By understanding its specific operational logic, project advantages, and future roadmap planning, we explore the future development opportunities and challenges of Pundi AIFX and decentralized AI.
Written by: Deep Tide TechFlow
As the crypto market witnesses Bitcoin breaking the historical milestone of $89,000, the crypto AI sector also experiences a widespread surge.
AI, as the biggest consensus between the East and West in this cycle, has seen major companies scrambling to lay out their strategies, and with the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics likely to be awarded to two pioneers in artificial intelligence (AI), the wave of development is undeniably unstoppable.
Having smarter AI is equivalent to having more efficient production tools. However, behind the hype, the current development of AI also faces prominent issues such as rampant model copying, monopolization of computing power by giants, and high data costs. Consequently, more and more people are paying attention to the DeAI field. The well-known cryptocurrency trust fund company Grayscale pointed out in its latest report:
The intersection of crypto and AI technologies will continue to have a profound impact, with blockchain technology serving as an effective tool for transmitting economic value among humans, AI, and IoT devices.
In terms of how to leverage decentralization to break the current dilemmas of AI, a large number of explorers have emerged in the crypto industry:
In the AI model space, Bittensor is dedicated to scheduling and filtering different algorithms through a blockchain network and incentive mechanisms, thereby building a free competition and knowledge-sharing AI algorithm (model) market;
In the AI computing power space, Render Network aims to establish a decentralized rendering service ecosystem that supports transactions and resource sharing between content creators and GPU providers.
Recently, the established payment project Pundi X launched a new brand, Pundi AI, accelerating its business expansion into the DeAI track, which has sparked widespread discussion.
It is reported that Pundi X launched the payment Layer 1 product Function X based on the Cosmos SDK in 2020, followed by a Layer 2 solution based on Function X. In August of this year, with community voting support, Function X was renamed Pundi AIFX, and the native token FX, which has already been listed on major exchanges, will officially be renamed AIFX at a ratio of 100:1.
As a decentralized AI data project, Pundi AI encompasses several core products, including the Pundi AIData data platform, the PURSE+ browser plugin, the Pundi AI data marketplace, and the Pundi AIFX full-chain layer, with the vision of democratizing AI development and striving to realize the confirmation and return of data value throughout the entire process of data sharing, processing, and trading, empowering AI development.
Payment and AI may not seem to be strongly related tracks. What considerations are behind Pundi's transformation into AI? With numerous competitors in the AI data track, what innovative approaches will Pundi AI bring?
This article aims to delve into the transformation and upgrading path of Pundi AIFX, exploring its specific operational logic, project advantages, and future roadmap planning to uncover the future development opportunities and challenges of Pundi AIFX and decentralized AI.
With Millions of Users: An Established Payment Project Enters DeAI?
Before getting closer to Pundi AI, it is essential to understand its underlying team, Pundi X, to gain a more intuitive sense of the potential of Pundi AIFX through its achievements in the Web3 payment field.
As an established crypto payment project founded in 2017, Pundi X initially focused on Southeast Asia, a fertile ground for crypto, leveraging the region's dense population, proactive policies, and underdeveloped financial infrastructure. Pundi X is committed to building a borderless payment ecosystem, with its main products including the hardware payment device XPOS, which enables merchants and consumers to transact on supported blockchains in physical stores.
Over the years, Pundi X has continuously improved its product functionality and expanded its service landscape: The XPOS Web 3.0 cross-chain payment feature supports multiple blockchain networks, including Bitcoin's Lightning Network, BNB Chain, Ethereum, Polygon, and Avalanche; additionally, Pundi X has established partnerships with leading projects such as Binance Pay and TRON. Its XPOS devices have been deployed in over 30 countries across Asia, America, and Europe, widely penetrating various real-world consumption scenarios, providing tens of millions of users in Southeast Asia and globally with a more efficient, seamless, and convenient crypto payment experience.
The remarkable achievements of Pundi X in the crypto payment field are inseparable from the strategic vision and market management of its elite team:
As the CEO of Pundi X, Zac Cheah studied at Singapore Management University, Royal Institute of Technology, and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). After graduation, he worked at Opera, accumulating a solid theoretical foundation and valuable industry experience.
Peko Wan is the co-CEO of Pundi X, holding an MBA from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and a Bachelor's degree in Foreign Languages and Literature from National Sun Yat-sen University. He focuses on project strategic cooperation supervision, product development, and the global deployment of Pundi X solutions.
Another core member of Pundi X, Danny, holds a Ph.D. in Law from Tsinghua University and has ACMA and CGMA accounting qualifications. Danny has worked in large companies such as Baidu and Lenovo in product design-related roles and has a deep understanding of the economic model design of Web3, providing a unique Web3 perspective for the Pundi X project.
Under the leadership of such a multi-industry elite team, Pundi X has gained widespread favor from the market and professional institutions: It was selected as one of the top 50 innovative fintech startups by KPMG and H2 Ventures in 2018, recognized by Gartner as an excellent supplier in blockchain business, and named one of the top 10 fintech leaders by the Singapore Fintech Association in 2019.
After achieving remarkable success in the payment field, Pundi X continues to seek business expansion and transformation, aiming to open a second growth curve.
But why choose to innovate data distribution in DeAI as a new direction?
This is not difficult to understand.
On one hand, it is due to market considerations: throughout this cycle, AI has emerged as the biggest consensus in this bull market between the East and West, with the AI craze in the crypto field surging one wave after another, from AI Meme to AI Agent. In the foreseeable future, AI will undoubtedly continue to thrive.
On the other hand, it stems from Pundi X's observation of the persistent issues in the AI track:
We know that data is the fuel for AI development, but issues such as privacy breaches, monopolization by giants, and high costs in the AI data field have long existed. A few large companies control a significant amount of high-quality data resources, creating strong market barriers, leading to a serious imbalance in the centralized value of data.
For most AI projects, due to the scarcity of high-quality data and high acquisition costs, it is challenging for them to establish core competitiveness. For ordinary users, as data owners, they not only lack privacy protection but also see the value generated by their data being exploited by giants without reasonable returns.
Having deeply cultivated the crypto field for many years, Pundi X has recognized the unique advantages of blockchain technology in addressing the pain points of AI data:
By tokenizing data, it becomes a tradable digital asset, which not only endows data with clear market value but also lays a solid foundation for the further release of data value.
Moreover, blockchain technology, based on its decentralized architecture, allows on-chain data to be traceable and irreversible, which not only enhances the security and integrity of data but also enables honest recording of each on-chain participant's contributions throughout the processes of data generation, processing, circulation, and usage. Smart contracts can achieve transparent distribution, further revolutionizing the interests among data owners, data processors, and data demanders in AI development.
More importantly, by introducing scientifically efficient economic incentive models, it can effectively encourage more users to participate in data sharing, processing, and trading, further promoting the formation of a healthy and sustainable data economy system.
It is also worth mentioning that Pundi X's exploration in the AI field is not starting from scratch. On the contrary, before officially announcing its entry into DeAI, Pundi X had already engaged in multiple close collaborations in the AI track and completed the foundational framework for AI development.
Through social media information, we can see that Pundi X is integrating all its AI products under the Pundi AI brand, including the next-generation AI-driven DeXPOS (fully decentralized point of sale) being built, aimed at providing users with a better AI payment experience; Pundi AIData, which serves decentralized AI data labeling, aims to empower ownership and usage rights of AI data; and the blockchain infrastructure Pundi AIFX, which serves on-chain verification and storage for AI.
It is noteworthy that Pundi AIFX, as a complex blockchain architecture and AI data foundation, is not without roots; it has transformed from the experienced public chain veteran—Function X. The opportunity for Function X to officially transition to an AI chain occurred in August 2024, when the community governance proposal for Function X to transform into Pundi AIFX received widespread support from the community to better support chain abstraction and the development of AI-driven DApps.
As an established project deeply rooted in the crypto payment sector for many years, Pundi X not only possesses a vast user base and rich ecological resources but also has a solid technical foundation and extensive practical experience in promoting the deep integration of Web2 and Web3. How will these advantages be transformed into the development momentum for Pundi AIFX, achieving rapid growth in DeAI empowered by data?
Turning Data into Assets: Pundi AI Focuses on Value Release and Attempts to Introduce Pump Mechanics?
With data as the core support point, Pundi AI aims to provide a one-stop service through four decentralized products, including data sharing, data labeling, a full-chain data layer, and data trading, promoting the de-monopolization, transparency, and democratization of AI development. Through effective economic incentives, participants can earn corresponding data rewards at any stage of data contribution and circulation.
Pundi AIData Data Platform
PURSE+ Browser Plugin
Pundi AI Data Marketplace
Pundi AIFX Full-Chain Layer (formerly Function X)
In terms of data acquisition, Pundi AI aims to aggregate Web2 and Web3 data to better empower DeAI development.
On one hand, users can upload data through the Pundi AIData data platform, supporting formats such as text, images, videos, and audio. This grants users the power to decide which data to share, further ensuring user privacy, while users can also earn rewards for uploading data, attracting more active participation.
On the other hand, Pundi AI's other browser plugin product, PURSE+, allows users to contribute data by completing tasks such as labeling content from X (Twitter) and other Web2 social media platforms in exchange for rewards.
Currently, both products have been launched and have received positive user feedback in the community. According to Pundi AIData statistics, over 25,000 participants have engaged in AI data labeling and processing on the X (Twitter) platform through PURSE+. In the future, PURSE+ will support more mainstream Web2 social media platforms to attract more users and aggregate a wider range of data.
Additionally, Pundi AI is attempting to connect with open-source AI platforms, including Hugging Face, and establish long-term collaborations to further enrich the data sources of Pundi AIData. Notably, after integrating data from platforms like Hugging Face, Pundi AI will generate exclusive dataset copyright NFTs for different dataset contributors, which will be open for claiming in the future.
In other words, after claiming the NFT, the known earnings, future earnings, and dividends generated during the circulation, trading, and usage of that dataset can be obtained by the data contributor through the NFT. This not only respects the labor achievements of data contributors but also serves as an important way to innovate data value redistribution and attract broader participation.
In terms of data processing, the Pundi AIData data platform provides comprehensive tools aimed at delivering a simpler, more efficient, and user-friendly data labeling experience.
Even ordinary users can participate in data labeling through the Pundi AIData data platform, enabling the data to further meet the high precision and small-scale pre-training needs of AI training. For AI product teams that require data, they can create data demands through the Pundi AI data platform, attracting and rallying more professional data contributors to participate.
Moreover, the Pundi AIData data platform is integrated with RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback) in AI models, allowing data processors to provide high-quality targeted services to meet the needs of model fine-tuning and other requirements from original data providers.
Through this peer-to-peer data supply and demand matching, ordinary users gain the opportunity to participate in AI-related work and earn rewards with a lower threshold, while data demanders obtain higher quality data at a lower cost.
At the data trading level, which can best release data value, Pundi AIData is committed to bringing more unique and innovative gameplay.
The premise of data trading is the tokenization of digital value, which is also a necessary prerequisite for realizing Pundi AIData's core concept of "data assets and intellectual property." Therefore, in Pundi AI:
Labeled Data = Intellectual Property
As a data contributor, you can list your data on the Pundi AI data marketplace, where buyers can efficiently search and pay to download data by category. Contracts will reward data contributors based on data quality and usage.
In the current era of AI tokens, Pundi AI will creatively introduce a Pump.fun-like mechanism for users' data assets in the near future, allowing users to have a more intuitive experience of "data as assets":
Data contributors can choose to package their ownership, usage rights, and future earnings rights of their data into tradable tokens and place them in an auction pool for auction/trading.
When a certain trading volume and market value are reached, the Pundi AI system will automatically generate exclusive virtual characters or images based on this data, allowing users to design nothing about the token, and transfer the data token to the corresponding AMM Dex, enabling everyone to trade.
Throughout the process, as data contributors (whether data owners or data labelers), they can earn data rewards. Like contributors on Hugging Face, this reward comes not only from the past but also focuses on the future: as long as the data continues to circulate and sell, data contributors can continuously receive rewards.
The foundation for all of this is the support of Pundi AIFX as the underlying layer for decentralized AI data processing.
By reducing the barriers for users and developers through Pundi AIFX's chain abstraction, combined with effective economic model incentives, Pundi AI aims to attract data users globally to participate without permission, further promoting the decentralization of AI development.
In the decentralized system design of Pundi AIFX, data is sent to contracts for verification and recording in the form of NFTs, where the labeled content is encrypted by both the uploader and the contract. The source data files are also uploaded to the cloud or IPFS through these tools, further ensuring that all content can be easily indexed on the blockchain and the corresponding contracts.
Data undergoes cross-validation through multiple independent and complex verification nodes, and all data contributions and transactions are honestly recorded on-chain, significantly improving data quality and ensuring effective distribution of data rewards.
Additionally, since Pundi AIFX is built using the Cosmos SDK application and has been further modified to support various EVM and Cosmos-compatible blockchains, Pundi AIFX supports mainstream blockchains such as Ethereum, Base, BNB, and Poly, enabling a seamless cross-chain experience and providing users with a smooth experience.
From data uploading, data labeling to data trading, we see Pundi AI's intricate and rigorous design in realizing the DeAI vision through innovative data value distribution. Beyond the enthusiastic market performance of the Pundi AIData data platform and the PURSE+ browser plugin, the strong support from the underlying Pundi AIFX, the upcoming series of milestones, and the multiple ecological collaborations/incentive initiatives that Pundi AI is promoting further reassure the community about Pundi X's path of DeAI expansion, making them feel "steady and at ease."
Transformation Implementation: Ecological Cooperation and Innovative Incubation Go Hand in Hand, Building a More Pure Community Participation
Since the transformation of Function X into Pundi AIFX in August this year, Pundi AIFX has begun intensive preparations for the transformation.
As a key to mobilizing ecological participation, tokens are the most concerning issue for the community, especially for a community project like Pundi AIFX that has never received financing and does not plan to seek financing in the future.
We know that in this cycle, several VC projects have performed unsatisfactorily. The industrialization of airdrops has brought impressive paper data, and the large financing from VCs has further inflated project valuations. However, the low circulation and price weakness after launch have triggered strong resistance from ordinary users towards VC tokens, leading them to focus on projects that allow for "fair participation and shared dividends."
This is also what makes Pundi AI special: since it has not sought financing, there is no VC selling pressure, the FDV is the real circulating market value.
The Pundi AIFX ecological token is derived from the native token FX of Function X. Previously, the native token FX of Function X had already been listed on major exchanges such as Coinbase and Upbit. Currently, Pundi AIFX is promoting the seamless automatic conversion of the original Function X token FX to the new Pundi AIFX token AIFX through various initiatives, with the specific token swap expected in Q1 2025. Notably, the swap ratio is 100 FX = 1 AIFX.
For most wallet users, the conversion can be completed with a simple one-click action. Meanwhile, Pundi AIFX is improving its functionality and negotiating collaborations with exchanges and other parties to support seamless swaps.
As a utility token for Pundi AIFX, the AIFX token will have various practical functions, including using the token to purchase data, rewarding contributors in the ecosystem, etc., further enhancing the token's application scenarios and value. The seamless conversion process will also aim to ensure an improved user upgrade experience.
In addition, relying on the extensive user base and rich cooperative resources of Pundi X, Pundi AI has established partnerships with several well-known AI projects during the months following its transformation announcement.
In August of this year, Pundi AIFX announced a collaboration with the on-chain data analysis platform Oraclus, aiming to provide users with in-depth data analysis tools and further strengthen Pundi AIFX's strategic blueprint for building a user-centered AI ecosystem.
In September, Pundi AI partnered with AI and metaverse company Futureverse, where both parties will build a full-chain layer for AI data on Pundi AIFX, allowing Futureverse creators and consumers to generate AI data tokens for their works and bringing the Futureverse and The Root Network communities into Pundi AIFX's SocialFi platform Purse+ to further promote the development of decentralized finance, metaverse payment solutions, and AI data innovation.
In October, Pundi AIFX announced a strategic partnership with Nubila Network, integrating Nubila's rich environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data into the Pundi AIData data platform to enhance the services Pundi AIFX provides to industries affected by climate change, such as agriculture, energy, and logistics. As Pundi AI's product features improve, more ecological collaborations are also in progress.
In addition to introducing quality projects to the ecosystem through partnerships, Pundi AI is also focused on implementing proactive ecological incentive measures to discover and nurture the next generation of pioneering AI projects and teams, as evidenced by the ongoing AI PitchFest event.
This event is co-hosted by Pundi AI, Woo Innovation Hub, and The Generative Beings, with an expert review team that includes Dr. Gulen Wei from Academia Sinica in Taiwan, Dr. Yi-Chieh Wu from National Chengchi University, Shivang Gupta, founder of The Generative Beings, Alex, head of AI business at Woo Innovation Hub, Ian Chong, Circle Developer Ecosystem Lead, and Zac Cheah, founder of Pundi AI. They evaluate the submitted projects based on innovation, market potential, scalability, and technical feasibility.
Once launched, the event received enthusiastic participation from multiple countries around the world. After multiple considerations and evaluations by the expert review team regarding market, technology, team, and project quality, six teams stood out and advanced to the final: ChemT Biotechnology, Cynthia Systems, OmniSkills Pte. Ltd., AI Square, KanjuTech, and IsCoolLab Co., Ltd.
Next, the six teams will continue to compete through online presentations, and the results will be announced after the finals. The winners will receive up to $100,000 in resource support and a six-month incubation program, during which they will enjoy professional mentorship, additional exposure opportunities in the ecosystem, introductions to industry resources, and comprehensive technical support to help their projects grow rapidly.
While multiple ecological initiatives are being advanced in an orderly manner, the technical product team is also set to achieve several breakthroughs in the coming months:
According to the roadmap released by Pundi AIFX, in the fourth quarter of 2024, the Pundi AIFX data layer will achieve connectivity with EVM or Cosmos-compatible chains, and the beta version of the Pundi AIData platform, the alpha version of the Pundi AI marketplace, and the data labeling tool beta version will be launched, introducing the "Tag-to-Earn" model.
By the first quarter of 2025, the highly anticipated AI marketplace and referral program will be launched, and the revenue pool and equity pool of the AI marketplace will also officially go live, providing users with a more complete data asset revenue experience. Additionally, the Pundi AIFX data layer will continue to strengthen ecological cooperation by connecting to more L1/L2 networks.
Conclusion
In today's digital wave, data is an eternal business.
After recognizing the pain points of AI development in terms of data, Pundi AI leverages its strong technical advantages, rich experience, and industry resources to provide users and developers with a lower threshold, lower costs, and higher returns for AI participation experiences, promoting the de-monopolization, transparency, and democratization of AI development.
After transforming data value into data assets, Pundi AI also offers innovative ideas on how to leverage data assets: based on community discussions, there is widespread anticipation for the upcoming Pump.fun-like mechanics for AI data asset tokens.
Indeed, from the perspective of project development, brand expansion is not an easy task; it requires choosing the right track while facing the challenge of innovating market perceptions of the project brand. As a decentralized project, it is crucial to maintain effective communication with the community. However, each cycle has its own market conditions and innovative narratives, and Pundi X, while maintaining the growth of its original crypto payment business, has incorporated the DeAI business into its ecological landscape. This is not only an effective way to attract the community, maintain activity, and establish long-term competitiveness but also has gained broad support from the community through governance by voting.
It is worth noting that based on a sophisticated decentralized AI framework, and addressing the development pain points in the data sector, Pundi AI may continue to focus on the computing power sector in the future. We have also seen the project's vision for a decentralized computing power market in its Gitbook. This signal of deepening based on the AI market, along with the orderly advancement of the transformation and the implementation of various roadmaps, may drive Pundi AI into the next stage of vigorous development in this cycle.
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