely related.

Since the beginning of this AI super narrative, the Web3 game of the three elements of AI, "computing power, algorithms, and data," has quickly heated up. Different sub-tracks have also produced a group of leading players, among which Bittensor has played the role of the "elephant in the room" in the DeAI field:

Since its launch in March 2023, Bittensor has built a global-scale AI ecosystem worth $10 billion, with institutional validators such as DCG subsidiary Foundry and Polychain staking a total of 5.7 million TAO (about $1.8 billion), completely opening up the valuation ceiling of the DeAI narrative.

More importantly, because Bittensor operates through a central network composed of smaller, specialized subnets, each subnet is dedicated to different areas of AI and incentivizes the production of high-value AI subnets through its complex TAO economic model. Therefore, as the "first generation Alpha" project in the DeAI field, it has been continuously stimulating innovation in the DeAI field.

In May, Bittensor also announced that it will add 4 subnet slots per week until it reaches a new upper limit of 64 slots, with the goal for this year being to move towards 1024 subnets. Therefore, the continuously expanding Bittensor subnet ecosystem has almost become the dominant underlying innovation platform for DeAI, attracting high-quality projects and resources, covering multiple areas such as content generation, data collection and processing, LLM ecosystem, decentralized infrastructure, DeFi, and other applications.

From this perspective, the launch of the Masa AI data subnet based on LLM on Bittensor is undoubtedly a clever move to reach a wider range of global DeAI resources and projects. The Masa Bittensor subnet will use Bittensor's P2P machine intelligence network to accelerate the aggregation, transformation, and acquisition of AI data, allowing AI developers to build anything using global data from anywhere in the world.

Therefore, this collaboration is essentially a great empowerment for Masa's own ecosystem, and it may even build the most active and utilized Bittensor subnet within the broader Bittensor ecosystem, becoming the "new generation Alpha" to relay Bittensor.

After all, the subnet currently provides real-time and static, structured, annotated, and vectorized data from various sources, including X, Discord, recorded voice data (such as podcasts, YouTube, TikTok), restricted network data (such as The New York Times), and public network data (such as Google search). AI developers have used it for various use cases, such as capturing trading signals and building highly personalized AI companions.

Through the integration with Bittensor, Masa gains stronger technical support and resource advantages, further expanding the functionality and application scenarios of its data subnet, providing users with higher quality and richer services and experiences. It also helps attract hundreds of mature developers within the Bittensor ecosystem to join Masa's developer community, driving the next wave of borderless innovation evolution in its ecosystem.

Of course, this benefit is mutual. Over the past 2 years, the Masa network has developed over 1.6 million contributors and over 100 developers. Different participants have earned profits by contributing data, and these Masa contributors, developers, and validators are expected to significantly enhance the performance and utility of the Bittensor network.

What's more interesting is that prior to this, apart from TAO, there were no other subnet projects in the broader Bittensor ecosystem that had launched tokens. This means that the tradable assets deposited in Bittensor were very limited. The launch of the Masa Bittensor mainnet has made MASA the first token of a Bittensor subnet project, undoubtedly providing a new choice for the tens of billions of dollars in the Bittensor ecosystem.

At the same time, Masa has introduced the first dual-token reward model in the Bittensor ecosystem, allowing Masa protocol and Masa Bittensor subnet validators and work nodes to receive dual-token staking rewards in MASA and TAO. The TAO obtained by the Masa Foundation from subnet operations will be used to support MASA through repurchase or distribution as part of the emission plan.

In summary, if we analyze the core logic behind the collaboration between Masa and Bittensor, TAO is the first leading ecological project in the AI track listed on Binance this year, and MASA is the only leading project with a token in the Bittensor subnet ecosystem.

"Long-termism," the gradual progress of Masa

If Bittensor is the leading figure in the DeAI track, then Masa, in a sense, is a fierce and promising rising star.

It is worth noting that the core team of Masa itself embodies a dual nature of "technology + market" in its architecture, as exemplified by its two co-founders:

• Brendan Playford, co-founder of Masa, has been involved in Bitcoin mining since 2013 and completed the ICO financing of the encryption project DAG in 2017. In 2020, he founded a big data project that received $17 million in funding.
• Another co-founder of Masa, Calanthia Mei, has held positions as a top overseas technology investor and former executive of a Silicon Valley unicorn. In 2017, she co-founded the strategic investment department of the world's largest payment company, PayPal, and assisted in deploying over $300 million globally. In 2020, she joined a prominent Silicon Valley technology project as a founding team member and executive, completing a $100 million financing and successfully selling it to a publicly listed company in the United States.

This is also an exclusive competitive advantage that is difficult for projects in the same track to replicate. Therefore, although the performance of the AI field has been overall sluggish since TAO was listed on Binance, as a star player in the DeAI field, Masa has indeed made a quite impressive combination of moves in the past 4 months, demonstrating a solid long-term team temperament in both the market and cooperation aspects, as well as in the product and technical dimensions.

Firstly, in terms of the market, MASA has almost become the new "top stream" in the DeAI field in the first half of the year, carrying the flag of investors' attention to DeAI projects through continuous cooperative actions:

• On March 7th, MASA landed on CoinList, becoming the first AI project to launch a community round token sale on CoinList in 2024, and was sold out in 17 minutes, with an oversubscription of over 6.4 times, setting a new record.
• On April 11th, MASA simultaneously launched on exchanges such as Bybit, HTX, KuCoin, Gate.io, CoinList, Pancakeswap, and Uniswap, and the 24-hour trading volume exceeded $100 million.

Secondly, in terms of project progress and product releases, whether it is the launch of the Masa AI data market or the introduction of a decentralized AI developer ecosystem, and the announcement of the first batch of 13 developer partner teams, Masa has steadily made progress.

Especially the recent announcement of the network technology architecture and product application scenarios based on "Fair AI" is dedicated to leading the promotion of building a collaborative ecosystem that supports the development of Fair AI.

The broader DeAI ecosystem cooperation is like a touchstone, which can test the influence and development potential of the project in the industry. In this regard, Masa has reached in-depth cooperation with several star projects in the past 3 months, including further cooperation with CoinList to launch a new MASA staking plan, as well as new collaborations with star developer projects in various AI fields such as AlloraBase, SpectralTelle, Theoriq, Sleepless AI, and GT Protocol.

In addition, as a leading player in the DeAI field, Masa has actively participated or hosted a series of technical seminars, group discussions, and various Web3 & AI events from Hong Kong in April to Brussels in July, including 8 dialogue events on the banks of the Hong Kong River and 9 "AI & Web3" related peripheral events during the ETHCC conference in Brussels. This consistent engagement with builders to discuss the new changes and developments in the AI track, as well as to envision the possible paths of Web3 and AI integration in 2024, is a testament to Masa's commitment to the industry.

All in all, if "DeAI in 2024 is like DeFi in 2020," then the current cold market environment may be the right time to act, focusing on how to make comprehensive market and technical preparations for the influx of new funds, new users, and new use cases.

Although the development trend of the AI track is still uncertain, once there is a warming trend in the second half of the year, Masa's sustained first-mover layout will immediately translate into a unique competitive advantage—encompassing technology development, ecosystem cooperation, market expansion, and accumulating rich technical reserves and cooperation resources.

Therefore, if we focus on the macro perspective, we will find that the timing of Masa's release of the Bittensor subnet is just right:

If the above series of efforts have allowed Masa's advantages in the DeAI competition to accumulate and grow over the past few months, it is like an athlete who is about to step onto the field, having the strength to win after a long period of hard training and thorough preparation, standing at the final gate of accumulation, just one step away.

The launch of the Masa Bittensor subnet may be the singularity moment that brings in a massive influx of funds, developer resources, and new innovative application scenarios into the Masa ecosystem, triggering this chain reaction.

1+1>2: The bidirectional coupling of Masa and Bittensor ecosystem resources

If TAO is the cornerstone and Beta of the "Web3+AI" track, then Masa is the first Alpha in this vast ecosystem. In other words, after Masa released the Bittensor subnet, it effectively opened up a bidirectional flow channel for the precipitation funds and developer resources between Masa and the Bittensor ecosystem.

Firstly, Masa's DeAI data services will further reach DeAI applications and developers globally, and more projects will establish cooperation with Masa, thereby driving the continuous improvement and growth of Masa's end-use scenarios, bringing new business growth points and value creation channels to Masa.

Secondly, the existing developer resources of Bittensor can directly enter the Masa ecosystem to innovate various use cases based on the DeAI architecture, enhancing the borderless innovation variables within the Masa ecosystem.

For example, Masa has allowed developers to automatically process audio data from any podcast, efficiently handle text information for training AI agents in scenarios such as health and healthcare. At the same time, Masa also allows developers to aggregate product feedback and community sentiment based on conversation messages and user interaction data extracted from Discord servers, to provide meaningful product feedback and more.

In short, the bidirectional coupling of resources between Bittensor and Masa ecosystems can help more DeAI applications take root, and even more users are expected to join the DeAI and Web3 ecosystems through the expanded use cases of Masa and Bittensor, achieving the goal of Mass Adoption.

The traffic dividend brought about by this "1+1>2" cannot be underestimated—both the Masa ecosystem and the Bittensor platform are expected to experience a significant increase in user growth and scenario innovation. More users and richer use cases mean tremendous traffic advantages, which can not only further enhance the market demand and recognition of the TAO/MASA tokens but also create more business landing opportunities for Masa.

The prosperity of the ecosystem will inevitably lead to a significant increase in the token value, and as the first real-time token in the Bittensor subnet ecosystem, MASA, through the MASA/wTAO trading pair on Uniswap, not only directly expands the liquidity trading channels but also becomes the only optional target for the tens of billions of dollars in the broader Bittensor ecosystem after TAO, providing ample potential for appreciation for MASA.

Conclusion

True turning points often sprout silently, especially in the face of technological narratives such as DeAI, individual local perceptions and overall trends often have huge errors.

Therefore, who will be the next Alpha in DeAI? When will it arrive? We do not know, but from the front to the back, from TAO to MASA, from the Beta that serves as a ballast to the new Alpha, the broader Bittensor ecosystem has always occupied an absolute dominant position in the "AI+Web3" narrative.

At least for now, especially with the launch of the Masa Bittensor subnet, Masa has shown the posture of taking over as the "new generation Alpha" from Bittensor (TAO), and we look forward to it.

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