In the past two days, a new project suddenly emerged and stole the spotlight from almost all upcoming projects on the Virtual launchpad.
It is IRIS.
IRIS is an AI Agent focused on smart contract security.
This project has a profound background. Technically, it is supported by Nethermind, a core team in the Ethereum ecosystem; in terms of specific operations and strategy, it is managed by the Virtual team. Therefore, it can be considered a project jointly created by the Ethereum ecosystem team and the Virtual team.
Apart from its special background, the project's launch is different from previous AI Agents. It is the first project in the Virtual ecosystem to be launched on the Ethereum mainnet, so participants will need to claim tokens on the mainnet instead of Base.
In terms of token allocation, the project's approach is also different, essentially treating it as a public welfare project. 37.5% of tokens are used for fundraising, 12.5% for liquidity, and the remaining 50% is entirely allocated to the community. The team has not reserved any share for themselves.
In the project's launch arrangement, the project team has also designed something special, announcing the launch tonight (Beijing time) immediately after the project information was made public. Is this rapid online arrangement meant to prevent participants from having extra time to grab points, ensuring all participants compete fairly on the same starting line?
Simultaneously with the IRIS project announcement, the project's promotional video was also released and reposted by the Ethereum official account and Virtual project team.
This news quickly spread like wildfire on Twitter, with even some accounts that previously did not focus on this track (such as those only focusing on Non-Fungible Token) beginning to pay attention to the project. In the Virtual ecosystem, many accounts expressed their intention to All In their points and go cross margin to participate in this project. This made other projects that originally attracted many participants suddenly pale in comparison.
Almost everyone's focus was on IRIS.
This shows the project's popularity.
One eye-catching highlight of this project is that its technical support comes from the core team of the Ethereum ecosystem.
In fact, Ethereum core team members have previously participated in other projects. Taking recent projects we know, there are layer-2 scaling solutions Scroll and MegaETH. Although these projects are still progressing, they are not as hot as imagined for various reasons.
From the experience of these past projects, the core members of the Ethereum ecosystem mainly focus on project technology, such as the technology of Scroll and MegaETH, which is not weak. However, technical prowess is just one factor in a project's success and may not be the decisive factor.
So for IRIS, although the technology is solid, its future success may depend more on whether the Virtual team responsible for strategy and operations can manage it well.
In my view, what is most worth paying attention to is its significance in ecosystem and direction. Because it is the first officially announced AI Agent on the Ethereum mainnet, it is more like Ethereum's declaration of the AI + Crypto track.
Through this declaration, on one hand, Ethereum hopes to attract more AI developers to enter the Ethereum (mainnet and various layer-2 scaling) ecosystem to showcase their talents; on the other hand, it also affirms the current position of the Virtual platform in the AI + Crypto track.
Returning to the project, there is no doubt that this project will be oversubscribed, with only the question of how much.
For such a project, even if ordinary retail investors go All In, I estimate that the share they can ultimately obtain will be extremely limited. Because the share is small, it may not be possible to make much money, so just participate for fun and do not recommend going in with too strong a gambling mentality.
What I am more curious about is how the IRIS team will distribute the remaining 50% to the community?
