Author: Zen, PANews
The ASI Alliance (Artificial Superintelligence) was jointly initiated by Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, and Ocean Protocol, aiming to create a unified decentralized AI ecosystem through token merging and technological collaboration.
However, with the recent announcement from the Ocean Protocol Foundation to officially withdraw, this coalition, seen as a leading decentralized ecosystem, has ultimately shown signs of fracture, leading to substantial adjustments in the alliance's framework.
From an external perspective, this move not only prompts a reevaluation of the feasibility of the "decentralized AI alliance" path but also introduces new variables for the future development of Ocean and ASI.
Ocean Foundation's Departure: ASI Alliance Faces Split After One Year
On October 9, the Ocean Protocol Foundation announced its immediate withdrawal from the ASI Alliance. The Ocean Foundation has withdrawn its designated board member position at ASI Alliance Company (Singapore), resigned from its membership, and exited the cooperation framework.
In response to Ocean's departure, the ASI Alliance stated via X that it respects the team's decision, emphasizing that the alliance's cooperation was based on voluntary participation, and this transition "happened naturally." Both the alliance and Fetch.ai officials stated that Ocean's exit does not affect the core technology stack of the alliance, and the founding team remains aligned in advancing the mission of open decentralized AI infrastructure.
On an unofficial level, the community's response to this breakup is evidently less dignified and restrained, with contrasting views emerging between supporting Ocean's independent development and concerns about the alliance's future. Many Ocean supporters welcomed the project's regained independence, which contributed to a significant surge in the price of the OCEAN token. Conversely, some members of the alliance community expressed dissatisfaction, with some angrily labeling Ocean's move as a "Trojan horse plan," believing that Ocean's exit severely weakened the ASI Alliance.
The ASI Alliance was established in March 2024, initiated by three major decentralized AI projects: Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, and Ocean Protocol. The alliance aimed to integrate resources to create the largest independent AI research and development collaboration platform and to form a unified AI ecosystem token through token merging.
According to the plan announced at that time, the three projects decided not to issue new tokens but to merge Ocean Protocol's OCEAN and SingularityNET's AGIX tokens into Fetch.ai's FET token. As a result, the FET token became the foundational token of the alliance and was subsequently assigned the new name and mission of "ASI." The alliance hoped to make this unified token a universal value carrier supporting decentralized AI infrastructure through shared economy and technology.
It is reported that since the token merging began in July 2024, approximately 81% of the OCEAN supply has been converted into Fetch.ai's FET token as planned. However, there are still about 270 million OCEAN tokens unconverted, distributed across 37,334 addresses, accounting for about 19% of the total supply.
After completing the initial three-party merger, the ASI Alliance continued to attract like-minded partners. In September 2024, the blockchain computing project CUDOS announced its joining of the ASI Alliance, with its network and token supply integrated into the ASI ecosystem to strengthen the alliance's decentralized computing power infrastructure. Thus, the ASI Alliance gathered four major projects: Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, Ocean Protocol, and CUDOS.
During the alliance, each member maintained its team and governance independence while engaging in multiple collaborations on technical and community levels. The alliance officially established a unified website and governance structure and formed a council to jointly decide on alliance affairs. However, the ASI Alliance transitioned from a high-profile merger to member separation in just over a year, ultimately unable to escape the fate of "long unity must lead to division."
What Are the Motivations Behind Ocean's Exit: Technical Path and Token Price?
From the official statements, Ocean Protocol's choice to exit the ASI Alliance at this time is primarily driven by the pursuit of independent funding and governance. The Ocean team hopes to control its own development funding sources rather than continue to be constrained by the alliance's unified funding arrangements, while also seeking autonomous decision-making power over the economic model of the OCEAN token, including implementing deflationary measures.
Additionally, the prolonged low value of the token and inflationary pressures may be significant triggers for the exit. Since the merger, Fetch.ai has issued approximately 600 million FET (ASI) tokens to absorb the OCEAN supply. The large influx of new tokens, lacking synchronized value support, has kept the FET price under pressure for an extended period, leading to complaints from alliance members and the community.
As one of the merged parties, Ocean's native token has long been tied to a fixed exchange rate, resulting in poor market performance: since the beginning of this year, the OCEAN price has been on a downward trend, hovering at historical lows before the exit. This situation may have prompted Ocean's management to reflect on the pros and cons of the merger—if they continued to stay in the alliance, OCEAN would ultimately be completely absorbed into ASI, potentially diluting the brand and influence of the Ocean project itself. Conversely, exiting could revitalize the OCEAN brand, re-engage community enthusiasm, and free it from the burden of FET inflation.
There are also views suggesting that Ocean's core business focuses on data asset trading and sharing, which differs from Fetch.ai's autonomous agents and SingularityNET's general AI platform. Over the past year, there may have been some strategic disagreements within the alliance regarding technical paths and resource allocation, leading Ocean to choose to exit in order to concentrate on its areas of strength and avoid being constrained by the alliance's broader AI vision. These factors collectively form an important backdrop for Ocean's exit.
However, it is important to emphasize that Ocean has not publicly criticized any issues within the alliance; the exit statement is restrained and maintains respect for other members, indicating that this decision appears to be a proactive adjustment based on business strategy rather than a rupture due to escalating conflicts.
Although Fetch.ai has responded that Ocean's exit has "no impact" on technology, operations, or common goals, and reiterated that the mission of the ASI Alliance and the cooperation foundation among the three parties (Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, CUDOS) remains solid, it is undeniable that losing such an important pillar as Ocean will inevitably shrink the alliance's ecological landscape and create a gap in its data capabilities.
In the future, the ASI Alliance may shift its business focus more towards areas where Fetch.ai and SingularityNET excel, such as the integration of autonomous agents and general AI platforms. The alliance has also stated that it will continue to promote the deployment and application of the ASI token across multiple chains to enhance its practical value and attractiveness. One of the founders of the alliance, Ben Goertzel, head of SingularityNET, recently reiterated his commitment to the vision of decentralized AI on social media, stating that the remaining members of the alliance will collaborate more closely moving forward.
Under the Deflationary Plan, What Is the Future of the OCEAN Token?
The buyback and burn measures proposed by the Ocean Foundation in its announcement are a highlight of this exit action. Specifically, Ocean plans to use a portion of the profits from its technology derivative projects (such as applications or infrastructure incubation) to buy back OCEAN tokens on the secondary market and burn them, thereby achieving sustained deflation. According to the official statement, this buyback and burn mechanism will become a "permanent and ongoing supply reduction method."
Considering that approximately 81% of the original OCEAN supply has been converted to FET, the actual circulating supply of OCEAN has significantly decreased, and with future buybacks and burns, the circulating supply of OCEAN is expected to tighten further. As the supply decreases and the project refocuses on its core business, investors anticipate that the value of OCEAN will also face reevaluation.
Stimulated by the news, the OCEAN token surged over 30% on the day. In contrast, the alliance token FET (ASI token) faced downward pressure after Ocean's exit, with its price dropping about 6.9% to a new low of $0.51 that day. This contrasting trend indicates that the two tokens began to reflect their fundamental expectations independently after the "decoupling." Specifically, OCEAN rose due to increased scarcity, while FET suffered from potential overissuance and selling pressure.
Additionally, during the token merging period, OCEAN had been delisted or renamed on some exchanges, but the news of Ocean's exit from the alliance has given it a chance to regain favor with exchanges. Currently, major platforms such as Coinbase, Kraken, Upbit, and Binance US still support the spot trading of OCEAN.
Among them, Binance US retained the OCEAN trading pair during the merger, while CoinSecurity Global suspended the OCEAN trading pair according to the alliance's plan in July 2024. With Ocean choosing independence, the market generally expects that exchanges, including CoinSecurity Global, may reassess the possibility of relisting OCEAN. Ocean's official statement also clearly indicated that any exchanges that previously delisted OCEAN due to the merger "can decide for themselves whether to relist OCEAN." This means that OCEAN is likely to restore broader market liquidity.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
