Sahara AI: Creating a "Decentralized Ethereum" in the AI Field

1. Project Introduction

1. Basic Project Information

Sahara AI is a full-stack, AI-native decentralized blockchain platform. Its core vision is to break the dominance of a few large tech companies in the field of artificial intelligence and to build an open AI collaborative economy driven by a global community, where contributions can be accurately traced and benefits can be fairly distributed.

The project is committed to providing transparent attribution, complete ownership control, and efficient on-chain monetization channels for AI assets (including datasets, models, and agents) through blockchain technology. Essentially, Sahara AI aims to become the "Ethereum of AI" by providing a secure and trustworthy underlying infrastructure for the next generation of decentralized AI applications, ultimately returning the ownership and value of data and AI innovations to every creator and contributor.

2. Project Development History

• Early 2023: The project officially launched, with the initial idea of creating a dedicated "knowledge agent" for experts in various fields.
• Mid 2023: Completed a $6 million seed round financing led by Polychain Capital.
• 2024: Collaborate with major companies like Microsoft and Amazon to secure relevant orders.
• August 2024: Secured $43 million in Series A funding led by Pantera, Binance Labs, and Polychain Capital.
• June 26, 2025: AI Agent Builder and AI Marketplace officially enter the public testing phase.

3. Core Issues and Solutions

Sahara AI has proposed a systematic solution based on blockchain to address the key pain points faced by the current centralized AI industry, such as data silos, ambiguous model ownership, high innovation costs, and unfair value distribution.

• Solve the data and model monopoly problem through Decentralization market
• Use the immutability of blockchain to solve the problem of untraceable contributions.
• Provide standardized development tools to lower the threshold for AI development

4. Core Team Background

• Sean Ren (CEO): Tenured Professor at the University of Southern California, MIT TR35 Innovator
• Tyler Zhou (COO): Former Investment Director of a certain exchange platform's laboratory
• Technical Team: Members from Google Brain, Fetch.ai, Ocean Protocol

2. Business Model

1. Platform Architecture and Core Technology

Sahara AI adopts a hybrid blockchain architecture optimized for AI application scenarios, consisting of four layers: application layer, transaction layer, data layer, and execution layer. Key metadata is recorded on-chain, while large-scale datasets and AI models are stored off-chain. The project is developing its own L1 blockchain, Sahara Chain, which is EVM-compatible and optimized for AI-related computations.

2. Product Ecosystem

• Data Service Platform (DSP): Crowdsourced Data Annotation Platform
• Sahara Studio: One-stop development kit
• AI Exchange: AI Asset Trading Platform
• Secure Execution Environment: Ensure secure execution of tasks and privacy protection

3. Market Entry and Growth Strategy

• User Acquisition: Launch "Knowledge Airdrop" program and testnet incentive activities.
• Brand and Market: Log in to multiple mainstream exchanges to increase market exposure.
• Ecological Incubation: Establish dedicated incubators to support AI startups based on its ecosystem.

4. $SAHARA Token Economic Model

• Total supply: 10 billion pieces
• Allocation Ratio: Community and Ecosystem Development 64.25%, Core Contributors 15%, Early Supporters 19.75%, Liquidity and Market Stability 1%
• Token Uses: Payment for platform services, staking to participate in network security, exercising governance rights, paying transaction fees, incentivizing ecosystem contributors

3. Project Prospects

1. Industry Analysis

Decentralized artificial intelligence is one of the most promising cross-disciplinary fields today, with growing market demand. The global decentralized AI market is expected to grow from approximately $2.5 billion in 2024 to over $80 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of over 60%.

2. Competitive Landscape Analysis

Main competitors include Bittensor (TAO), Olas (OLAS), and Ritual. Sahara AI's advantage lies in providing a full-stack solution, building a stronger ecological closed loop and network effects.

3. Development Plan

Short-term (1-2 years): Optimize the core technology architecture, improve SaharaStudio, and promote the launch of AI AgentBuilder and AI Marketplace. Medium-term (3-5 years): Achieve breakthroughs in cross-chain technology, build a globally leading decentralized AI ecosystem, and strengthen market promotion efforts. Long-term (over 5 years): Become a leader in the decentralized AI field, promoting the popularization and democratization of AI technology.

4. Summary

1. Core Conclusion

• Accurate positioning, grand vision
• Full-stack solutions constitute the core barrier.
• The team has strong capital strength.
• The token economic model is designed reasonably.

2. Valuation and Investment Recommendations

$SAHARA is listed with a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of approximately $6 billion, which is at a high level. It is recommended to be "cautiously optimistic and accumulate on dips". Long-term investors can gradually build positions during market corrections; conservative investors are advised to wait until the mainnet goes live and ecological data is verified before making decisions.

3. Outlook

Sahara AI has the potential to become the underlying operating system of the future decentralized intelligent economy. Its success will validate the feasibility of reconstructing AI production relations through Web3, accelerate the popularization and democratization of AI technology, and give rise to entirely new business models and application scenarios.