Ocean Protocol Withdraws from AI Crypto Alliance, Sparks 10% Gain for Token

Artificial Intelligence (AI) crypto project Ocean Protocol has withdrawn from the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI). The Ocean Protocol Foundation announced the withdrawal today, noting that focus will now be on building its own ecosystem.

The ASI Alliance was formed in March 2024 by three blockchain-based projects, including Fetch.ai and Singularity.net. Its goal was to promote collaboration and decentralized AI, and a fourth member, Cudos, joined in September 2024. The Alliance also agreed to merge tokens by swapping to Fetch.ai FET

Ocean Protocol Announcement Silent on Reason for Withdrawal

Interestingly, the official announcement from Ocean Protocol did not specify why the project is leaving the group. It only stated that the alliance is voluntary, and the project has played its part in facilitating the integration of technology with other members.

It said:

The sudden and immediate nature of the withdrawal has led to speculations about internal disagreements among ASI members. Reactions to the exit have been mixed so far.

While some people praise the Ocean Protocol for its departure, others criticize it. Some users believe that Ocean Protocol, which focuses on decentralized data infrastructure, did not contribute enough to the ASI ecosystem.

Still, some view the entire merger as a pointless endeavour that ultimately damaged all connected projects. Since the merger, FET, which is the adopted uniform token, has fallen significantly, while the other AI crypto tokens, AGIX and OCEAN, have also declined.

However, the poor performance is not peculiar as AI crypto tokens in general have lost value this year. Other AI tokens, such as NEAR, RNDR, TAO, FIL, and ICP, have also seen a fall of between 30% and 60% year-to-date.

Meanwhile, ASI has responded that the withdrawal does not affect the technology stack. It noted that alignment is critical in any partnership and transitions are natural.

It wrote:

However, the FET token is down 11.59% in the last 24 hours, showing that holders are already impacted. FET has been struggling for most of this year, down 62.45% year-to-date. The token is 85% below the peak it reached in March 2024.

OCEAN Soars 10% on News of Withdrawal as AI Crypto Tokens Tank

While FET has fallen by more than 10% today, the Ocean protocol native token, OCEAN, has gained over 10%. Although 81% of the token supply has been converted to FET, 37,334 addresses still hold 270 million OCEAN tokens yet to be converted.

OCEAN performance stands out on a day when other AI crypto tokens have fallen in value. According to CoinMarketCap, the average price of tokens in the AI & Big Data sector is down 5% today.

The surge in OCEAN is likely due to the plans that the protocol claims to have. It stated that it has secured funding for new developments, and a portion of the profits will be used towards OCEAN buybacks to reduce its supply.

As for holders who have bridged to FET, the protocol stated that they can choose to keep FET. If not, they will have to swap FET for OCEAN on some exchanges that still list the token. This includes Coinbase, Kraken, UpBit, Binance US, Uniswap, and SushiSwap.

Interestingly, many have also criticized Ocean Protocol for requiring holders to convert to FET and then leaving them with no options. One user described it as a giant waste of time, noting they have lost trust in the protocol.

Still, many are pleased with the return to OCEAN. Some users claim they will now reconsider the project and look forward to seeing exchanges relist the token.