"Allora Project Analysis" Statement: This article is not broad, but aims to explore and analyze the project from multiple rational perspectives. A summary is provided at the end. 1️⃣ Project Positioning Allora's core positioning is as an infrastructure protocol for a decentralized AI model coordination network. It addresses a series of issues in the current AI model field, such as the "hallucination" phenomenon and low information efficiency. By optimally aggregating the outputs of multiple models, it continuously produces intelligent results that surpass any single model, providing context-aware intelligent services, also known as the "inference synthesis" mechanism. Here, I will briefly explain the "hallucination" phenomenon, which still frequently occurs in most AI models today. Specifically, it refers to the situation where an AI model "fabricates" or "spouts nonsense" to complete a task, making it seem real when it is actually false. For example: You ask an AI model: "What paper did Einstein publish in 2000?" The AI responds: "He published the paper 'Spacetime Distortion and Quantum Gravity' in 2000." However, the actual situation is: Einstein passed away in 1955, so it was impossible for him to publish a paper in 2000. 2️⃣ Team Background The overall background of the team is decent; core members generally have 6-7 years of industry experience and cover several well-known projects. However, there has been a wave of personnel changes. ➣ Nick Emmons @nick_emmons, Co-founder and CEO. Previously, he was the Chief Blockchain Engineer at the century-old American life insurance giant John Hancock, and then started the Allora venture in 2019. ➣ Bryn Bellomy, Co-founder and CTO. Former core development lead at Chainlink and founder of ConsenSys Venture Studio. ➣ Seena Foroutan @SeenaForoutan, Chief Business Officer. Previously served as Global Head of GTM and Global Head of BD at Coinbase and Chainlink for three years each. In addition to Allora, he is also the chairman of a consulting firm that has served several well-known projects such as LayerZero, Ondo, Nillion, and Eclipse. ➣ Diederik Kruijssen, Research Lead. Formerly one of the most cited astrophysicists in the world and CDO of @Nabu (over 270 peer-reviewed publications; over 14,000 citations). ➣ Tayeb Kenzari, Marketing Lead. Previously responsible for marketing at WIF @dogwifcoin, account supervisor at design firm R/GA @RGA, account supervisor at creative agency Wunderman Thompson @vml_global, and account supervisor at brand marketing firm Razorfish @WeAreRazorfish. He is also the founder and advisor of a strategic growth company, with a majority of Web2 experience. ➣ Francis Kang @DeGeneralissimo, Head of Asia-Pacific. Formerly the head of Berachain in Korea and the conference head of Korea Blockchain Week. ➣ Michael Zacharski, Marketing Lead. Previously the BD lead at Chainlink and @Ten-X BD. 3️⃣ Financing Situation Currently, four rounds of financing have been publicly disclosed, totaling $33.76 million. ➣ The first seed round raised $1.26 million, led by Blockchain Capital. ➣ The second round raised $7.5 million, led by Framework Ventures, CoinFund, and Blockchain Capital, along with several angel investors such as Aave co-founder Stani Kulechov, Synthetic founder Kain Warwick, and Messari founder Ryan Selkis. ➣ The third round raised $22 million, led by Polychain. ➣ The fourth strategic round raised $3 million, with participation from Archetype, CMS Holdings, Delphi Digital, ID Theory, and DCF GCD. ➣ Notably, Delphi Digital participated in all three previous rounds, while Framework Venture, CoinFund, Blockchain Capital, Mechanism Capital, CMS Holdings, and Slow Ventures participated in two rounds. ➣ It is important to note that the first three rounds of financing were obtained in the previous cycle, while the latest strategic financing was obtained in 2024. ———— The following content is purely personal speculation ———— Based on this, we can conclude: ➣ The high overlap of investors in multiple rounds indicates that institutions were optimistic about the project or team at the time. After all, only those who are optimistic will bet multiple times. ➣ Considering the team background and project positioning, it seems that the project has pivoted from other directions to the current AI field, which is likely the main reason for seeking further financing in 2024. ➣ A comparable benchmark in this field would be Bittensor @opentensor and Delysium @The_Delysium. The former peaked at a $15 billion FDV, currently at $9 billion FDV; the latter peaked at a $2 billion FDV, currently at $160 million FDV. ———— The following content is purely personal speculation ———— 4️⃣ Related Data and Participation Methods As of May, the Allora testnet has generated over 692 million intelligent inferences, with over 288,000 participating models covering more than 55 active task themes. Currently, there are two ways to participate in Allora: ➣ Participate in testnet activities, such as creating dialogues, introducing new ML models into the network, and interacting with other integrated projects. ➣ Actively participate in community activities, including tweeting, community chatting, etc. Currently, Allora has partnered with Kaito, but specific incentive shares have not yet been announced. However, the official Twitter will regularly announce the Top 10 yappers each week. 5️⃣ Overall Evaluation Personally, I believe the project's speculative value is greater than its practical value, with cashing out as the main goal, and I do not recommend being overly ambitious. From a narrative positioning perspective, it belongs to the Crypto AI infrastructure, aligning with the current mainstream market trends. Moreover, the valuation and imagination of infrastructure projects are generally much higher than those of application protocols. From the team background perspective, although their work experience is decent, the team overall lacks AI-related experience and has undergone personnel changes. Coupled with the long interval between the fourth round of financing, there is a possibility that the original project has pivoted from an application protocol to the current AI infrastructure protocol. From the financing perspective, the deep support and multiple participations from several leading VC firms in Europe and the US indirectly indicate that the project has unique advantages or resources, which will provide certain bargaining power in future processes. Of course, it is also possible that the previous project did not perform well, and under the pressure to deliver results, it pivoted to the AI direction to enhance valuation and imaginative space. Finally, the project has been in development since 2019 and has yet to undergo TGE. Considering the current market heat and the recent actions of the project team, such as focusing on the weekly Top 10 yapper, it is highly likely that TGE will occur within this year, with a certain possibility of happening within the next month.