SingularityDAO, Cogito Finance, and SelfKey announced plans to merge, forming a new project focused on the tokenization of the artificial intelligence (AI) economy called Singularity Finance (SFI).
Written by: Frank, PANews
On October 15, SingularityDAO, Cogito Finance, and SelfKey announced plans to merge, forming a new project focused on the tokenization of the artificial intelligence (AI) economy called Singularity Finance (SFI). It was introduced that this new entity will provide a Layer 2 network for tokenizing assets (such as GPUs) and offer AI-driven financial tools.
Upon hearing this news, many felt a bit confused, as SingularityNET had already completed a merger in June of this year. Why is there another merger announcement? In fact, SingularityNET completed a similar merger with AI projects like Fetch.ai and Ocean Protocol in June. It is unclear whether SingularityNET has tasted the sweetness of mergers, prompting its ecological project SingularityDAO to follow suit.
SingularityNET, SingularityDAO, and Singularity: Confusion
Perhaps the term "Singularity" is too closely associated with technology, leading many projects to adopt it as part of their names. This has resulted in confusion in the crypto space, with three projects—SingularityNET, SingularityDAO, and Singularity—making it difficult for people to distinguish between them.
In reality, SingularityNET and SingularityDAO are intricately connected, while Singularity is an instant payment solution for a Web3 game from India, with no relation to SingularityNET and SingularityDAO.
To briefly introduce, SingularityNET is a decentralized AI platform and marketplace that allows developers and companies to share, create, sell, or purchase AI services. SingularityDAO, on the other hand, is a key project within the SingularityNET ecosystem, focusing on the combination of decentralized finance (DeFi) and AI technology.
Founded in 2017, SingularityNET completed a $36 million initial token offering that same year. Subsequently, in 2018, it launched its project token AGIX, which currently has a market capitalization of approximately $750 million.
On March 27, 2024, Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, and Ocean Protocol announced the final agreement to merge their tokens, creating the largest open-source independent entity in AI research: the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance. This alliance has now been established, and in July, the original three projects began migrating their tokens FET, OCEAN, and AGIX to the new token ASI.
On October 15, SingularityDAO, a project within the SingularityNET ecosystem, announced its merger with Cogito Finance and SelfKey to establish an AI-centered Layer 2 network, with the new merged project named Singularity Finance.
Can the merger achieve 1+1+1>3?
As projects from the main network begin to merge with those within the ecosystem, one can't help but wonder if these mergers can truly yield a 1+1+1>3 effect. Here, we will focus on the performance of the already merged Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, and Ocean Protocol.
First, looking at token performance, prior to the merger, SingularityNET's token AGIX had a market capitalization of approximately $1.52 billion, while Fetch.ai's token FET had a market capitalization of about $2.97 billion. Ocean Protocol's token OCEAN had a market capitalization of around $673 million. As of the merger date on March 27, the combined market capitalization of the three projects was approximately $5.163 billion. After the merger announcement, the new token ASI (currently still coded as FET) saw its market capitalization reach as high as $6.3 billion. From the perspective of token market performance, it indeed achieved the 1+1+1>3 effect.
On September 11, 2024, the ASI Alliance announced the inclusion of the globally distributed computing network CUDOS as part of its members. As part of the integration, the CUDOS token (CUDOS) will merge into the ASI Alliance token (FET). On September 27, CUDOS officially began its token migration.
However, from the overall actions of ASI, the current merger is still in the token merging phase, and the four projects seem to remain in independent operation. According to the official website, after the token merger, the ASI network deployment and upgrades will take place, but the current progress still shows as pending. As of October 16, the market capitalization of the ASI token was approximately $3.5 billion, having decreased by nearly half since the merger. The official documentation states that the merged token is a prerequisite for achieving greater interoperability among the three ecosystems.
Additionally, it seems that the merger has not brought true prosperity to these projects. For example, according to tokenterminal data, as of October 15, Ocean Protocol's daily active users were only 109. From the chart, it can be seen that the project's daily active users only briefly surpassed 7,000 in June before declining steadily. The other two projects lack statistical data, making it impossible to determine their specific network activity. On SingularityNET's social media, many users commented, questioning the alliance due to the lack of specific products, such as "Create a product first; I don't even know why I invested in this."
What will SingularityDAO create by following the same pattern?
In contrast to the grand narrative of merging with SingularityNET and the other two projects (creating a decentralized AI infrastructure), SingularityDAO, which previously focused on DeFi protocols, plans to build an AI-based EVM Layer 2 for the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) after merging with Cogito Finance and SelfKey. According to official plans, the integration will make SelfKey's existing token KEY the new token SFI for Singularity Finance. SingularityDAO's SDAO and Cogito's CGV will be merged into SFI at ratios of 1:80.353 and 1:10.89, respectively.
However, this merger does not seem to have generated much market anticipation. The benchmark token KEY not only failed to rise quickly after the news broke but instead fell continuously, dropping 5.48% on October 16.
The three projects involved in this merger—SingularityDAO, which previously focused on DeFi, SelfKey, a blockchain-based self-sovereign identity ecosystem, and Cogito Protocol, an AI-based RWA protocol—are merging to create an AI system focused on the RWA track in Layer 2, which seems to align perfectly with the current mainstream narrative.
Looking back at the past experiences in the crypto space, mergers are relatively rare.
Observing the two merger activities within the SingularityNET ecosystem, it can be noted that the participating projects were mostly established before 2022, with many being "old projects" from 2017-2018. As the industry has developed, the attention on most "old projects" has gradually diminished in this bull market, and fundraising has become more challenging. Creating a brand new project through mergers not only allows for the integration of each project's strengths but also better caters to market preferences.
Therefore, the path of mergers may be a novel solution for "old projects" facing similar challenges. However, whether the goal of the merger is to create a more meaningful product or merely to achieve a 1+1+1>3 effect in terms of token market value and narrative remains to be observed.
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。
