Written by: TechFlow

In the recent days when the market has been falling, you must have been flooded with messages about this little fat girl - a "fat version" of ai16z, whose corresponding token is LLM (Large Language Models), which literally means "large language model".

In this pun, Large (an extra-large size of common clothing sizes) has become a funny meme point. It is indeed an enlarged ai16z, and it also doubles as a pun on the large language model in current generative AI. As a result, the market value of this meme coin quickly exceeded 100 million US dollars.

Some group members even said that this is not ai16z, but ai160kg. It was an unexpected entertainment effect.

In the current crypto ecosystem, you have to admit that sometimes it is better to find angles smartly than to work on a project seriously.

In this fat girl meme incident, the editor thought of a popular phenomenon in the current crypto market:

AI projects are beginning to be keen on deliberately giving themselves a "copycat name" to play with homophonic puns, deconstructing and deriving from the original, and then developing their own characteristics. For example, LLM is obviously derived from ai16z, and ai16z itself is also an imitation and derivative of the well-known crypto VC a16z...

We have reviewed the more well-known pun projects and found that there may be many wealth codes to be discovered while chatting.

Solana Ecosystem

ai16z +Marc "AI"ndreessen: The beginning of all puns

Needless to say, one of the leaders in this round of AI agent craze started with an entertaining idea - to copy well-known crypto VCs and founders on the chain to form an AI version.

In addition to the name ai16z, which reflects AI and is a benchmark for a16z crypto venture capital, the project is also accompanied by a personal account called @pmairca, which is obviously a homophone of the @pmarca account of a16z founder Marc Andreessen.

The meaning of the Twitter profile is also very straightforward - I want to imitate, and I want to surpass.

DegenAI: When AI begins to become the on-chain mirror of KOL

If ai16z is imitating investment institutions, then DegenAI (@degenspartanai) is targeting well-known KOLs in the crypto circle.

DegenAI (@degenspartanai) chose to imitate DegenSpartan (@DegenSpartan), a well-known trader in the crypto community. This trader, who goes by the name "찌G 準じ", is quite influential in the circle. He is a former private crypto fund manager and a highly-regarded KOL on social media. Players who frequently surf CT will definitely be familiar with him.

Interestingly, this AI project also comes from the ai16z ecosystem.

This imitation account not only inherits DegenSpartan's trading style, but also replicates its sharp and acrimonious speaking style on social media.

Moreover, from the perspective of automatic trading agents, choosing to imitate well-known traders such as DegenSpartan, to some extent, really has the meaning of "letting AI learn from top traders".

X Combinator: A new letter in honor of Y Combinator

CA:

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X Combinator is an AI project incubation platform in the Solana ecosystem that imitates Y Combinator (YC for short). This project positions itself as "the best AI incubator and launchpad on Solana", and is obviously drawing on YC's successful model in the Web2 startup circle.

Unlike traditional incubators, X Combinator focuses on incubating AI agent projects, especially autonomous trading agents. They have established a launch pad program called "Project X" to screen and cultivate excellent AI trading agent projects through this platform.

This positioning is very consistent with the current development trend of the AI track in the Solana ecosystem, as more and more projects are beginning to apply AI technology to areas such as automated trading, investment DAOs, and data analysis.

In terms of the operating model, X Combinator has established a strategic fund to invest in top autonomous trading agents that have emerged from its launchpad projects. This model is similar to YC's investment support for outstanding entrepreneurial projects.

Airthur Hayes: An AI agent that mimics a crypto legend

CA:

6hUC9DN73kdinkth3JdELGYnEbLEnEE4NvbzzoG3yPKK

AIrthur Hayes The project is named after Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and one of the most influential figures in the cryptocurrency space.

Arthur Hayes himself has also taken actions at the intersection of AI and encryption, such as joining the advisory board of the decentralized AI platform Ritual; in a previous interview with Bankless, he also said that AI agents are a "new vitality" entering the cryptocurrency industry.

It is worth mentioning that the project also exists on Daos.fun in the form of an AI-managed fund. It has also invested in a number of AI Agent project tokens, with total assets under management (AUM) reaching nearly US$500,000.

AIWS: AI cloud computing platform imitating AWS

CA:

0x3E9C747db47602210EA7513c9D00abf356b53880 (note on ZKSync)

AIWS (@aiwscloud) positions itself as "the first AI-led cloud computing platform" designed specifically for collaboration, computation, and transactions among AI agents. The emergence of AIWS reflects a larger narrative: the AI agent ecosystem may be seeking professional infrastructure support.

Although the token is deployed on ZK Sync, in the Solana ecosystem, AIWS's services seem to be specifically targeted at AI trading agents that require a lot of computing resources. This forms a complementary relationship with other AI agent projects in the ecosystem (such as CAT).

Therefore, it is also introduced in the Solana ecosystem. Interested players should pay attention to identify the CA address and avoid confusion.

Bainance: Even put on a full show, imitating an entire department

CA:

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There is no need to introduce too much about who it imitates, the LOGO looks very interesting.

It describes itself as an "accelerator for the trenches" and invests primarily in strong communities (called "cults"), "developers" and agents.

At the same time, he is very honest, and his Twitter profile has already been marked as "Parody" (imitation account).

What’s even more interesting is that the project also did a full set of drama, with associated accounts CZ Bainance (@cz_bainance_), @bainance_intern (Bainance intern account), and @bAI_Research (research department account);

This project clearly adopted a multi-account collaborative operation strategy, attempting to replicate Binance's organizational structure, including different branches such as laboratories and research departments.

Beradigim: Do you still remember the feared Paradigim?

CA:

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There was a radical statement in the last cycle: Don’t buy projects invested by Paradigm. For example, Friend.tech, which no one remembers now.

And this VC obviously did not escape the fate of being used as a pun, and Beradigim’s fate finally came.

The project is also built on daos.fun and manages its own crypto fund. But the funny thing is that the project is linked to the alt-Binance introduced above, such as "We got investment from Bainance", imitating the serious financing news commonly seen in crypto news.

It is worth mentioning that there is also a Beradigim with the same name on Berachain. The two are not the same project (see the right picture below), but they both have a strong sense of spoof. They claim to have created a BAO (a homonym of DAO), which translates to "Bear Market Autism Organization"; at the same time, they claim to establish the Kodiak liquidity pool, which is a bear category, paying tribute to Berachain itself.

Base Ecosystem

WAI Combinator: A direct homonym of Y Combinator

CA:

0x6112b8714221bBd96AE0A0032A683E38B475d06C

WAI Combinator is actually also a project based on the Virtuals protocol, but it is more of an investment incubation type.

Judging from the name, WAI is obviously paying tribute to the well-known technology business incubator Y Combinator. The business is also similar, but the incubated projects are all in the on-chain Base ecosystem, especially the early projects in Virtuals that are still in the Bonding Curve stage.

In less than two weeks, its asset management scale has grown from 50,000 to more than 700,000 US dollars, and the value of its investment portfolio has begun to increase significantly (currently 500,000 US dollars). At the same time, the project is continuously deploying new investments through the "Velocity" plan, and you can continue to pay attention to the projects that have won its favor.

Sekoia: a pun on Sequoia

CA:

0x1185cB5122Edad199BdBC0cbd7a0457E448f23c7

This project is also on Virtuals, but the editor has classified it into the category of investing in DAO or on-chain funds.

SEKOIA aims to create the best performing on-chain venture capital agency. Project X uses a semi-automatic and semi-manual AI posting method, and its posts also claim to hope to surpass traditional companies and achieve better results.

Judging from the name, it is obviously a tribute to Sequoia, namely Sequoia Capital.

The price of the project token has remained relatively stable compared to the other DAO investments mentioned above during the recent crypto market downturn; this may be because the fund invested in another AI Agent token called $VOLTX, which has excellent returns and is favored by the market.

Judging from the information displayed on the official website, Sequoia Chain’s investment level is not bad, and the realized profit is 15 times its total investment.

AicroStrategy: On-chain copycat version of MicroStrategy, mainly buys cbBTC

CA:

0x20ef84969f6d81Ff74AE4591c331858b20AD82CD

AicroStrategy is an AI hedge fund that will leverage cbBTC holdings to maximize Bitcoin exposure. Funds raised will be used to purchase cbBTC, which will be deployed into carefully selected DeFi protocols to maximize security and leverage.

It is worth noting that the project was launched on Daos.world, which is an "investment DAO" platform similar to daos.fun. It is a decentralized hedge fund managed by real people or AI agents. They raise funds, generate returns, and return profits to DAO token holders.

Therefore, one of the fund projects in daos.fun is AicroStrategy, which has its own holdings and fund management strategies.

The initial plan is to deposit into Aave, borrow USDC, buy more cbBTC, and repeat the process. The AI algorithm will determine the optimal leverage to execute the plan.

The DAO’s holdings do reflect that it only buys cbBTC, but it buys more tokens from its sister DAO $FDREAM.

Berachain Ecosystem

The projects on Berachain have always had a bit of meme and entertainment flavor, and they naturally will not miss out on puns and add more "Bera" flavor to them.

Baos.fun: daos.fun bear chain version, carry out funny things to the end

The name of the project Baos.fun is obviously an imitation of Daos.fun, the most eye-catching AI investment DAO platform in the Solana ecosystem.

However, Baos.fun has not yet been officially launched, but it is obviously better at spoofs. For example, the official website says that it will be launched in Q5 (fifth quarter), but as we all know, there are only four quarters in a year.

At the same time, there are several other pun projects linked to the official website that are also very funny, such as Beradigm and bEliza.

Compared to some green elements of daos.fun and pump.fun, the project Twitter added Berachain's theme yellow, turning it into a small yellow pill.

There are no tokens at the moment. Click to join the whitelist and there may be more entertainment elements later.

3BerasCapital: Three Arrows Bankrupt, Three Bears Stand

CA:

0x3E64cD8Fd4d2FAe3D7f4710817885B0941838d0B (currently in Base)

Remember the bankrupt Three Arrows Capital in the last cycle? So they created "Three Bears" Capital. The project's logo and pattern design replaced the three arrows with three bear heads, which was full of funny and silly atmosphere.

It is worth mentioning that since BearChain is not currently online, Three Bear Capital chose daos.world on Base mentioned above to launch its own fund management DAO.

Currently, the fund has only purchased its own 3BC coins and no other AI tokens.

Started from copycat, stronger than subversion

After seeing so many projects that use copycat names and puns, do you remember anything?

Yes, this is very similar to the common Huaqiangbei copycat model: they tell you explicitly that it is a copycat based on the original, but it is inexpensive and of good quality and may have functions that you don’t have.

There will always be a certain market for leveraging the popularity of original products to carry out marginal disruptions and small innovations.

In the current wave of AI craze, CEXs and centralized institutions (VCs or well-known project parties) are like the genuine products that Huaqiangbei wants to imitate. Although they are genuine, they often fall into the trend of criticism and rebellion.

If innovation is always in Huaqiangbei, then disruption is always on the chain - I have what others don't, I am better than others, I improve on others'... After experiencing a series of events such as low circulation of VC coins and declining credibility of exchanges, market sentiment must have an outlet, and AI is just a perfectly matching technical theme.

Using AI to clone and optimize an entity to make the business better, this story itself will attract hot money inflows.

However, copycat puns are nothing new.

With China's accession to the WTO and the influx of more overseas consumer brands, a wave of copycat products swept the country as early as 2008. For example, the copycat products such as Siko Sile, Maijie, and Lei Bi, which make people smile, I believe everyone has seen them.

If you ask why we do this, the principles in the business world are actually the same, but they are more unique in the crypto world:

It is easier to cold start and attract attention by taking advantage of the original brand's recognition and popularity

In the crypto world, this approach naturally carries with it a spirit of rebellion and entertainment. A meme-like expression + serious AI technology is quite interesting.

Behind this copycat name is a kind of marketing trickery and the use of "subversive emotions", which ultimately leads to a double harvest of marketing narrative effect and actual token performance.

There are always new assets on the blockchain, and there is nothing new under the sun. When English names become a trend, you may need to exit before you get tired of them.