Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Nanzi (@Assassin_Malvo)
In January, AI tokens experienced the last wave of frenzy since October, with VIRTUAL and ai16z's market caps once reaching $5 billion and $2.5 billion respectively. Tokens like arc and swarms that originated from the pump were consecutively listed on Bit contracts. However, the situation deteriorated sharply after Trump's release, with the AI sector being severely drained and plummeting across the board. Although there was a brief rebound as TRUMP fell to $30, DeepSeek soon became the final blow to burst the AI bubble. Arc's market cap fell from $600 million to $250 million, while swamrs plunged 90% from $600 million to $60 million.
During the rise of AI, stirring up events, pulling off stunts, or introducing a new narrative, such as transforming into an AI Launchpad platform or developing a framework, could significantly boost token performance. However, these AI projects are currently "meaningless" as we have not yet seen any AI products truly and phenomenally revolutionize the operation and processes of the Crypto industry. Therefore, the existing routines and stories can no longer reverse the situation.
In this AI downturn, are there any AI projects taking self-rescue actions? How will they stabilize user confidence and control the distribution and selling behavior?
Odaily Planet Daily will summarize the recent developments of leading AI projects in this article and conclude the approaches tried by each top project. Although we cannot confirm the effectiveness of their methods, "what has been will be again". A successful solution will be imitated and even developed into the next narrative core by other projects, which we will continue to observe.
Showing off and building connections
Arc is one of the relatively stable AI projects, with its core business being the Rig AI Agent framework based on the Rust language, not entirely dependent on the Solana network. Recently, arc has collaborated with multiple ecosystems, including but not limited to:
Becoming one of the supported projects of the Arbitrum Stylus fund (with a total funding of 500,000 ARB)
Jointly launching a targeted funding activity for developers with the Solana Foundation
Product updates
Chasing the trend, integrating DeepSeek
DeepSeek has undoubtedly been the hottest topic recently, and multiple projects have announced the integration of DeepSeek during its surge, including GRIFFAIN, AVA, and BUZZ, but the actual impact on their own business development is limited.
Frequent updates, frequent exposure
Previously, on the X platform, we could see more "talkative" AI Agents outputting content of various topics and styles, but the development accounts behind them did not update frequently. Perhaps sensing the coming of the AI winter, some projects have further increased the update frequency of their main accounts, including LMT and ZEREBRO.
Particularly, LMT has been posting product update details on the X platform daily since January 8th, highlighting the content it builds, fixes, or improves every day, with an extremely detailed granularity.
For such projects, product development has always been the main focus, and it is also the reason why they have become some of the few projects to break through a market cap of over $100 million in the AI frenzy. After the euphoria and bubble deflation, the landing of the next-generation products will become the basis for the next uptrend (assuming there is a second wave of AI hype). Therefore, having products that can iterate and continuously share updates may be the next breakthrough.
swamrs: Doing something different
Previously, swarms was one of the first projects to develop a framework after ai16z, and it gained a lot of exposure due to the frequent criticism from ai16z's founder Shaw, ranking first in terms of "story" and reaching a market cap of $600 million in the short term.
On February 1st, swarms made another pioneering move - "requesting token holders to invest/stake tokens in the DAO". swamrs posted on the X platform that the team only holds 2% of the total tokens, making the tokens easily manipulated by "malicious token holders and exchanges that are not truly interested in our mission". Therefore, swamrs has proposed a plan to increase the team's token holding to 10% by establishing a DAO, where token holders can invest (invest) tokens and receive staking rewards, governance rights, and priority product experience.
However, the proposal has many ambiguities, such as whether token holders still own the tokens after investing, and how the "staking rewards" can be provided if the team does not have many tokens. The team's intentions are not entirely clear.
Summary: The breakthrough may lie in the product itself
In summary, we can see that the leading projects are no longer keen on "creating a big news", but are turning to further demonstrate their ability to deliver good products and focus on long-term product development. The main theme for 2025 will still be AI, and after the bubble burst, the uptrend may no longer be based on "narratives", but on "products".
