Solana AI Hackathon "Golden Dogs" Continue, Organizers Call on Developers to Stop

Original title: "Solana AI Hackathon and Token Launches — Note to Builders and Investors"

Author: Yash Agarwal, Head of SendAI

Compiled by: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

Editor's note: The Solana AI Hackathon hosted by SendAI has been launched for some time, but as the AI ​​narrative continues to heat up, the community's enthusiasm for related projects has not diminished at all.

Pine Analytics, an on-chain analysis research institution, reported yesterday that there were as many as 65 tokens created or directly associated with projects participating in the hackathon, with a total market value of US$482 million, an average market value of US$7.5 million, and a median market value of US$7.5 million. is $1.7 million; 13 tokens have a market capitalization of over $10 million, and 42 tokens have a market capitalization of over $1 million.

However, with the community's emotions so intense, SendAI founder Yash Agarwal published a long article today criticizing the current hype - Yash emphasized that there were only 40,000 visits to the hackathon homepage in the past week, but casually A single token can quickly reach a market value of 50 million... SendAI originally wanted to build a platform to promote the development of Solana ecological AI, but now it has become a "casino for the fallen." In Yash's view, the current bubble will cause developers to tend to be blind and short-term, which is not conducive to the long-term development of Solana AI. Therefore, it is necessary to point out some absurd situations, otherwise the industry will see a "catastrophe" soon. .

The following is the full text of Yash, compiled by Odaily Planet Daily.

When we started this hackathon, I had a simple vision - make Solana the AI ​​blockchain and achieve 10x growth.

I think hackathons are the best feasible way to achieve this goal, we can bring everyone under the same roof, and I personally can invest in those Crypto x AI Agent projects that I am very optimistic about.

In the past month, I can say that the Solana AI Hackathon has not only established the brand, but also completely changed the landscape of Solana ecological AI Agents. Completing more than 400 projects in 15 days is no easy task, and my team and I are extremely proud of our contribution to increasing the market value of the Solana AI ecosystem by US$5-1 billion.

Of course, when we launched this hackathon, we had a hunch that there would be some related tokens issued due to this strange Crypto x AI Agent model. If developers are using tokens as a means of capital accumulation and the goal is still to build great products, that’s totally fine. We've also carefully designed all 8 tracks (sponsors have no say in these) to encourage truly useful AI agents.

But we didn’t expect that it would turn into a “casino for the degenerates.” In order to give everyone a clearer idea of ​​the numbers, the Solana AI Hackathon project homepage only had more than 40,000 visitors in the past week, but now there are 2-3 hackathon project-related tokens with a market value of 50 million US dollars every day. The cumulative value of all related tokens has exceeded $500 million. Unintentionally, the Solana AI Hackathon has become a discovery platform for AI tokens.

speculation driven

The current situation is basically as follows:

• (Project party) Submit the project in the hackathon and appear in the Solana AI Hackathon project directory;

• Use Solana AI Hackathon/SendAI to gain credibility;

• Release tokens → Get sniping/promotion from whales and KOLs → Boom! A token issuance worth US$500-50 million was completed immediately;

• In the eyes of gamblers, the potential 100x returns on hackathon-related projects they can gain through early ape-in ​​operations make hackathons a perfect place to speculate .

This is not a new story, it is a typical power law distribution driven speculation.

While it’s great to see some developers launching tokens to achieve the necessary early capital accumulation, the problem is that the bubble is too big right now.

While this is closer to a fair issuance (similar to ICO), I don't think it's the best direction for us to go in.

Developers are becoming blind

This frothy rhythm of token issuance is making developers short-sighted and blind.

Currently, 90% of Crypto Coin", this is actually a bigger scam.

The current pace does not favor real developers (especially the weak ones) from a long-term perspective because they now have to think about short-term issues.

Most Agent/Infra projects have realized that tokens are the best way to gain attention: Token issuance → Agent/Framework “viral” spread (but there are 0 users) → Token promotion → Everyone is happy…

Many projects just make random announcements or demos (even with a market cap of over $200 million) to please token holders and achieve a quick pull (stimulating dopamine for token holders), and then whales and cabals They began to trumpet "amazing technology" to sell to retail gamblers.

Many developers know that their product is unlikely to be rolled out or run in production, so they just keep demoing or making "X x Y" announcements. Please name some real-time, scalable, real on-chain Agent products, I will be waiting in the comment area.

Cabal/whales/KOLs are worse VCs, they don’t have the reputational baggage

yet

The Cabal and the Whales are making the game dirtier and dirtier.

They snipe early supply by making up lies (saying it's "powered by xxx" when it's really just a retweet or a casual boast), or convince developers to allocate a certain share, and they'll also bet on their own bettors Demagogues in the group and then continue to sell off (or will eventually sell off), which harms the interests of retail investors and developers.

Keep in mind that there are no staking restrictions on their tokens, as most tokens are issued through pump.fun.

Some suggestions for developers

• Please do not issue tokens for the sake of issuing tokens, especially if you do not hold a significant proportion of tokens. Trust me, if you hold less than 5% of the tokens, you won’t have any incentive to continue building once the price starts to fall.

• Yes, a token can go up in the short term and you get a quick dopamine rush from issuing $50 million or $100 million worth of tokens, but once the price pulls back, you lose the incentive to keep building. There's also a bunch of shitty "shareholders" who want you to keep developing because they've heard a lot of hype from the cabal/KOL about "how awesome this project is".

• Always remember that a token is technically an asset, but emotionally it is also a huge burden. Launching a coin is very easy, I have managed a coin over the past 6 months and experienced all these low moments and I can tell you that managing a coin is not fun. The token itself is a large product that needs to be managed.

• When the price drops, none of those communities, KOLs or conspiracy groups can help, you are left alone and at best they will laugh or lash out.

• There is nothing wrong with issuing tokens for the purpose of accumulating startup capital, but don’t rush to jump on the bandwagon if you are not prepared.

Take a longer view and ask yourself: “Even if the market cap of the token is less than $500,000, would you still be willing to continue building this project in the next 6 months?” If the answer is yes, then launch your of tokens. If necessary, you should retain appropriate funds and team shares at the time of release - as a project developer, you have every right to make money in the long run through your own baby (project).

For those hackathon developers who have already launched their tokens, if they don’t have the foresight, good luck managing their tokens and we’ll talk about it in 6 months.

I won't call anyone out for now, but I can give you a good example. My little brother Umang created Cleopetra during this hackathon, an AI Agent designed to improve the DEX LP experience. They have no plans to launch a token yet, but they are harassed by counterfeit coins and gamblers every day, and the community shouts for them to announce the CA every day. Of course, he is strong and has not launched the token yet. After the hackathon, I will personally help him.

If you are a weak developer without vision, you cannot resist the casino-like temptation and launch a token. To be honest, I have no respect for you as a developer and you are a liar. Whether your tokens are $100 million or $500 million, I will scold you when the time comes.

What to do if you haven’t launched a token yet?

Hang in there! Also put "no tokens" in your X, never imply issuing tokens, keep building and developing. There's really nothing you can do about those fake token issuances and there's no use fighting them. If anyone is still apeing like a monkey and buying in without doing any research, they deserve it. Just ignore them or just block them.

To KOLs and gamblers

Regarding Crypto x AI KOL, everyone is a friend, but I hope you can be responsible for what you promote (especially tokens). Guide developers well and don’t be fooled by rapid token distribution or influence. You don’t want to be thought of as a scammer when prices drop.

As for gamblers, or rather all of us, don’t buy something you don’t understand or even want to understand just because your favorite KOL calls for it. If you are greedy for temporary convenience, you will end up footing the bill.

About the results of the hackathon

I have been approached by many well-respected figures in the industry with requests such as a list of tokens to be launched or top picks, a hackathon end date, or even the results of a hackathon.

I received at least 50+ private messages, some even offering bribes/token distribution schemes.

Sorry, we will not reveal the exact closing date and final results to anyone until they are officially announced (including the list of judges, each of whom will have a separate form and we will sort it all out).

blood sweat and tears

When we decided to launch this hackathon, we had no funding or support; it was all about blood, sweat, tears, and our inherent passion to grow Solana AI 10x. SendAI is an umbrella organization formed after the Solana AI Hackathon. We made that bet and it worked out really well.

At this point, we want to take our professional ethics seriously and be as honest as we can be in our minds. We really don't care who you are.

In order to reduce speculation, we also made a difficult decision to cancel the demo day and instead directly announce the hackathon results directly from Solana or SendAI. Developers don’t have to worry, we will have more exciting activities than demo day in the future.

What's next?

To be honest, I don't know yet what the best solution to the token issuance problem is in terms of capital structure. But hopefully we can figure something out, and I'll personally be thinking about it in my free time. Given that this is a very recent issue (less than a month old), we're still in the early stages and still have a chance to resolve this issue.

In short, I am very optimistic about Crypto x AI Agent. This is definitely an industry worth more than 100 billion US dollars.

SendAI, Solana AI Hackathon, Solana Agent Toolkit, all of these are completely voluntary public products and were delivered within the past month. The market is not ready for what we plan to do next.

Even though my brain told me I should wait for the results to come in before posting this, I listened to my heart and posted it now. From an industry perspective, we need to point out something ridiculous, otherwise we're going to see a catastrophe before too long.

Remember, there will always be casinos and the house will always win.

These contents are entirely my own opinions and do not represent anyone else's. Thank you for listening to my long speech. I will definitely write about my opinion on Crypto x AI Agents another day, but I will not recommend any tokens.