A16z Invests in Blockchain AI Project Positioned as Bitcoin Alternative

The Ambient network project, positioned as an alternative to the leading cryptocurrency, has attracted $7.2 million from a16z, Delphi Digital, and Amber Group, according to CoinDesk.

The blockchain aims to provide “superintelligent AI” quickly, cheaply, and openly.

Ambient co-founder Travis Good is convinced that Bitcoin’s encryption mechanisms are “becoming obsolete” and may “completely lose relevance within five years.” This, in turn, creates a business challenge for miners.

“You have those who have invested billions of dollars in hashrate. The question arises, what to do with it?” the entrepreneur stated.

Ambient responds to this challenge with “deep AI capabilities.” Good sees it as a “decentralized competitor to OpenAI.” 

The network uses the Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm.

Many crypto projects are attempting to combine blockchain and AI, believing that decentralized crowdsourcing can direct artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity better than private corporations.

Ambient integrates AI at its core, unlike market leader Bittensor, which does not run models on the blockchain.

Will Bitcoin miners — let alone users — support a radically new and different network? Most likely, the answer to this question depends on the economic success of Ambient, as noted by CoinDesk.

The project aims to deliver superintelligent AI quickly, cheaply, and openly, “so that users receive the answers they paid for.”

Ambient’s security is akin to the digital gold model, and the network operates like Solana.

Alex Golding of Delphi considers the use of centralized AI by crypto projects a “big problem,” as it deprives users of the ability to understand what models are trained on. 

They also risk being misled by answers based on poor-quality data.

“Verified outputs” from miners (the basis of the reward mechanism) act as fact-checking, ensuring that the answers provided by Ambient are derived from a model for which people have paid.

Back in November, developers launched the decentralization-focused AI project Morpheus.