Original - Odaily

Author - Got it

With the stunning advent of ChatGPT, the wave of artificial intelligence (AI) has swept across the entire scientific and technological innovation circle.

The field of cryptocurrency is naturally no exception. When the trend of AI came, a large number of so-called AI + Crypto projects emerged one after another, which once created a concept sector in the secondary market. However, when you take a closer look at the so-called AI concept coins, it is not difficult to find that the quality of these projects obviously varies between good and bad, and they are even filled with many selling sheep over dogs.

Fortunately, in the current market atmosphere that is prone to impetuousness, there are still some ideal project builders who are seriously exploring the possibility of combining AI + Crypto. Recently, CharacterX, a featured project we discovered through Web3Port Demoday, is one of the representatives.

• Odaily note: Web3Port Demoday is a closed project demonstration event initiated by Web3Port, which has received support from hundreds of well-known VCs. Web3Port Demoday innovatively adopts a one-to-many project demonstration format to ensure that current project parties have enough time to showcase themselves, so that VCs can have an in-depth understanding of the project. At the same time, in order to ensure the quality of the project, each project is carefully selected by Web3Port and must pass multiple internal reviews before participating. Web3Port hopes to help high-quality early-stage projects grow rapidly and accelerate industry development through this form.

CharacterX: Decentralized AI “companion” service

In June of this year, Marc Andreessen, one of the founders of a16z, published a long article Why AI Will Save the World on his personal blog. In the article, Andreessen looked forward to the positive role that AI can play in the future world, and predicted that conversational AI (Chatbot) will become an indispensable part of peoples lives in the future.

In the future, AI tutors will accompany children at every stage of their growth, using the near-infinite love of machines to help them maximize their potential.

As Andreessen mentioned, the capital market is quite optimistic about the future development prospects of the conversational AI track. A research report released by Mordor Intelligence pointed out that the market size of the conversational AI track in 2023 is estimated to be approximately US$5.86 billion, and is expected to reach US$21.08 billion in 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 29.18%.

CharacterX is positioned as a decentralized AI entertainment social network. It hopes to coordinate AIs nearly unlimited content production capabilities with Cryptos natural decentralization and easy-to-motivate attributes to provide users with a place where they can make friends, have fun, and even AI interactive experience for learning and “making money”.

Specifically, CharacterX targets companion type (not a narrow concept, generally refers to a virtual AI character that can accompany the user) AI dialogue scenarios that are more C-oriented. Different from general-purpose AI conversation tools such as ChatGPT and Claude, CharacterX mainly focuses on emotional companionship and entertainment, allowing creators to create AI avatars of some well-known figures or characters based on real historical or literary works, and use pictures, Multi-sensory technology that combines voice, 3D, and AR optimizes the companionship experience; the user can selectively use AI avatars as companions and interact based on their own interests, and their interactive content can be used as corpus for the underlying AI model to help these AI avatars continue to grow toward personalization.

Judging from public information on social media, CharacterX first appeared in the public eye in June this year. In the early days, the project used the name GPTX, but later it was renamed CharacterX to better fit the projects positioning.

The founding members of CharacterX include Rene and Jeremy, both of whom are alumni of Stanford University. Most of the other team members also graduated from prestigious universities such as the University of Chicago and Peking University, or have worked for major Internet companies such as TikTok, Tencent, and Facebook. In Crypto It has certain technical strength and resources in development, AI application and 3D modeling.

In addition, according to the CharacterX team, the project is about to complete its seed round of financing, and confirmed investors include Lightspeed, INCE Capital, Spark Digital Capital, etc.

Last month, CharacterX just released the Alpha version of the test application on both iOS and Android platforms. Currently, the number of accumulated users has reached 400,000, the number of daily active users is about 50,000, and it can achieve stable revenue of US$50,000 per month. In the second half of this article, we will take you closer to understand how the test application is played based on the trial experience.

Three steps: application deployment, revenue cycle, and network self-driving

According to the project roadmap, CharacterX will gradually improve its concept in three steps. Judging from the keywords we captured, these three steps can be roughly divided intoApplication deployment, revenue cycle, network self-drivingthree different stages of development.

The first stage isproduct deploymentstage, corresponding to the timeline from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2023. During this phase, CharacterX will gradually implement and optimize its basic product through multiple versions of test applications.

Taking the current Alpha test version as an example, users can now experience CharacterX’s basic services and understand its unique dual-token economic model.

Specifically, after installing the application, users can obtain the system utility token CXC by signing in, completing designated tasks, learning Web3 courses, inviting friends, etc., and spend CXC to talk and interact with some created AI characters. After the interaction You can get another token CXT. CXT is currently only in application points status, but will exist as the governance token of CharacterX after TGE in the future. The more CXT a user accumulates now, the more actual token airdrops they can obtain in the future.

Judging from the effect of AI dialogue, the current test version of Character The multi-sensory support has not yet been deployed...but considering that this is only the initial version, and CharacterX has recently added a voice dialogue function, it can be seen that the project team is working hard to optimize the experience.

In addition, according to Odaily, CharacterX’s development team does have a strong visual and 3D technical background, and has previously launched a 3D AR girlfriend product overseas with excellent data. It is expected that the team will also introduce related functions Deploy into CharacterX.

The second stage isrevenue cyclestage, the corresponding timeline is the first half of 2024. During this stage, CharacterX will begin to gradually introduce Crypto elements into the product, mainly by using AI characters in the form of NFT to open up the value cycle within the ecosystem.

Within the design of CharacterX, the equity of the ecosystem will cycle between three different roles. One is Creators (Creators/KOLs), who are responsible for creating and training different AI roles, which will exist in the form of ERC-6551 NFT; the other is Consumers (Consumers), who can enjoy the creation of The third is Shareholders, who can purchase NFT fans through services created by developers, but they also need to pay a certain service fee (will receive a certain amount of CXT airdrop feedback). To directly support creators in the form of tokens, you can invest in the expected value-added value of the fan token itself, or you can get a share of consumer payments.

According to CharacterX, one of the shortcomings of traditional conversational AI services is that creators often lack clear revenue-generating channels, which makes it difficult for them to have the motivation to continuously deliver high-quality services. Through this revenue cycle mechanism, creators A fairer and more stable return of value will be achieved, which will contribute to the sustainable and robust development of the entire ecosystem.

The third stage isNetwork self-drivenstage, the corresponding timeline is the second half of 2024. During this stage, CharacterX will serve as a decentralized network, operated and managed by the community based on CXT governance.

In addition to its governance utility, CXT will also have multiple other practical uses throughout CharacterX, including but not limited to being used for NFT role transactions, for investors to invest in NFT fan tokens, for unlocking more access rights, and Used for ecological incentives and so on.

According to the token economic model now disclosed by CharacterX, it is expected that about 9.34% of CXT will be unlocked at the time of TGE, that is, the initial circulating supply will be 9.34 million.

CharacterX trial experience, chat with Thunder and Lightning General

As mentioned earlier, CharacterX released an Alpha version of the test application on both iOS and Android platforms in September. We can easily install the app through the Apple Store or Google Play Store.

Taking Android as an example, after installation, you can log in using your Google account without a wallet link (this also means that the application has not actually integrated Crypto for the time being. At the current stage, it only provides science popularization and education tasks about Web3 within the application) .

After logging in, a sign-in interface will pop up first. We can obtain the CXC required to interact with the AI ​​character through daily sign-ins. The specific amount of tokens that can be obtained by daily sign-ins is as shown in the figure below.

In addition to signing in, we can also click Earn at the bottom of the main interface to obtain CXC through other methods on the corresponding sub-page, such as inviting friends (10000 CXC for a single time), learning courses (1000 CXC for words), or in the Account sub-page. The page is bound to social media. If you bind Discord, you can get 30,000 CXC, and if you bind your email, you can get 10,000 CXC.

After accumulating a certain number of CXC, we can chat with multiple AI virtual characters through the AI ​​Character sub-page.

Currently, the AI ​​avatars in the Alpha test application mainly include popular characters from well-known entertainment works, such as Hermione in Harry Potter, General Raiden in Genshin Impact, and Kaka in Naruto West and so on.

Currently, each time you select an AI avatar to initiate a chat, it costs 200 CXC. We chose General Thunder and Lightning as the chat partner. We can find that when you ask some questions that match her background information, she can give you some basic and simple answers, but you can feel that the way of expression and the hidden character are still different from the original design. A larger gap requires more training and cultivation.

In addition to text replies, the AI ​​avatar will occasionally use voice to interact with you. Although it can achieve smooth pronunciation, the pronunciation rhythm is also somewhat different from the original design. There is only a single choice in terms of timbre, but considering that it is close to the real expression It probably shouldnt be too harsh to say that the customary text-to-speech conversion is not easy.

While we are chatting, as motivational feedback, you can get 2 CXT incentives for each conversation. Currently, users can upgrade their in-app account level by accumulating CXT. After TGE, they can obtain corresponding real token airdrops based on the amount of accumulated CXT.

Standing at the intersection of two major outlets

Looking at CharacterXs vision, the project impressed us deeply in two aspects, making it more unique than other early projects already on the market. First, CharacterX is very clear that the focus of AI dialogue services is on the quality of experience, so the project intentionally emphasizes optimizing the interactive experience through multi-sensory technologies such as 3D and AR; second, CharacterX is very clear about the importance of economic incentives for system sustainability, so We have specially designed a revenue cycle mechanism to give creators sufficient revenue expectations.

Looking back at the history of the development of information technology, AI is regarded as a core technology that revolutionizes productivity, while Crypto has always been regarded as a revolution in production relations. The two can collaborate with each other and benefit each other.

Standing at the intersection of these two major trends, the future of CharacterX is worth looking forward to.