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

1. Project Introduction

1. Project Basic Information

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

The fundamental mission of the project is to provide 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 is committed to becoming the "Ethereum of the AI field," providing 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 an initial idea of creating exclusive "knowledge agents" for experts in different fields. Subsequently, the direction was adjusted to focus on the core element of "data", using Web3 incentive mechanisms to begin building an ecosystem.

Mid-2023: Completed a $6 million seed round financing led by Polychain Capital.

2024: Collaborating with big companies like Microsoft and Amazon to secure related orders.

August 2024: Official announcement of receiving $43 million in Series A funding led by Pantera, Binance Labs, and Polychain Capital.

Since the beginning of 2025: Continuously promoting the implementation of the platform's product matrix. On June 26, 2025, the official announcement stated that its AI Agent Builder and AI Marketplace have officially entered the public testing phase.

3. Core Issues and Solutions

The current centralized AI industry faces key pain points such as data silos, ambiguous model ownership, high innovation costs, and unfair value distribution. Sahara AI has proposed a blockchain-based systematic solution to address these challenges:

• Data and model monopoly: Establish a decentralized market that allows anyone to register and trade AI assets on the chain.
• Contributions are untraceable: Utilizing the immutability of blockchain, every contribution is recorded.
• High collaboration threshold: provides standardized development tools including a no-code AI Agent Builder.

4. Core Team Background

• Sean Ren (CEO): Professor of the University of Southern California, MIT TR35 Innovator.
• Tyler Zhou (COO): Former Investment Director of Binance Labs.
• Technical Team: Members come from Google Brain, Fetch.ai, Ocean Protocol, and hold multiple patents in distributed machine learning.

2. Business Model

1. Platform Architecture and Core Technology

Sahara AI adopts a hybrid blockchain architecture optimized for AI application scenarios, including:

• Four-layer structure: application layer, transaction layer, data layer, and execution layer.
• Hybrid Mode: Key metadata is recorded on-chain, while large datasets and AI models are stored off-chain.
• Core Main Chain: Developing its own Layer 1 blockchain Sahara Chain.
• Security Certification: Has passed SOC2 enterprise-level security and privacy certification.

2. Product Ecosystem

• Data Service Platform (DSP): Crowdsourced data labeling platform.
• Sahara Studio: One-stop development suite.
• AI Exchange: A bridge connecting data contributors, model developers, and users.
• Secure Execution Environment: Ensure the safe execution of AI tasks.

Currently, the platform has attracted over 200,000 global AI trainers, completing more than 3 million data annotation tasks.

3. Market Entry and Growth Strategy

• User acquisition strategy: Launch the "knowledge airdrop" program and testnet incentive activities.
• Brand and market strategy: Launch on multiple top-tier exchanges and appear in high-exposure channels.
• Ecological incubation strategy: establish a dedicated incubator to support AI startups developed based on its ecosystem.

4. $SAHARA token economic model

• Total supply: 10 billion
• Core Uses: Platform service payments, network security staking, governance voting, transaction fees, ecological contribution incentives
• Allocation Plan:
  • Community and Ecological Development (64.25%)
  • Core Contributors (15%)
  • Early supporters (19.75%)
  • Liquidity and Market Stability (1%)

The token successfully launched on major global exchanges such as Binance, OKX, and KuCoin in June 2025.

3. Project Prospects

1. Industry Analysis

The decentralized artificial intelligence market is expected to experience explosive growth. From approximately $2.5 billion in 2024, it is projected to exceed $80 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) expected to exceed 60%.

2. Competitive Landscape Analysis

The main competitors include Bittensor (TAO), Olas (OLAS), and Ritual. Sahara AI's full-stack solution constitutes its core competitive advantage.

3. Development Plan

Short-term (1-2 years):

• Optimize core technology architecture
• Promote the official launch of AI AgentBuilder and AI Marketplace
• Improve the incentive mechanism of the SAHARA token

Medium term (3-5 years):

• Achieve breakthroughs in cross-chain technology
• Build a globally leading Decentralization AI ecosystem
• Increase marketing efforts to enhance global influence.

Long-term (5 years or more):

• Become a leader in the Decentralization AI field
• Explore new application scenarios of AI and blockchain integration
• Promote 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 economics model is designed reasonably.

2. Valuation and Investment Recommendations

$SAHARA is listed with a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of approximately $6 billion, positioned at a high level in the DeAI sector.

Investment advice: Cautiously optimistic, accumulate on dips.

3. Outlook

Sahara AI has the potential to become the underlying operating system for the future decentralized intelligent economy. Its success will accelerate the popularization and democratization of AI technology, giving rise to new business models and application scenarios.