Today, the on-chain market is extremely hot.
As expected, the VC market and meme market are rotating.
While it's important to make money from memes, we can't neglect VC projects.
We need to keep up with the research that needs to be followed up on.
Currently, I am following three AI projects:
@GoKiteAI @SentientAGI and @irys_xyz
In today's article, I will discuss the differences between these AI projects in the web3 space,
and whether they will compete with each other.
Irys, KiteAI, and Sentient are all essentially working on the integration of AI and blockchain, but their directions differ. Irys focuses on data, KiteAI specializes in payment and interaction for AI agents, while Sentient aims to create an open-source AI network.
They all belong to the category of infrastructure projects, but their goals and user groups are different.
Irys aims to solve the problem of data being on-chain but not usable, allowing data to execute logic directly for AI and smart contracts.
KiteAI focuses on enabling AI agents to make payments, trade, and communicate independently, emphasizing safer and more efficient interactions between agents.
Sentient wants everyone to participate in the construction, improvement, and profit distribution of open-source AI models.
From a technical perspective:
Irys is a Layer-1 optimized for data, high-performance, low-cost, and capable of executing data logic directly.
KiteAI is an EVM-compatible chain that integrates payment and identity modules, making it easy for developers to quickly build agent applications.
Sentient resembles a decentralized platform that allows models to collaborate and monetize on the GRID network.
Irys is suitable for projects requiring large-scale storage, such as AI training data, DePIN, and NFTs.
KiteAI targets developers and regular users, supporting various automated trading for AI agents.
Sentient primarily targets the open-source developer community for collaborative AI model building.
In terms of financing and economic models:
Irys's token is mainly used for paying storage and computing fees. Its investors are quite strong, including CoinFund, Framework, Lemniscap, Hypersphere, and Permanent Ventures.
Most of these institutions have invested in infrastructure projects like Solana, Chainlink, Avalanche, and Arweave, and have rich experience in supporting tech projects, as well as resources to help connect it with ecosystems and developers.
KiteAI rewards data providers and developers with tokens, and its model is relatively lightweight.
Sentient's token design revolves around model profit sharing, allowing users and developers to participate in the economic cycle.
If you are interested in AI infrastructure, you should pay special attention to Irys. If you are looking at agent economy or payment direction, KiteAI is worth noting. And if you support open-source AI, then Sentient would be more suitable.
Let's take a brief look at the background of @irys_xyz's team and investment team.
The Irys team actually has a story; it didn't just emerge out of nowhere as a new chain, but evolved from Bundlr Network.
Bundlr was already the largest upload protocol on Arweave from 2021 to 2024, helping thousands of projects achieve permanent storage, with over 1 billion data transactions.
The core figure of this project, Josh Benaron (CEO), was an early contributor to Arweave and has long researched the underlying logic of long-term data preservation and verification. He can be considered one of the earliest in the industry to realize that data not only needs to be stored but also needs to be usable.
CTO Dan Greer comes from a security engineering background and previously led a centralized infrastructure team, particularly familiar with on-chain data integrity and the architecture of hybrid PoW/PoS consensus.
The team currently has over 40 members, distributed across the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia, with local community teams in China and South Korea. This also explains why they have been so exposed at KBW.
In addition to the team members, the investment team behind them is also very important; in a sense, the investment team is the invisible driving force of a project.
1. CoinFund — A mix of old money and tech-savvy in Web3
CoinFund is the lead investor in Irys's Series A round and has invested early in Solana.
Their style is to "invest early and invest in technology fundamentals," focusing on supporting projects that can reshape the underlying logic.
The reason they backed Solana back then is very similar to Irys: high performance, low cost, and developer-oriented.
CoinFund's involvement indicates that Irys is not just a storage project but is seen as the "new foundation" for the future Web3 data layer.
Their post-investment team is very skilled at connecting with developer ecosystems, KOL networks, and even assisting in designing token economic models.
2. Framework Ventures — The gold standard for DeFi and infrastructure
Framework is a well-known old-school fund familiar to many OGs.
They excel at turning underlying technology into application flywheels.
Having their support means that Irys's programmable data may integrate more deeply with DeFi in the future, such as potential plays like data staking or data royalty monetization.
The Framework team has the experience to make these things work.
Additionally, their research department often produces very forward-looking reports, like "Data as Collateral," which can help pave the narrative path for Irys on a discursive level.
3. Lemniscap — The market rhythm and liquidity orchestrator
Lemniscap is a top European crypto fund.
Their strengths lie in strategic layout and liquidity guidance.
Many chains experience sudden acceleration in community growth and liquidity supply after Lemniscap enters.
They know how to set the rhythm, when to launch community tasks, when to roll out exchanges, and when to release TGE news. These elements are crucial for a project like Irys that is about to enter the mainnet.
You can think of Lemniscap not just as a financial backer but more like a rhythm director.
4. Hypersphere Ventures — Old money from the Polkadot ecosystem + cross-chain ecological resources
Hypersphere is a fund co-founded by Robert Habermeier, a co-founder of Polkadot, and focuses on infrastructure and interoperability.
Irys has their endorsement, indicating that its layout in cross-chain data interaction is valued,
especially in the data bridging aspects with Arweave, Ethereum, and Solana. The engineering team at Hypersphere often directly intervenes in project optimization, assisting in the development of cross-chain SDKs, node validation, and other underlying technical guidance.
For Irys, this is a form of engineering-level investment.
5. Permanent Ventures — The evangelists of the permanent storage narrative
Permanent Ventures has a very clear investment style:
Focusing on long-term storage and anti-censorship technology,
they have invested in projects like KYVE. This fund is one of the earliest institutions to bet that data should not disappear.
They value Irys's combination of permanent storage and programmable logic,
which is precisely the upgrade point that Arweave did not solve back in the day.
The addition of Permanent effectively pulls Irys into the core circle of the "data permanence faction," ensuring that both technological inheritance and ecological extension have a solid foundation.
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