Fetch, Ocean, SingularityNET tokens merge into single ASI token with $7.6 billion market cap
The protocols explained that their merger would disrupt Big Tech's stronghold over AI development, utilization, and commercialization.
Three Artificial Intelligence (AI) protocols have confirmed a monumental $7.6 billion merger to establish the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, with the primary goal of advancing the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), according to a March 27 statement shared with CryptoSlate.
SingluarityNET (AGIX), Fetch.ai (FET), and Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) said they joined forces to create an expansive decentralized network that would challenge the dominance of major tech giants in AI.
Why AI protocols are merging
According to the alliance, the merger is driven by the rapid growth of AI and the substantial progress achieved by each of the three projects independently. By combining efforts, the alliance aims to create a robust decentralized AI infrastructure worldwide, accelerating investments in AGI development.
Consequently, the alliance is driven by two key objectives—expediting progress toward AGI and disrupting Big Tech’s stronghold over AI development, utilization, and commercialization.
Ben Goertzel, CEO of SingularityNET, emphasized the importance of safeguarding AGI and ASI against biased influences and highlighted the need for a network of tokens capable of challenging the dominance of Big Tech.
Goertzel said:
“[AGI and ASI] should be rolled out in an open, democratic and decentralized way. This has been the joint vision of SNET, Fetch.ai and Ocean Protocol from their inception, and for this reason, it makes total sense that our three projects come together to form a tokenomic network that has greater power to take on Big Tech and shift the center of gravity of the AI world into the decentralized ecosystem.”
Echoing these sentiments, Humayun Sheikh, the founder of Fetch.ai, highlighted the potential of the token merger to uphold ethical standards and transparency within AI and ultimately foster a more democratic and trustworthy AI ecosystem.
How the merger works
The three decentralized AI networks will merge their native tokens—FET, OCEAN, and AGIX—into a unified ASI token with an anticipated combined value of $7.6 billion.
Under these terms, FET will be rebranded as ASI, with a token supply of 2.63 billion. Notably, the native tokens of SingularityNET and Ocean Protocol would also be migrated to ASI, with conversion rates of 0.433350:1 and 0.433226:1, respectively.
Bruce Pon, Ocean Protocol CEO, said:
“The unified ASI token is the glue to orchestrate all actors with common incentives. ASI tokens are used to secure the public network, as data access tokens and to unlock computation without needing traditional banking and payment rails. It is the native currency for the machine economy.”
Meanwhile, the three platforms will maintain their independence while enhancing collaboration through the new initiative, overseen by a governing council. The governing council will have Humayun Sheikh from Fetch.ai as Chairman, Ben Goertzel from SingularityNET as the CEO, and Trent McConaghy and Bruce Pon from Ocean Protocol.
However, the formalization of this alliance hinges upon approval from the AI networks’ different communities through a voting process.
Goertzel added:
“The impact of [our proposed] system may greatly exceed what we’ve seen from significant LLMs and lead the global economy into a new era of beneficial decentralized AGI and ASI.”
All three tokens rallied on the initial news but have since retraced in line with Bitcoin’s decline below $70,000 as of press time. All three are up roughly 9 – 16% over the past 24 hours.
April 16 Update: Removed the previous reference that stated ASI would have a starting price of $2.82.