Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina）
Author | Golem (@web3_golem）
Recently, Web3 AI projects incorporating MCP concepts have attracted market attention, with popular projects like DARK in the Solana ecosystem and SKYAI in the BNB Chain ecosystem. MCP stands for Model Context Protocol, introduced by Anthropic on November 25, 2024. As an open protocol, MCP standardizes how external data and applications interact with and provide context to large language models (LLMs). The industry often compares MCP to a USB interface for AI applications, enabling AI to plug and play and access external data and tools in a versatile manner.
MCP was originally a hot concept in the Web2 tech circle, but this new AI trend has also blown into Web3, with the market believing that MCP could promote the development of tracks like DeFAI and GameFAI, improve the practicality of AI Agents, and trigger a second wave of market enthusiasm. To help readers screen projects and grasp the trend, Odaily provides an overview of existing Web3 AI projects representing MCP integration.
DARK
DARK is an experimental MCP network under a trusted execution environment (TEE), built on Solana and has already issued its token. Its first application automatically integrates new tools into the AIMCP server under the TEE protocol, though the product is still in development, with users able to sign up via email. DARK's founder is edgar, who is also a co-founder of mtndao, a DAO on the Solana blockchain focusing on blockchain technology and Web3 ecosystem innovation and development, having hosted multiple hackathons.
To increase community engagement and company revenue, DARK is also developing a game called DARK Games, similar to the popular 2021 game 'Dark Forest'. In the game, SPUTNIK is the first competitive AI agent, where players need to interact with it using DARK tokens to obtain clues. SPUTNIK utilizes Dark Forest MCP and Solana MCP to enable certain game functions and on-chain interactions.
Token contract: 8BtoThi2ZoXnF7QQK1Wjmh2JuBw9FjVvhnGMVZ2vpump
Current market cap: $16 million
SkyAI
SkyAI is built on BNB Chain, aiming to use MCP to build a blockchain-native AI infrastructure, providing a scalable and interoperable data protocol designed for Web3 AI applications, and has already issued its token. SkyAI plans to simplify development by integrating multi-chain data access, AI agent deployment, and protocol-level utilities, thereby promoting practical AI applications in blockchain environments. SkyAI also plans to integrate advanced AI protocols like Google's A2A in the future. However, SkyAI currently has no actual product implementation.
As the first pre-sale project supported by the Four.meme platform, SkyAI successfully launched its pre-sale on April 17 and concluded on April 19, raising over 83,851 BNB, valued at approximately $50 million, which was 167 times oversubscribed. The official announcement stated that no tokens would be retained, with 80% of tokens distributed through public pre-sale and 20% used to increase liquidity, thus providing substantial returns for early pre-sale participants.
Token contract: 0x92aa03137385f18539301349dcfc9ebc923ffb10
Current market cap: $40 million
UnifAI, while not explicitly stating that it uses the MCP protocol, compares itself to the MCP in the Web3 domain and its flagship product to Manus in the Web3 domain. UnifAI has not yet issued a token but has launched its first season of points program.
Conclusion
Currently, most Web3 AI projects combining the MCP protocol are still in the early development stage, with no actual products launched. However, some projects have already issued tokens. Although MCP is the latest and hottest concept in the AI Agent track, with the experience of the previous wave of AI Agent collapse, we must consider whether MCP is just another vague hype transmitted from Web2 to Web3, or if it can truly lead AI Agents towards practicality.
Web3 AI Agents have long faced two major issues. First, there is a severe disconnect between actual products and narratives. People often jokingly say that AI developers who are insignificant in Web2 can become top-tier AI developers in Web3 just by telling a story, attracting market attention. When the grand narrative is ultimately punctured by repeatedly delayed actual products, everything comes to an end.
For example, projects combining MCP now claim that AI agents can interact with on-chain data and external tools, enabling functions like checking balances, issuing tokens, or performing DeFi arbitrage. However, during the previous DeFAI boom, top projects were also telling similar stories, and investors have not completely forgotten. Now, they tell us that combining MCP can better achieve these functions, which raises the question: does this mean that the previously hyped DeFAI products never actually materialized?
The second main issue is the lack of connection between tokens and actual products. If no token is issued, no one will pay attention, and Web3 AI developers are well aware of this. Thus, we often see token issuance and pre-sales arriving before actual products. The problem is that even after product launch, most tokens have no practical or governance connection with the actual product. With tokens detached from the product, the product's control over token prices diminishes, and track narratives and market sentiment dominate price trends, while the product remains unnoticed.
We have already experienced a wave of Web3 AI Agent disillusionment. Investors have learned their lesson and no longer easily buy into empty narratives and inflated valuations, instead seeking projects with actual product-market fit. In this light, the path of MCP seems long and challenging.
