Nvidia's latest earnings report has sent shockwaves through the AI crypto sector. The chip giant posted impressive numbers. But it wasn't enough to satisfy investors' lofty expectations. Major AI-related cryptocurrencies took a nosedive following the release. Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET) plummeted 7.8% to $1.1663. Bittensor (TAO) dropped 4.5% to $295.22. Render (RNDR) slid 6.8% to $5.47. Nvidia reported a whopping $30 billion in revenue for Q2 2024. This marked a 15% jump from the previous quarter. It also beat Wall Street estimates by $1.32 billion. But apparently, that wasn't good enough. Market commentator Lisa Abramowicz summed it up on X: "Better-than-expected doesn't cut it for Nvidia. Evidently, investors expect this company to blow away expectations." Some analysts had predicted Nvidia would smash estimates by at least 10%. Talk about high hopes. Nvidia's stock price felt the heat too. It closed at $125.61 on August 28. In after-hours trading, it tumbled another 6.89% to $116.95. This isn't the first time AI crypto tokens have been tied to Nvidia's performance. It's become a bit of a pattern. Some crypto folks saw it coming. One X user named "Shogun" called it days before: "You might catch gains being long until a day before, but I'd bet you're better off shorting for the dump after." Nvidia's chips are the backbone of AI model training and deployment. After its Q1 earnings in May, AI crypto tokens took a similar hit. This was despite Nvidia's Q1 revenue jumping 18% from the previous quarter. Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow weighed in: "The very lofty estimates were very lofty indeed." But he's not all doom and gloom. "The story is still intact. There is no demand issue here. Basically, the cloud computing providers, the hyperscalers we call them, that run datacenters, continue to spend on Nvidia's product." This latest drama comes on the heels of a wild ride for AI and big data crypto projects. Their market cap surged by 79.7% in just three weeks after "Crypto Black Monday" on August 5. That day saw Bitcoin dip below $50,000 for the first time since February. AI crypto's total market cap had hit a yearly low of $18.21 billion around that time. Talk about a rollercoaster.

AI startups are teaming up to run their services on blockchains. They're betting on decentralized tech to solve AI's development woes. This trend follows a big-money merger between Fetch.ai, SingularityNET and Ocean Protocol. The trio aims to challenge tech giants' AI dominance. Now, more players are jumping on the bandwagon. Lumerin, Morpheus and Exabits are the latest to join forces. Their goal? To build an "AI agent economy" powered by decentralized computing resources. Morpheus connects users with AI services and computing power. Lumerin manages data flow across the Morpheus network. It's also behind the core node software. Exabits provides the hardware muscle. It's a base-layer protocol for decentralized AI computing. This setup could revolutionize AI's future. The companies envision AI agents performing tasks across Web2 and Web3 ecosystems. "We're moving into a new paradigm of autonomous economies," says Ryan Condron, Lumerin's project leader. He's pretty stoked about the potential. The blockchain AI market is set to explode. Forecasts project growth to $703 million by 2025. That's a 25.3% compound annual growth rate. MIT researchers highlight issues in AI development. These include limited data access, inflexible models, and lack of transparency. "Centralized AI models are more prone to inherent biases," Lumerin claims. They also increase censorship and monopoly risks. Decentralized AI could boost privacy. User context wouldn't be stored by big players like ChatGPT or Gemini. But it's not all smooth sailing. Startups in this field face time and talent crunches. Condron admits the challenges. "Open-source software development for a decentralized network is very, very different," he says. Coordination and cohesiveness are tough nuts to crack. Doug Keeney, Exabits' CMO, is bullish on independent AI. "Owning our intelligence requires a decentralized approach," he argues. The race is on. These young guns are shaking up the AI world. Will they succeed in taking on the tech giants? Only time will tell.

Grayscale Investments is rolling out a new fund. It's called the Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund and it aims to give accredited investors exposure to blockchain-AI protocols. For now, only eligible accredited investors can access the fund. Grayscale announced this in a press release. The fund focuses on decentralized AI crypto protocols. As of July 16, it includes five assets. Near (NEAR) makes up 32.99%. Filecoin (FIL) accounts for 30.59%. Render (RNDR) takes 24.86%. Livepeer (LPT) has 8.64%. Bittensor (TAO) rounds it out with 2.92%. The fund will rebalance quarterly. This is to keep up with the fast-moving crypto market. Grayscale is targeting three main categories with this fund. These include protocols building decentralized AI services. Also, those addressing centralized AI problems. Lastly, infrastructure crucial for AI tech development. Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, Grayscale's Head of Product & Research, chimed in. "The blockchain-based AI protocols embody the principles of decentralization, accessibility, and transparency," she said. "The Grayscale team feels strongly that these protocols can help mitigate the fundamental risks emerging alongside the proliferation of AI technology." This launch comes as interest in decentralized AI alternatives grows. Last month, Nvidia's better-than-expected earnings gave decentralized AI projects a boost. Venture capital is still flowing into these projects, albeit slower than last year's AI boom. Earlier this month, Sentient raised $85 million. Peter Thiel's Founders Fund led the round. Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal is a core contributor to Sentient. Nailwal had some thoughts on AI's future. "The rapid advancement of AI has the potential to transform every aspect of our lives," he said. "But the concentration of power in the hands of a few centralized entities poses significant risks." He added, "By building an open platform for AGI development, we aim to ensure that the benefits of AI are distributed equitably and that its development aligns with the interests of humanity as a whole."

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino suggests localized AI models as a solution to prevent hacks in blockchain. Ardoino argues that locally executable AI models are capable of protecting privacy and independence. Modern devices have sufficient power for this approach, according to Ardoino. He stated, "Smartphones and laptops can fine tune general large language models (LLMs) with user's own data, preserving enhancements locally to the device." Ardoino described this as a "paradigm shift" in user privacy and independence. "By running directly on the user's device, be it a smartphone or laptop, these models eliminate the need for third-party servers. This not only ensures that data stays local, enhancing security and privacy, but also allows for offline use," Ardoino said. Tether's boss also emphasized that users could maintain control over their information. According to him, Tether, issuer of the leading stablecoin USDT, is exploring the integration of locally executable models into its AI solutions. The proposal follows a hack at OpenAI. Reports indicate a hacker accessed OpenAI's internal messaging systems in early 2023 and compromised details of the company's AI design. That was before ChatGPT was launched to a massive success. And that was not the only security scandal around security issues with the most successful AI company. Recently, ChatGPT conversations of macOS users were found to be stored in unencrypted plain-text files. That was a huge deal, as many users share very sensitive information on those chats, including their own private financial data and work info. Apple recently announced plans to integrate ChatGPT with its "Apple Intelligence" AI-powered products. The encryption issue has reportedly been resolved. However, questions remain about why it occurred.

Coinbase, the U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, has announced it will not execute the upcoming token migration for the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI). Users will need to manage the process themselves. The ASI is a consortium of AI-focused blockchain companies: Ocean Protocol, Fetch AI, and SingularityNET. In April, they revealed plans to merge their tokens—OCEAN, FET, and AGIX. "Coinbase will not migrate these tokens on behalf of users," a company spokesperson told the press. Users can migrate OCEAN and FET to ASI using Coinbase Prime Web3 wallet or another Ethereum-compatible self-custody wallet. The exchange does not support AGIX. Trading support for FET and OCEAN will continue "until further notice". Coinbase's decision will not affect the merger, according to Fetch AI founder and CEO Humayun Sheikh. "We confirm that the merger of AGIX and OCEAN into FET will occur on Monday, July 1st," Sheikh stated. FET will become the official ASI token as OCEAN and AGIX are phased out. "This transition will be seamless, and FET trading will remain uninterrupted," the alliance said in a statement. The token will be renamed. "The project will rebrand to the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance across platforms like CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko." Not all exchanges will support the migration immediately. The alliance plans to integrate more exchanges in Phase 2 of the migration, but we will have to wait and see how soon and efficient that process will be. This is not Coinbase's first refusal to support token actions. In May, it declined to support Gala Games' V2 token airdrop. When that happened, Jason Brink, Gala Games' President of Blockchain, speculated that Coinbase's stance might be due to the event appearing as an "airdrop" rather than a token replacement. He also expressed hope for future support of the V2 token.