ASI Alliance: What the Merged Tokenomics Actually Mean

What happened

In March 2024, Fetch.ai, SingularityNET and Ocean Protocol announced they would merge into the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance. The pitch: combine three complementary AI projects (agents from Fetch, AI marketplace from SingularityNET, and data from Ocean) under one tokenTokenA digital unit of value or access rights tracked on a blockchain. Tokens can represent ownership in a project, a right to use a service, a share of future revenue, or simply a tradable asset with no underlying claim.Like a physical poker chip a casino issues. The chip itself has no value. What makes it worth something is what it lets you do at the casino, what the casino has promised, and how much other people will pay you for it.Read more → and one governance structure.

CUDOS joined in October 2024, contributing 30 validators. Then in October 2025, Ocean Protocol withdrew, alleging governance failures and strategic misalignment. Fetch.ai filed a lawsuit the following month, alleging Ocean’s Foundation converted 661 million OCEAN into 286 million FET and sold approximately 263 million FET (over 10% of circulating supplyCirculating SupplyThe number of tokens currently in circulation and tradeable on the open market. Differs from total supply (which includes locked or unvested tokens) and max supply (the upper limit, if there is one).Like the number of cars on the road today versus the number ever produced. Some are in showrooms, some in junkyards, some still at the factory. Only the ones on the road count toward what people are actually driving.Read more →) without disclosure.

That lawsuit was settled in early 2026, with Ocean returning 286 million FET (approximately $120M) to the alliance. The legal matter is closed, but the reputational damage remains. The alliance continues as Fetch.ai + SingularityNET + CUDOS, but it lost its strongest data sovereignty component when Ocean walked.

I don’t hold FET. The governance breakdown that caused a founding member to leave within 18 months raises questions I haven’t been able to answer from public information. For individual project assessments, see our Fetch/ASI review and Ocean review. For how FET compares to other DeAIDeAIDecentralised AI. An umbrella term for blockchain-based projects that build AI infrastructure (compute, data, inference, models, agents) without a single central provider controlling the system.Like the difference between streaming a movie from Netflix and sharing it via BitTorrent. Netflix is fast and polished but one company controls what you can watch and what you pay. BitTorrent is messier but no single operator can shut you out.Read more → tokens on value capture, see MOR vs TAO vs FET.

The conversion ratios

All tokens consolidated under the FET ticker (not renamed to ASI on exchanges, despite the alliance name):

Migration isn’t 100% complete. OCEAN and AGIX still trade independently: OCEAN has approximately 200 million tokens circulating ($23.6M market cap), AGIX has approximately 250 million ($16.2M market cap). No public deadline for conversion has been documented. Given Ocean’s withdrawal, the status of remaining OCEAN-to-FET conversion is practically uncertain.

The merged supply

The distribution of merged supply:

The AGIX and OCEAN allocations (56.17% combined) represent community token swaps, not new insider supply. But approximately 600 million FET was minted to absorb OCEAN holders, which diluted original FET holders.

VestingVestingA schedule that locks up tokens allocated to insiders, investors, and team members, releasing them gradually over months or years. Vesting prevents insiders from dumping on public buyers immediately after launch.Like a new employee's stock options at a startup. You don't get all the shares on day one. They unlock over four years so you stick around and do the work rather than cashing out and leaving.Read more → runs to 2050: a 24-year schedule for founders that’s longer than most projects survive.

What FET actually does

FET has genuine multi-layer utility across the merged network:

StakingStakingLocking up a cryptocurrency to help secure a blockchain network, usually in exchange for rewards. The locked tokens act as a security deposit that can be taken away if the staker misbehaves.Like putting down a large rental deposit for an apartment. You get the money back if you behave, you earn interest while it's locked, and the landlord takes it if you trash the place.Read more →. Secures Fetchhub-4 (Cosmos SDKSDKSoftware Development Kit. A collection of code libraries, documentation, and tools that lets developers integrate a service into their applications without writing everything from scratch. SDKs are how projects become easy to build with.Like a plug-and-play kit for building furniture. You don't have to mill your own wood, forge your own screws, or design the joinery from scratch. The kit gives you pre-cut parts and instructions so you can assemble the thing in an afternoon.Read more → chain with CometBFT consensus), up to 70 validators. Current APY approximately 5.5-8%. 21-day unbonding period. An estimated 480-560 million FET is staked (21-25% of circulating supply). Standard Cosmos slashing: 5% for double-signing, 0.01% for downtime.

Agent services. Pay for agent registration on the Almanac contract (renewed every 48 hours) and agent-to-agent transactions on Fetch.ai’s Agentverse platform.

Compute. GPUGPUGraphics Processing Unit. Originally designed to render video game graphics, GPUs turned out to be exceptionally good at the massively parallel math that AI models need. Modern AI training and inference runs almost entirely on GPUs.Like a factory with 10,000 workers doing the same simple task in parallel, versus a CPU which is more like 10 workers each doing different complex tasks. AI training involves doing simple math a million times per second on a million numbers, which is exactly what the GPU factory is designed for.Read more → inferenceInferenceRunning a trained AI model to produce an answer. Inference is what happens when you type a prompt into ChatGPT and get a response. The model takes your input, computes a best guess, and returns it.Like asking an expert for their opinion. The training was the decades they spent becoming an expert. The inference is the 30 seconds it takes them to answer your specific question.Read more → payments on ASI Cloud, which launched September 2025 and exited beta December 2025. Claims approximately 50% cheaper than AWS. I haven’t verified this independently.

AI marketplace. Payment for AI services on SingularityNET’s marketplace (live since 2017, Ethereum and Cardano).

Governance. Vote on alliance proposals including merger approvals, new member additions and tokenomics changes.

BurnBurnPermanently removing tokens from circulation by sending them to an address that no one controls. Burns reduce total supply, which (all else equal) makes each remaining token worth more of the network's value.Like a company buying back its own shares and shredding them. The company's total value stays the same, but each remaining share now represents a slightly bigger slice of that value.Read more → mechanism. An Earn and Burn programme launched January 2026. First burn: 5 million FET (0.18% of supply). It’s a start but the magnitude isn’t yet material.

The products

The alliance operates several platforms that are still largely separate:

Fetch.ai Agentverse. Agent development and deployment platform with no-code browser-based templates. Agents register on-chain and can interact autonomously. It’s the most mature product in the alliance.

SingularityNET marketplace. AI services marketplace live since 2017. Developers publish and consume AI models. Usage volumes aren’t publicly disclosed, which is a concern for a platform that’s been live for nine years.

ASI Cloud. GPU rental and AI modelModelA trained neural network that takes inputs (text, images, audio) and produces outputs (more text, classifications, generated content). In DeAI the model is the thing that actually does the work.Like a very experienced apprentice who has spent years watching thousands of masters make furniture. They can't explain how they know when a joint is right, but they can make a chair that looks and functions like a Chippendale. The training is invisible. The output is what matters.Read more → access. Permissionless. Includes ASI-1 Mini, described as the “first Web3-native LLMLLMLarge Language Model. A neural network trained on vast amounts of text to predict the next word in a sequence. Modern LLMs (GPT, Claude, Llama, Qwen, DeepSeek) generate human-quality text and are the foundation of most modern AI products.Like an autocomplete that read every book ever written. It has no memory of individual texts but it has absorbed the patterns of language so deeply that it can generate paragraphs that sound human. The skill is statistical, not conscious.Read more →” with Knowledge Graph integration.

ASI:Create. Closed alpha since February 2026. A launchpad for building, funding and deploying AI agents and applications.

ASI:Chain. The convergence layer: a blockDAG L1L1Layer 1. A base blockchain that runs its own consensus mechanism, executes transactions, and settles its own state. Bitcoin, Ethereum, NEAR, and Solana are all L1s. Anything built on top of an L1 is technically a Layer 2 or higher.Like the foundation of a building. Nothing else can exist on top until the foundation is solid. Different L1s make different tradeoffs for what kind of building they can support.Read more → using the MeTTa programming language and Atomspace knowledge graph. DevNet launched November 2025. No mainnet timeline published. It’s intended to unify all the above under one protocol, but it’s pre-production.

What Ocean’s exit means

Ocean Protocol was the data layer of the alliance. Its compute-to-data capability (running AI models on data without revealing the underlying dataset) was the strongest data sovereignty feature. With Ocean’s withdrawal, that capability is no longer part of the alliance.

The remaining components are agents (Fetch), AI marketplace (SingularityNET) and validators (CUDOS). These overlap more than they complement. The thesis that three distinct capabilities would combine into something greater depends on all three being present. Two and a half is a weaker proposition.

The lawsuit has since been settled, with Ocean returning 286 million FET (~$120M). The legal uncertainty is resolved, but what it revealed is not reassuring. A founding member converted and sold over 10% of circulating supply without disclosure, and this only surfaced through litigation: that exposes governance failures in how the merger was structured. Ocean’s counter-allegations about governance not matching the “original decentralised vision” point to structural problems in the alliance itself. For a broader discussion of what counts as decentralised AI, the governance standards are worth examining.

Settlement or not, a founding member leaving within 18 months isn’t a sign of health.

Next-generation tokenomics

A whitepaper from superintelligence.io outlines a two-tier token model:

• ASI: the base token (current FET)
• stakedASI: a staked derivative with additional utility

Shard-based economics with fee distribution: a portion burned, a portion to validators and treasury, a portion to staking rewards. Simulations show circulating supply declining by over 6 million ASI over 36 months with a target of approximately 11% annual staking yield funded by fees and buybacks rather than new issuance.

Health-driven automated controls would increase burn rates during stress and hibernate emissionsEmissionsNew tokens created and distributed by a blockchain protocol over time as rewards to validators, stakers, or miners. Emissions fund network security and participation at the cost of diluting existing holders.Like a company that pays employees partly in newly printed shares. Every year the total number of shares goes up, which means existing shareholders own a slightly smaller slice of the same company unless the company grows faster than the printing.Read more → when necessary.

Well-designed on paper. No implementation timeline has been published. ASI:Chain, which would host this model, has no announced mainnet date.

What I’m watching

1. ASI:Chain mainnet. The convergence layer that is supposed to unify all products under one protocol. Until it launches, the alliance is three separate products sharing a token. No timeline published.

2. The Ocean settlement fallout. The lawsuit is settled and Ocean returned 286 million FET, but the episode confirmed that 263 million FET was sold without disclosure. That explains a meaningful portion of the 96% price decline, and the reputational damage to the alliance’s governance credibility persists.

3. Usage metrics. None of the platforms (Agentverse, SingularityNET marketplace, ASI Cloud) publish adoption or revenue data. For a combined network that’s been live in various forms since 2017, this opacity is a red flag.

4. The burn programme. First burn was 5 million FET (0.18% of supply). The trajectory matters. If burns accelerate to material levels, it changes the supply dynamics. At current pace, it’s symbolic.

5. Governance reform. The governance structure that caused one member to leave hasn’t been visibly changed. Until the alliance demonstrates it can make decisions transparently and retain members, the governance risk remains.

The honest assessment

The ASI Alliance has genuine technical talent. Ben Goertzel is one of the most credible AGI researchers alive. Fetch.ai’s agent architecture is functional and differentiated. Combined patent portfolio and research output is substantial.

But the execution has been troubled. A 96% price decline from the merger announcement. A founding member’s acrimonious exit. A settled lawsuit that confirmed undisclosed selling of over 10% of circulating supply. No published usage metrics across any platform. A convergence layer with no mainnet date.

The merger thesis was that combining three specialised projects would create something greater. Losing the data layer and the associated lawsuit have damaged that thesis. What remains is a well-resourced agent platform (Fetch), a long-running but opaque AI marketplace (SingularityNET), and a validatorValidatorA computer that runs the full blockchain protocol, verifies transactions, and proposes new blocks. Validators are the workers that keep a Proof of Stake network running, and they earn rewards for doing the work correctly.Like a notary public who witnesses and stamps legal documents. Validators witness transactions, check they follow the rules, and stamp them into the permanent record. A notary who commits fraud loses their license. Validators work the same way, except the license is staked tokens that get slashed on misbehaviour.Read more → set (CUDOS), sharing a token that’s lost 96% of its value.

The next-generation tokenomics design is genuinely interesting: shard economics, automated health controls, fee-funded yield. If ASI:Chain delivers and the alliance stabilises, the token economics could be compelling at a $328 million market cap. But those are significant ifs, and I’m not comfortable betting on them until I see mainnet, usage data and governance reform.