The Cyclical Reemergence of Technological Entrepreneurship Boom

The hottest technology startup tracks currently are AIGC and Web3. In 2017, the most popular fields were blockchain, artificial intelligence, and VR. For entrepreneurs who are good at seizing opportunities, these two waves of trends should not be missed.

Adam Zheng( Zheng Yi) is just such a "trendsetter" who keeps up with the forefront of the times.

VR+AI+Blockchain

In March 2014, Facebook( was renamed Meta) after acquiring the VR leader Oculus for $2 billion, which subsequently sparked a global venture capital boom in VR. In February of the same year, ObEN was established in California, USA. The CEO of ObEN is Nikhil Jain, and the COO is Zheng Yi.

Public information shows that Nikhil Jain founded two startups before establishing ObEN: the clean technology B2B platform On Green and the open source software development company Up and Running Software. Nikhil holds an MBA from the University of Southern California and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Pondicherry University in India.

Zheng Yi co-founded China's largest marriage and dating platform, Baihe.com, before joining ObEN. He has also served as an investment partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners in the U.S., investment director at Tongfang Investment Co., Ltd., and investment manager at TPG-Newbridge Capital. The projects he has invested in include BesTV, Starry Media/Cantor Productions, and New Silk Road Model Agency, among others. Zheng Yi graduated from Tsinghua University with a master's degree in Environmental Engineering. He later obtained a Ph.D. in Transportation and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Davis, and a master's degree in Financial Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

In the two years since its establishment, this tech startup focused on VR avatars has not attracted much attention domestically.

In November 2016, ObEN announced that it had raised $7.7 million in Series A financing, led by CrestValue Capital, the investment arm of China's Shun'an Group. Since then, ObEN's exposure in the domestic market has continued to increase.

In March 2017, ObEN became the first AI project in the United States invested by SoftBank. In July 2017, ObEN received a strategic investment of $5 million, led by Tencent. In January 2018, ObEN announced the completion of a $10 million Series B convertible bond financing from K11.

As a startup spanning the two popular fields of VR and artificial intelligence, ObEN could have continued to raise funds and expand along conventional paths. However, they chose a shortcut - an ICO.

The blockchain industry in 2017 was in a frenzy, with a well-packaged white paper easily raising hundreds of millions of dollars. In October 2017, the ProjectPAI white paper was released. Although it missed the best timing, ProjectPAI still raised 1 billion RMB in the following period, far exceeding its total equity financing amount in previous years.

Raise 1 billion, currency price drops to zero

ProjectPAI is a new public chain protocol based on a Bitcoin fork, aimed at applying blockchain technology to the certification, management, data learning, and application development of artificial intelligence. PAI is the world's first personal artificial intelligence technology and product, capable of creating an intelligent avatar that resembles the user's appearance and voice, and increasingly understands the user.

To mitigate risks, ProjectPAI has listed ObEN as an innovative partner, with blockchain technology development led by Alex Waters. Alex has been involved in the original Bitcoin code since 2010 and is one of the core team members of the original Bitcoin blockchain algorithm.

PAI is the system token issued by Project PAI, with a total supply of 2.1 billion. Of this, 35% is allocated to investors, which is known as the "private placement" share. According to participant feedback, Project PAI raised approximately $150 million through private placement, equivalent to 1 billion RMB.

On June 29, 2018, PAI was listed on a trading platform, surging 500% within four days, and reached its peak price of $1.43 on July 9. After that, PAI began to decline, falling below $0.1 on November 19, 2018.

In October 2022, a trading platform announced the delisting of PAI and a batch of other tokens. In November 2022, the ProjectPAI blockchain stopped producing blocks, the blockchain information website was shut down, and the price of PAI dropped to zero.

Continuous Doubts

In July 2018, Project PAI faced intense scrutiny. Media pointed out the ambiguous relationship between the project and ObEN, raising multiple doubts. The most controversial issue was the inaccurate information about the technical team members; the technical leader listed in the white paper, Alex Waters, was actually just a project advisor.

The project code of ProjectPAI has also been pointed out to be a copy of Bitcoin, simply replacing "bit" with "pai". Therefore, some have questioned whether the core technical members have actually developed the project or just paid to show up.

On July 17, 2018, the official ProjectPAI wallet website was allegedly hacked, revealing the project's inside story and stating that it would report to the relevant authorities. The open letter pointed out that ProjectPAI has issues such as illegal fundraising, tax evasion, market manipulation, token pre-mining, code plagiarism, and team fraud.

Subsequently, the market entered a bear market, and ProjectPAI's AI business stagnated, with the promises made by the project party also unable to be fulfilled.

Routine

Looking back at the operational methods of Project PAI, it is evident that there are obvious packaging tricks.

1. ObEN harvests fame, Project PAI monetizes
2. Good at leveraging well-known institutions
3. The founder's resume stands out
4. The team lineup is luxurious
5. KOL Call Order
6. Using a big flag as a tiger skin

Before launching the token for ProjectPAI, ObEN accumulated a lot of exposure and fans domestically by leveraging the concept of artificial intelligence. The ProjectPAI white paper extensively introduces ObEN, and some rating reports even directly refer to the ObEN team as the PAI team.

ProjectPAI is adept at attracting investors by leveraging the power of star institutions such as Tencent and SoftBank. The founder Zheng Yi has an impressive resume, including an undergraduate degree from Tsinghua University and a Ph.D. from the University of California. The project has also invited Bitcoin core developer Alex Waters to support it.

In addition, ProjectPAI is expanding its influence through KOL promotion and attracting other projects. During the period of skyrocketing cryptocurrency prices, the team frequently appeared on major mainstream platforms to showcase the achievements of artificial intelligence technology.

Official website cannot be accessed

Currently, the official website provided by ObEN is no longer accessible, and the Twitter account has also been deactivated. ObEN has multiple physical companies in China, including Chengdu Obang Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Zhipai Technology Co., Ltd., and Shanghai Duorxiang Technology Co., Ltd. These companies are all facing multiple cases of "infringement of rights of communication through information networks."

AIGC+Web3

In 2023, AIGC became the hottest track in the tech circle. To facilitate rapid financing, AIGC Chain emerged, and Zheng Yi is regarded as a contributor to the integration of AI and Web3.

The packaging tactics of AIGC Chain are strikingly similar to those of Project PAI:

1. Please have well-known figures endorse.
2. Distancing from ObEN
3. Packaging for overseas projects
4. Borrowing the endorsement of ObEN investment institutions
5. KOL Promotion, Catchy Slogan

AIGC Chain invited Cyrus Hodes, co-founder of Stable Diffusion, to stand on stage, listing ObEN as a partner. The project is packaged as a foreign project, but the main participants are still Chinese. The "Investors & Partners" displayed on the official website are actually just the investment institutions of ObEN.

Financing Goals

The AIGC Chain plans to issue fungible tokens and non-fungible tokens. Its NFT project Metanaut has a total of 60,000 units, and if all are sold, it could bring about $2.16 million in revenue to the project party. In the future, when issuing tokens, the project party may obtain more funding.

The first round of Metanaut's issuance has been completed, and the second round has just begun. Investors are highly enthusiastic, but it is difficult to contact the project team when issues arise. The future direction of this project and whether it can help investors turn losses into profits remains to be seen.