Artificial intelligence tokens has long-term residence and will not be another crypto-tad as non-funny symbols (NFTs), although the industry has already seen its share of flops, Kava Lab’s co-founder Scott Stuart said in an interview with Coindesk.

“We had this first AI wave, but that wave was projects such as picking up, ‘we want to make a merger,’ but produce nothing from it, or projects like virtual or AI16Z that initially did well and then fell by 80% or 90%. It was an unhappy result,” Stuart Coindesk said in an interview.

Market data shows that since January, virtual, the native token for the AI-related virtual protocol down almost 85%. FET, Tokenet for Hentch.ai, The Artificial Intelligence Alliance, has fallen 60%.

Kava on its side is reasonably good, down 5%down and beats Coindesk 20, a market index that is down 29%.

Kava did not start as an AI project. Originally known for Cosmos-based decentralized funding (DEFI), began as just another defi project, but was about decentralized AI as a differentiator in the middle of the ongoing crypto market consolidation.

Since his pivot, Kava has sent its Kava AI platform and marketplace, a blockchain-native chatbot, similar to Chatgpt powered by Deepseeks R1 large language model, autonomous AI-agent Oros and decentralized GPU infrastructure.

Stuart said this pivot was needed because Altcoins are facing increased challenges without a compelling tale, making decentralized AIS clarity and value proportion critical.

“Unlike speculative bubbles such as NFTs, decentralized AI’s basic tool ensures that its resilience. NFTs or similar trends essentially are memes built on top of memes. All that is beta for meme -coins will inevitably rise and fall with hype bikes,” he said.

The company builds a decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure designed to be auditable, transparent and open source. Given its performance compared to the rest of the market, they are clearly on something.

“When you look at AI as a technology, it’s just another way for companies to present your information,” Stuart said. “With Openai there is a secret sauce component, and at any time in the future they can fine -tune that model to serve you whatever they want.”

Stuart claims that the effort is significant in separating AI from this black box as the technology becomes more and more integrated into everyday life.

“AI with closed source can fine -tune models in ways you can’t see. You don’t know if it’s optimized for your advantage or a business or even a national state’s interest,” he said.

And he is not the only one who has these concerns. In a previous interview with Coindesk, Simon Kim, CEO of South Korea’s Hashed, said the country’s leading web3 fund that closed source has made a ‘god’ from a machine. Its inner work remains unknown and incomprehensible, but it has established itself as a pillar in society.

In contrast, Kava Labs promotes an “open weight” approach that allows any opportunity to verify AI model parameters, as well as Ethereum’s transparent smart contracts.

Recognizing how regulators are increasingly considering AI transparency as a strategic American interest, Stuart sees an opportunity to build decentralized AI infrastructure that is a certified ‘made-in-the-USA’ and supported by open source financing initiatives.

“During the last administration, the tendency for offshoring was everything,” he said. “Now it seems that they are serious about turning it down, and we use this shift as an opportunity to strengthen American-based infrastructure.”

And under this infrastructure will be open source technology.

“The future of AI is not business -controlled,” he concluded. “It’s open, transparent and decentralized. Kava aims to lead this transformation.”