DARK rose more than 1500% in a week and the network of people behind it, Solana Foundation

On April 17th, the Solana ecosystem AI meme coin DARK's market cap briefly broke through $32 million, reaching a historical high, with a 1500% growth in the past week. In the weak Crypto AI cycle, how has this AI project managed to continue rising against the trend? What is the team behind it, MtnDao? DARK is an AI that provides MCP for external platforms under the TEE protocol. Everyone is familiar with TEE in CryptoAI, which has appeared multiple times in project concepts since the stone "tee_hee_he" created by developer Ropirito last year. It is an experimental trusted execution environment aimed at ensuring AI behavior is not influenced by humans. MCP, which you might have heard recently, can be understood as a USB-C interface for large models, allowing various devices to connect through the same interface without compatibility issues. The project DARK, composed of these two well-known concepts, pushed its market cap to $30 million in the marginalized CryptoAI market, driven by two main factors: "Founder's Decision and Efficiency" and "Future Expectations of the Founder's Team". The founder, Edgar Pavlovsky, is fluent in English and Russian, graduated from the University of Utah, and was previously passionate about Quidditch. After graduating, he worked at Uber, founded several startups, and entered the blockchain industry. He created the anti-MEV attack client Paladin and was a co-founder of Solana ecosystem margin protocol Marginfi. For DARK, he isn't simply selling a technical concept but has a comprehensive product theory. His product direction involves creating a consumer Progressive Web App to attract mobile users, with viral spread expanding influence. In the ideal scenario, this would demonstrate the broad application of decentralized MCP represented by DARK. From April 7th to 11th, DARK's price fluctuated between $2M and $4M. He proposed a game AI product inspired by the blockchain game Dark Forest, where AI players operate in a private VPS environment. On April 11th, he announced the game's completion, with AI Agents set to simulate warfare. By building a VPS game world and consumer viewing application, combined with MCP and containerized AI agent infrastructure, he aims to expand influence and reach. The token price rose to a $9 million market cap, with the market witnessing the team's impressive product delivery efficiency. On April 16th, the product launched, growing 100% within 24 hours and reaching a $32 million market cap. A MtnDao member, H, revealed Edgar's work ethic, noting he works constantly, even in taxis and bars.

The "Mountain" Behind DARK - MtnDAO

On April 9th, after the issuance of DARK, the developer DAO organization MtnDAO, co-founded by Edgar Pavlovsky and Barrett, also concluded its fundraising for MtnCapital on MetaDAO. MtnDao was deeply involved in the Solana developer community early on, and Mtn Capital aims to create a new investment management model using futarchy "market prediction" to guide governance decisions, treating $MTN like futures, managed by a futures fund. The final result was 1,931 contributors raising $5.75 million within 7 days.

The institution's investments will be decided by traders, with proposals passing or failing based on the trading behavior of those speculating on MTN token prices. It will make decisions based on the trend of its MTN token. In simple terms, if traders believe a proposal (such as investing $100,000 in BTC) is beneficial to Mtn Capital, they will buy and push up the MTN price, ultimately passing the proposal. Conversely, if they believe the trade is detrimental to Mtn Capital, they will suppress the MTN price, ultimately causing the proposal to fail.

Is Dark a Preliminary Confirmation of the Futarchy DAO Concept?

This concept was not first proposed by MtnDao, but by George Mason University economics professor Robin Hanson in a 2007 paper, which suggested that speculative markets might make better decisions than purely democratic states. Hanson believed that participants in speculative markets (such as stock and betting markets) are motivated to conduct necessary research to understand the best outcomes that align with their interests, and they will trade accordingly.

The founder of their chosen fundraising platform MetaDAO, Proph3t, is a proponent of this concept, believing that "the goal of a DAO is to make better decisions, and market experience trumps expert opinion." In MetaDAO, proposals from projects like Jito DAO, Sancutm, Ore, and Drift will use futures trading models in the proposal library.

MtnDAO and MetaDAO have a long-standing connection. Besides the mysterious Proph3t frequently "appearing" in MtnDAO's shared office, founder Edgar Pavlovsky invested $2.2 million in MetaDAO in 2024, making MetaDAO the first fundraising platform for MtnDAO.

Founder Barrett stated, "Mtn Capital will focus on Solana native projects because Solana is the destination for MtnCapital and the place with the highest expected returns." Mtn Capital's investments in startups are separate from MtnDAO's portfolio, but the brands operate in parallel. The fund's investment approach is very flexible, capable of deploying funds from early private placements to highly liquid public token offerings.

This flexibility allows mtnCapital to adapt to changing market environments, regardless of its development stage or liquidity status, while gaining guidance from the collective wisdom of the mtndao community through futarchy governance. Founder Barrett said, "I believe its performance will outperform venture capital funds." He also mentioned that typical investment companies tend to be more long at the beginning rather than short, so they chose to open fundraising at the market bottom.

The timing of Mtn Capital's launch coinciding with DARK, and the token deployment on pumpfun on November 24, 2024, five months in advance, was certainly not a whim. This inevitably sparked community speculation about their relationship, on one hand wondering if the $5.85 million in liquid funds in the treasury would be used for DARK, and on the other hand, seeing the network of connections MtnDAO and its founders have in Solana.

These two reasons drove DARK's token price to rise continuously, with DARK reaching its ATH twice coinciding with MTN's token price, on April 11th and April 17th. Each time DARK's price broke through, MTN's price more than doubled the IDO fundraising market value to around $10 million (the initial IDO token market value was about $5.5 million). Perhaps this indirectly confirms the view of Mtn DAO and MetaDAO that the continuous potential value output "futures" might be the true essence of DAO tokens, and Dark may just be the shadow of this mountain.

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