After witnessing a series of airdrop dramas in the Restaking race, the recent performance of the machine-intelligent network Spectral in its Season 1 airdrop campaign was impressive, with its significant scale, widespread distribution, and lack of mischief.

On the one hand, this airdrop accounted for 8% of the total token supply, with 8 million tokens distributed to 52,992 addresses, including early Spectral users, data scientists, open-source AI developers, generative artists, Pudgy Penguins holders, and highly active users of Farcaster. On the other hand, the performance of Spectral token prices before and after the airdrop was remarkable. According to CoinGecko data, on May 12th, the SPEC price surpassed $14, with a daily increase of over 100%.

As one of the most anticipated airdrop projects in May in the crypto industry, the widespread community enthusiasm for Spectral has led many community members to remark: it’s been a long time since we’ve had such an exhilarating airdrop experience.

Although SPEC prices have experienced a slight pullback in the past two days, the airdrop hype continues to attract more attention to the project itself. As an on-chain proxy machine intelligence network focusing on AI scenarios, Spectral aims to simplify complexity using cutting-edge AI and ML technologies. On one hand, it aims to help more non-coders easily write, adjust, and deploy smart contracts; on the other hand, it aims to attract more participants to achieve stronger innovation, and deep integration with the Web3 ecosystem, and unleash the development potential of Web3 reasoning economics.

As early as August 2022, Spectral had already raised approximately $30 million in funding, with participating institutions including well-known Web3 VCs like Circle Ventures and Jump Capital, as well as traditional Web2 giants like Samsung and Franklin Templeton. This impressive funding history reflects the market’s high recognition of the project’s vision and quality.

Entering 2024, Spectral has been active: not only has it launched its core product, the on-chain artificial intelligence application Syntax, but leading trading platform Bybit has also announced the launch of SPEC spot trading. In the future, the project will focus on product optimization and ecosystem development, aiming to unleash the infinite potential of Web3 AI in specific application scenarios.

This article aims to delve into Spectral by exploring its prospects for building an on-chain proxy machine intelligence network, its implementation logic, and its core competitiveness, providing insights into the project’s development opportunities and challenges.

Product architecture: One-click generation and deployment of smart contracts, unleashing AI+Web3 innovation

Spectral’s product architecture is mainly divided into two levels: the upper layer is the product layer, which is mainly communicated by the two core modules of Spectral Syntax and Spectral Nova; the lower layer is the traceability layer, and Spectral Syntax and Spectral Nova achieve efficient interaction through Inferchain.

As an important milestone achievement in 2024, Spectral Labs launched the artificial intelligence application Syntax in March of this year to help users create their on-chain AI agents.

Relying on natural language, Syntax further lowers the threshold for Web3 innovation. Han Yu (a literati in Tang Dynasty in China) once said in his book “On Teachers”: There are specialties in the arts. It is undeniable that the current scale of Web3 practitioners is not large, and there are a large number of people who are good at the market but not technical, or proficient in technology but lack market sensitivity. This makes it impossible for many Web3 products to achieve the deep integration of technology and market. Through the Syntax dialogue interface, users, whether they are developers or technical novices, can use natural language to compile smart contracts. For example, if the user enters “I want to issue an ERC20 token named XXX with a total issuance of 100 million”, Syntax will complete the operation based on the input request, helping those with truly innovative ideas to quickly realize their ideas.

The ability to compile, test, and optimize smart contracts based on the Solidity language is an important feature that distinguishes Syntax from other on-chain AI agents. Most code generation models, such as CodeLlama, GPT-4 Code Interpreter and DeepSeek, are not specifically designed for Solidity developers, and the importance of the Solidity language to Web3 is self-evident. That is to say, before the emergence of Syntax, it was difficult for us to leverage AI tools to build Solidity efficiently.

Syntax fine-tunes the open-source model through several techniques, including Parameter Efficient Fine-Tuning (PEFT), Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA), and DeepSpeed, using a custom dataset of over 7 million Solidity contracts. These fine-tuned models, combined with the Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) system, greatly unlock the possibility of AI empowering Solidity code. Syntax can not only generate Solidity code that meets the requirements but can also optimize and adjust the code, including vulnerability detection, Gas optimization, etc. As the model continues to develop in the future, Syntax will also provide writing optimization, security testing and other services for more complex demand scenarios.

In addition to compilation, the more powerful function of Syntax is that the generated smart contracts can be directly deployed on dozens of blockchains, including Ethereum, with one click. Through Foundry, Syntax can perform deployments and write instructions that Foundry can process, including code compilation, on-chain deployment and signing transactions. Syntax will also create an ERC4337 smart wallet abstraction between users and Syntax and use it to perform operations such as signing transactions, processing assets, and paying gas, truly realizing a one-stop service for Web3 industry participants.

In essence, Syntax is like an agent-driven development environment that brings users’ Web3 dApp ideas to life through natural language interaction. After releasing innovation, Syntax will also provide a display and interaction platform for the agents built by the community through the Web3 on-chain agent market, helping users quickly find solutions that best meet their needs.

With the influx of more and more users, more diverse agents will be created in Syntax, which means stronger demand for inference feedback is born. Within the Spectral product matrix, agents within Syntax have direct access to the Spectral Nova inference network generated by top decentralized models built by the community.

As a machine intelligence network, Spectral Nova aims to provide high-quality decentralized reasoning feedback for smart contracts. Through a series of ecological incentive initiatives, Nova encourages top data scientists and machine learning engineers to build models that output reference feedback to help smart contracts make decisions without human intervention, and all inferences can be verified through zero-knowledge proofs and verifiable computing technology to ensure its correctness and security, helping Web3 applications efficiently improve their services.

In a Spectral Nova intelligent network, there are four main roles:

• Creators: Set performance benchmarks, launch ML challenges, and offer bounties.
• Modelers: Submit solutions to challenges to win bounties.
• Validators: Verify the quality of solutions submitted by Modelers and earn rewards for verification.
• Consumers: Pay a fee to get solutions.

Throughout the entire operation process: Consumers achieve better services by integrating solutions into their applications, and part of the fees paid by consumers will flow to creators who initiate challenges; the other part will be used to reward modelers who propose solutions to achieve ecological income from labor and the circulation of value.

It can be said that there is a mutually complementary and mutually supportive relationship between Spectral Syntax and Spectral Nova. Serving as the bridge connecting Spectral Syntax and Spectral Nova, Inferchain is responsible for ensuring the smooth transmission of data and commands, ensuring the transparency and decentralization of the entire network, and promoting safer and more efficient interaction among various on-chain proxies.

As a Layer 2 solution tailored for Web3 development, Inferchain aims to integrate with AI in a trustless and verifiable manner, and to validate the interactions of all on-chain AI proxies. Although Spectral’s plans for Inferchain are still in the early stages, it is foreseeable that Inferchain will become an important piece in constructing a value-driven and efficient ecosystem loop.

On one hand, simplifying complexities to lower the threshold for innovation, and on the other hand, establishing incentive systems to inject endless drive into innovation, form a positive feedback loop based on robust product functionality, enabling Spectral to have a rich imagination space in various application scenarios.

Take DeFi as an example. Previously, Spectral focused on Web3 credit assessment infrastructure, implementing Web3 credit ratings through risk assessment tools (including MACRO scores) and non-fungible credit (NFC) tokens while continuously updating machine learning models. In addition to credit assessment, Spectral’s applications in the DeFi space include arbitrage bots, transaction behavior analysis, price forecasting, etc., helping DeFi enhance fund efficiency, risk management, and decision-making capabilities.

Furthermore, in the DAO field, Spectral can assist users in more easily and actively participating in governance through efficient information processing, intelligent voting, and interaction with core contracts; in the security field, Spectral can help strengthen security defenses by detecting and identifying vulnerabilities in code and providing optimization suggestions; in the NFT field, Spectral can achieve functions such as source tracing, floor price capture, and intelligent recommendations, helping to find value opportunities; in the education field, with advantages such as low barriers and one-click deployment, Spectral can also try to build an intelligent contract education platform, making certain contributions to the growth of blockchain network developers… The list goes on.

Behind the explosive growth of the ecosystem empowered by a powerful product architecture and functionality, as well as a highly adaptable team that has been deeply involved in the AI + Web3 field for many years, lies the strategic planning and execution of an elite team.

Elite Team Entrepreneurship: Top VCs in Web2 + Web3 Take Turns Betting, Multiple Heavyweight Cooperation Announcements

We know that AI narrative is the main trend in technology development for the next 10-20 years, and it is hotly sought after in both Web2 and Web3. Although Web2’s AI development has advantages such as talent, funding, and mature technology, the concepts advocated by Web3, such as data sovereignty, decentralization, and fair and transparent value flow, can help break the monopoly, privacy leaks, and algorithmic biases formed by centralized AI. As we enter 2024, the trend of integrating Web2 and Web3 AI development seems to be unstoppable.

Exploring Spectral’s team members, funding composition, and ecosystem cooperation resources based on this trend, we can easily find its prominent advantages in integrating Web2 and Web3.

In terms of the team, Spectral’s co-founder and CEO, Sishir Varghese, graduated from Columbia University. According to publicly available LinkedIn information, he served as co-founder and executive partner of AlphaChain from October 2017 to January 2022, and also served as strategic partner of Ethereum Layer 2 protocol Loopring, bringing rich product operations and ecosystem incubation experience.

In addition, other core members of Spectral have previously worked at Web2 tech giants such as Amazon, Coinbase (a leading crypto exchange platform), Illuvium (Web3 metaverse game), and Scroll (Ethereum Layer 2 network) based on zkEVM. The team’s composition, which gathers senior experts from Web2 and Web3, gives Spectral stronger comprehensive technical strength and more diversified product perspectives, enabling it to better respond to technological changes and market challenges, and provide customers with more comprehensive and innovative solutions.

In terms of funding, Spectral has raised a total of approximately $30 million. In November 2021, Spectral completed a $6.75 million financing round led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Galaxy Digital under Mike Novogratz, Social Capital under Chamath Palihapitiya, ParaFi Capital, Edge & Node Ventures (The Graph), and MetaPurse Ventures.

In August 2022, Spectral completed a $23 million financing round led by General Catalyst and Social Capital, with participation from Samsung, Gradient Ventures, Section 32, Franklin Templeton, Circle Ventures, Jump Capital, and others.

Upon careful observation of the participating institutions, it is evident that Spectral has garnered favour from both well-known Web3 VCs like Polychain Capital and Circle Ventures, as well as traditional Web2 giants such as Samsung. In the current landscape where Web3 projects seek support from Web2 funding and Web2 funds seek Web3 deployment, Spectral’s ability to simultaneously attract attention from leading institutions in both Web2 and Web3, domestically and internationally, not only reflects the project’s solid strength but also injects stronger guarantees for its future development.

In terms of ecosystem cooperation, on May 8th, Spectral announced its participation in the expert support program of the top AI open-source community, Hugging Face. As one of the “Forbes 2023 AI 50: Most Promising AI Companies”, Hugging Face provides a vast array of high-quality open-source models and tools globally, maximizing the benefits of research and development for the community. This significantly reduces the technical barriers to AI and promotes the democratization of AI, positioning itself as a strong competitor to OpenAI and Google.

Through this collaboration, Spectral will regularly meet with Hugging Face’s team of deep learning experts to plan new use cases, formulate data set construction strategies, and devise training strategies to advance the open-source models, data sets, and applications of on-chain proxies. In previous communications with the Hugging Face team, Spectral’s data set preparation, training, routing, and evaluation methods have been greatly improved, leading to the launch of the revolutionary platform Syntax supported by the LLM coordinator under the guidance of Hugging Face experts. Additionally, top-ranked contributors from individuals and small organizations on Hugging Face will have the exclusive opportunity to receive an airdrop of SPEC tokens. Furthermore, Spectral has recently announced collaborations with partners such as TestMachine and SynapseProtocol, further enriching and expanding its ecosystem.

It is worth mentioning that, as the first Syntax on-chain agent, MoonMaker has achieved very impressive results since its launch: with MoonMaker, users can easily turn their ideas about MEME Coin into reality. In just a few months since its official launch, more than 600+ MEME Coin have been launched on Base. This is not only the successful practice of Spectral’s on-chain agent machine intelligence network in the MEME Coin scenario, but also strong proof that Spectral builds more accessible services and promotes further creativity in the industry.

Entering the second half of 2024, Spectral will continue to maintain strong development momentum along with the improvement of Spectral product functions and the advancement of many projects aimed at supporting ecological construction, coupled with the community’s expectations for the SPEC token Season 2 airdrop,

Ecosystem poised: multiple incentive measures are implemented simultaneously, and the roadmap is gradually implemented

Given the popularity of the Season 1 airdrop, the community currently holds high expectations for the Season 2 airdrop.

On the one hand, we can already see that Spectral attaches great importance to the community through Season 1 performance and the officially announced token economic model with a proportion of 40% allocated to the community (that is, 40 million tokens):

On one hand, based on the performance of Season 1 and the proportion of tokens allocated to the community as high as 40% (which is 40 million tokens) as disclosed in the official tokenomics model, we can see that Spectral attaches great importance to the community.

On the other hand, many users have already found traces of Season 2’s airdrop. According to the Spectral Syntax interface, users can earn platform points by inviting new users to deploy smart contracts, among other methods. What will be the actual use of these points in the future? Following conventional gameplay, there is a high probability that these points will serve as indicators of user participation and be linked to subsequent airdrops. Interested users may wish to continue to follow and participate.

What’s more important is that the SPEC token is deeply integrated with the ecosystem, with specific utilities such as on-chain governance, Syntax staking, Nova staking, and payment of service fees. As the Spectral ecosystem continues to expand, the SPEC token will have even more room for imagination.

In fact, a rich ecosystem can create more application scenarios and use cases, providing a more sustainable development environment for Web3 projects. In the current consensus that developing the ecosystem is crucial, Spectral’s deployment of the ecosystem is also gradually deepening.

On one hand, Spectral inspires ecological creativity by launching various challenge activities. As early as October 2023, Spectral announced its first challenge: to build a decentralized credit scoring system.

Previously, Spectral had released its first Multi-Asset Credit Risk Oracle (MACRO) scoring model. The latest version of the model uses over 150 features and is created by analyzing eight years of transactions and over 2.5 million lending events on Ethereum, Polygon, and Avalanche. After backtesting Aave’s on-chain lending protocol using MACRO scores, MACRO demonstrated its strong efficiency and performance.

In this challenge, Spectral requires the development of a brand-new credit scoring model (which will become simple through Spectral Syntax). Winners will share a $100,000 prize pool, and developers will receive over 85% of the revenue collected from on-chain real-time usage of the model.

According to the official future roadmap, other more challenging activities are being brewed, including UniswapX Collaborative Filler, NFT recommendation engine, price prediction, NBA sports prediction and other scenarios to further encourage innovation through incentives.

On the other hand, Spectral will also provide a series of support for ecological builders: including comprehensive onboarding guides and development kits, supporting ecological exposure, and VC resource docking for high-quality projects, etc., helping builders to focus more on offering one-stop incubation services for ecology and product provision.

Additionally, in 2024, Spectral’s focus will also be on the iterative development and product optimization of Spectral Syntax and Spectral Nova. This includes tokenization of proxy interactions, enterprise DevRel proxies, actively seeking collaborations with high-quality projects, and conducting a series of market promotion activities to encourage active participation and interaction within the community. It is worth mentioning that Inferchain is expected to launch its testnet by the end of 2024, with the mainnet scheduled for release in 2025, which will once again attract widespread attention from the community.

Conclusion

Airdrops serve as a prime opportunity to introduce more people to a project, but if this opportunity is not seized, the hype surrounding the airdrop may fade quickly. Spectral’s ability to spark such widespread discussion, whether through fair airdrop rule design, product functionality, or user experience, underscores its understanding of the market, community, and product, as well as its ability to present high-quality products.

While some in the community criticize the simplicity of SPEC’s economic model, its ultra-low threshold for developers and even novice users to compile and deploy smart contracts has not only impressed VC investors but also unleashed stronger innovation with the deep integration of on-chain autonomous agents and the Web3 ecosystem.

With continued efforts in product feature iteration and ecosystem development, Spectral will witness more innovation emerging in various application scenarios. Although AI + Web3 is still in its early stages, we have reason to believe that AI + Web3 will be widely adopted in various practical scenarios, with Spectral playing a significant role in this adoption.

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