🔆Reconstructing the Underlying Cornerstone of the AI Era: @SaharaLabsAI — Web3 AI Native Operating System Research
In the current wave of integration between Web3 and AI, most projects remain trapped in conceptual narratives and lack substantial infrastructure. Sahara's groundbreaking significance lies in its construction of a complete AI native blockchain operating system for the first time, fundamentally reconstructing the flow of data, models, and value.
1. Structural Opportunities
AI technology is triggering a dramatic change in pricing models, but Web3 faces a core contradiction: the market urgently needs blockchain-level infrastructure that supports the entire lifecycle of AI, while existing public chains are still focused on optimizing transaction efficiency and cannot solve the three unique challenges of AI — trusted execution, asset confirmation, and value distribution.
This is precisely the design origin of the Sahara protocol targeting industry pain points: providing full-stack support for AI assets from creation, verification to transaction through a dual-layer architecture of an AI dedicated Layer1 blockchain + off-chain execution protocol.
2. Moat Advantages
Sahara has successfully run a full link closed loop of “data-model-application-incentive,” forming the three core components of the ecosystem:
Data Service Platform DSP: Connecting 200,000 annotators with over 40 top enterprise clients such as Microsoft/Amazon/MIT, achieving on-chain confirmation and instant settlement of data contributions. For example, MyShell, which was recently supported, improved model accuracy through customized datasets and gave back to the annotators.
AI Developer Platform: Providing a no-code toolchain that supports developers to deploy AI Agents in 10 minutes, significantly lowering the development threshold.
Upcoming AI Asset Market: The first decentralized trading market for models, datasets, and Agents, using a revenue-sharing mechanism to enable contributors to earn long-term benefits.
3. Underestimated Architecture
Compared to Bittensor (whose FDV once exceeded 10 billion), Sahara's core architectural differences lie in:
1. Native AI Layer: An EVM-compatible chain specifically designed for AI scenarios, managing asset registration/authorization/allocation through smart contracts. It also improves cross-chain compatibility, with the protocol deployable on EVM/Sol/Sui public chains and connected to Web2 systems via API, serving as a key gateway for AI services.
2. Off-chain Trusted Execution: TEE environment generates verifiable proofs, resolving the contradiction between complex computations processed off-chain and verification on-chain.
3. Value Distribution: Model/dataset ownership proof ensures sustainable earnings for contributors through assetization.
4. Valuation Logic
After the launch of buidlpad, the most discussed topic is whether the 600M valuation is expensive.
To be honest, it is not cheap. It's certainly impossible for a small AI project to launch and immediately achieve dozens of times returns like virtual projects. However, as an investment, it is worthwhile. Why?
1. The project has entered an accelerated growth phase, with over 3.2 million on-chain accounts on the SIWA testnet within two months and daily active users reaching 1.4 million. Once the mainnet launches with the introduction of the native token, the growth flywheel will be activated.
2. The business model has dual barriers: on the enterprise side, a service capacity validated with tens of millions of dollars in revenue, with clients including academic institutions and tech giants; on the user side, data annotators enter the AI value chain through contributions and can earn passive income through the asset market in the future.
Referring to Solana's path from technical infrastructure to ecosystem explosion, Sahara's current IDO valuation is still in a value lowland: it has a real business model support and occupies an AI operating system-level ecological position.
5. Team Background
Founder Sean Ren is the youngest computer professor at USC, leading the INK Lab, and Tyler Zhou is the former investment director of Binance Labs, raising 43M. Technology and finance are the best combination for the strategic depth of Web3 projects, endowing the project with the unique dual genes of Web3: top AI academic resources and a crypto capital network.
This also explains why Sahara can gain the trust of both Web2 giants and core Web3 developers, becoming one of the few projects bridging resources from both realms. The reason why the IDO is held on buidlpad is that buidlpad is created by former Binance executives and backed by Nomad Capital; the previous project Solayer was also a high-multiple benefit project.
In summary, while the industry is obsessed with packaging AI concepts, Sahara is reconstructing AI production relationships with the posture of an infrastructure behemoth.
It is not only about the premium of a complete architecture but also about establishing a decentralized AI economic system: whether developers, annotators, or investors can share the AI growth dividends through their contributions. With the launch of the AI Marketplace and the expansion of cross-chain ecosystems, Sahara is expected to replicate the value leap from infrastructure to ecosystem explosion seen in early public chains.
