Author: Yash Agarwal, Founder of SendAI

Compiled by: Felix, PANews

On December 11, Solana announced the launch of the first Solana AI Hackathon, aimed at building AI agents and tools on Solana, supported by SEND AI. Prizes range from $5,000 to $30,000, designed to encourage serious Crypto x AI projects that can attract venture capital or launch their own tokens. Submissions opened on December 15, where project teams can provide all project details, including GitHub repositories, a 2-minute demo/pitch video, a 10-page pitch document, and more.

The Solana AI Hackathon has been highly sought after, even leading to a phenomenon of token FOMO. SendAI founder Yash Agarwal criticized this phenomenon in a post, and below is the full content.

When we launched this hackathon, we had a simple vision: to make Solana the AI chain and grow it tenfold.

The hackathon is the best opportunity to achieve this goal—bringing everyone together to participate in Crypto x AI Agents, which I personally have high hopes for.

In the past month, it can be said that the "Solana AI Hackathon" has not only become a signature event but has completely changed the landscape of Solana Agents. Completing over 400 projects in 15 days is no easy feat, and my team and I are proud of our contribution to adding $500 million to $1 billion in market value for Solana AI.

Of course, at the beginning, due to this strange Crypto x AI Agent, I had a premonition that there would be related tokens released. And if builders use tokens as a means of capital accumulation to build excellent products, that is completely acceptable. All 8 tracks were carefully designed to encourage truly useful Agents.

But at that time, I did not know that this would become a playground for degens. From the data, the hackathon had only over 40,000 visitors in one week. Now, every day, 2-3 hackathon projects are quickly reaching a market cap of $50 million, with a cumulative value exceeding $500 million. The Solana AI Hackathon has inadvertently become a platform for discovering AI tokens.

Current Situation

• Submit projects in the hackathon and appear in the Solana AI Hackathon project directory, using Solana AI Hackathon/SendAI to enhance credibility.
• Launch tokens → targeted/promoted by whales and KOLs → generate hype, securing $5-50 million in startup funding.
• In the eyes of degens, early involvement in hackathon projects can yield potential hundredfold returns, making the hackathon a perfect investment playground.

Nothing surprising—typical power law-driven speculation.

While I am pleased to see some builders launch tokens and use them as a means of capital accumulation, like any previous hot narrative, there is now too much bubble.

While this is closer to a fair launch (similar to ICOs)—it is not the best direction forward.

Builders Becoming Blind

Over-tokenization has made builders short-sighted and blind.

Currently, 90% of Crypto x AI projects are like cat/dog meme coins; if this is fully understood, that’s fine, but many projects hype their tokens as "utility tokens," which is outright deception.

This phenomenon may cause long-term harm to genuine builders (especially those with weaker capabilities)—they are now forced to be short-sighted.

Most agent/infrastructure projects have found that tokens are the best way to gain attention: issue tokens → agents/frameworks go "viral" (but without users) → token prices rise → everyone is happy.

Many projects simply release announcements or demos (even with a market cap exceeding $200 million) to please the audience, then whales/conspiracy groups hype it to retail investors as "excellent technology."

Many developers know their products are not scalable or viable in practice, so they just keep doing demos or casually release "X X Y" announcements. They should be talking about some real-time, scalable, truly on-chain and Agent products.

Conspiracy Groups/Whales/KOLs are Bad VCs Without a Reputation Burden

Conspiracy groups and whale players have made this game very dirty: they fabricate stories ("supported by XX"—just a simple retweet or casually saying "the technology is great") to seize market supply or persuade builders to allocate tokens and pump, promoting it in their degens groups, then continue to sell (or will eventually sell), harming retail investors and builders.

Remember, due to pump launches, most tokens have no lock-up restrictions.

Advice for Builders

Do not issue tokens just for the sake of issuing them—especially if you do not own a significant portion of the tokens. If you own less than 5% of the tokens—once the price starts to drop, you will have no motivation to continue building.

Even if the token rises in the short term, you may quickly profit from issuing tokens worth $50 million to $100 million, but once the price adjusts, you will have no motivation to build—while a group of poor token holders hope you continue building because they have been brainwashed by some conspiracy groups into thinking this is "amazing technology."

Tokens are technically an asset, but emotionally they are also a huge liability. Issuing tokens is easy, but after managing tokens for the past 6 months and experiencing all these downturns, I can tell you: managing tokens is not fun. Tokens themselves are a huge product that needs management.

When prices drop, these communities, KOLs, or conspiracy groups will not help you at all—you are alone. They may even mock or criticize you.

Issuing tokens and raising funds for building is certainly completely fine, just don’t rush to issue tokens if you are not prepared.

Think longer term, ask yourself: "Even if the token market cap is below $500,000, will you still develop it in the next 6 months?"

If the answer is yes, then issue the token. Appropriately allocate it to the team upon issuance, if needed— as a complete builder, you have every right to accumulate long-term wealth for your project, rather than for random conspiracy groups or whale players.

For hackathon builders who have already issued tokens but lack foresight—good luck managing, and we can discuss again in 6 months.

I will not name anyone here, but here is a good example:

Umang developed Cleopetra in this hackathon, an Agent aimed at improving the LP experience to solve a real problem: enhancing the LP experience. There are currently no plans to launch a token, but he is being harassed daily by degens with fake tokens and requests to disclose CA.

If you are a short-sighted weak builder, becoming a victim of these degens and issuing tokens, honestly, I will not respect you as a builder. No matter if your token market cap rises to $100 million or $500 million, I will call you out when the time comes.

If you have not launched a token, how should you address this issue?

Stay strong, write "No Token" in your Twitter (X) bio, never hint at issuing a token, and keep building. There is really nothing you can do about fake token issuances—fighting against them is useless. If someone buys in without any research, they deserve to lose—ignore them (block them if they DM you).

To KOLs and Degens

To KOLs, please be responsible for what you promote—especially tokens. Guide builders well, and do not fall into the trap of quick token distribution or influence. When prices drop, you also won’t want to be seen as a scammer.

Degens may apply to everyone—do not FOMO buy something you do not understand or even want to understand just because your favorite KOL shills it. You will ultimately be the loser in all of this because you are chasing "quick money."

Hackathon Results

Many well-known industry figures have contacted me, asking for:

• A list of tokens or preferences
• The date of the hackathon results
• Even the hackathon results

At least 50+ DMs, some even offering bribes/token allocation schemes.

I’m sorry, but I will not disclose the exact end date and final results to anyone (including judges, each judge has a separate form) before the official announcement.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

When we decided to start this hackathon, we did not receive any funding or support from anyone—everything was filled with hard work and tears, driven by an intrinsic passion to grow Solana AI tenfold. SendAI was established after the Solana AI Hackathon—we took this bet, and the results have been very good.

At this point, we want to take ethics seriously and do our utmost to be honest—regardless of who you are.

To reduce speculation, we also made a tough decision to cancel the demo day and announce the results directly through Solana or SendAI. Developers need not worry; there will be more exciting events than demo day afterward.

What’s Next?

To be honest, I still do not know what the best solution is regarding capital structure and token issuance issues. However, I hope to come up with something—I will also think about it in my spare time. This is a recent issue (less than a month), so it is still too early to solve this problem.

In any case, I am very optimistic about Crypto x AI Agents; this is definitely a field worth over $100 billion. SendAI, the Solana AI Hackathon, and the Solana Agent toolkit are all completely autonomous public products, delivered within the past month. The market is not even ready for what we are about to do next.

When my brain told me to wait for the results to come out before publishing this article, I followed my heart and published it now. From the industry perspective, we need to speak out loudly, or we will soon see a major disaster.

May everything go smoothly. The casino continues to exist. The house always wins…

The above is entirely personal opinion and does not represent anyone else. Non-financial advice. I will definitely write a positive outlook on Crypto x AI Agents on another day, but will not recommend any tokens.

Related reading: A Quick Overview of 12 Quality Projects from the Solana AI Hackathon

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。