As tradition goes, we visit relatives. At dinner, I met a cousin I hadn’t seen in years. Six months ago he was flipping second-hand houses. Now? His business card reads: “Co-founder, Some AGI Technology.”
He proudly showed me their “revolutionary AI product” — packed with buzzwords like disruption, singularity, and trillion-dollar opportunity.
I looked closer.
It was basically a GPT-4 wrapper. Public API. Fancy slides. Big promises.
Watching his excitement, I felt something between disbelief and déjà vu. I’m no authority, so I kept quiet. But the pattern felt familiar.
This AI wave looks a lot like the 2017 ICO mania or the 2000 dot-com bubble.
Ninety-nine percent are pitching decks.
One percent are building foundations.
With that skepticism in mind, I came across the latest Space teaser from VanarChain.
The theme?
“AGI Reality Check: Real Progress or the Biggest Tech Grift Yet?”
My first reaction: bold move.
While most Web3 projects are racing to slap “AI” onto their branding, Vanar is asking whether the whole thing might be smoke and mirrors.
That shift feels strategic.
Before, the message was: “We are AI infrastructure.”
Now it’s closer to: “Let’s verify what’s actually real.”
And that’s a major difference.
If AI is pure hype, everyone sinks together.
But if it’s going to mature, it needs a filter — a way to separate what merely looks intelligent from what can actually be proven.
That’s where concepts like persistent on-chain memory and verifiable data come in. Not grand visions — but auditability. Traceability. Proof.
If your model has no verifiable reasoning trail, no persistent memory, no transparency — then it’s just another polished PPT.
And in 2026, in a world of deepfakes, synthetic data, and “AI” startups that are little more than wrappers, clarity is rare — and expensive.
When the bubble eventually deflates and the hype fades, the market won’t be looking for the loudest voice. It’ll be looking for what’s real.
The Space on February 19th is worth tuning into — not for incentives, not for speculation — but for something more valuable:
A sanity check.
Because in an era overflowing with narratives, sometimes the biggest alpha is simply the truth.
