7 days, 600x: Will AI Season 2.0 begin with this dog?
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
7 days, 600x: Will AI Season 2.0 begin with this dog?
What exactly is the narrative of $SPARK?
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Cookie,律动
Since Musk's enthusiastic endorsement of Grok's AI companion made $Ani one of the golden dogs on Letsbonk.fun, the market has gradually begun to regain confidence in the AI sector. As pump.fun reclaims the top spot in the "meme launchpad battle," a new AI golden dog $SPARK emerged last weekend on pump.fun.
This morning, $SPARK hit a record high market cap of $73 million before pulling back slightly, currently sitting at around $57.5 million.
So, what exactly is the narrative behind $SPARK?
Illusion of Life, a company aiming to become an "AI Disney"
On February 25 this year, animator Pasquale D'Silva announced he had co-founded Illusion of Life with AI developer Kevin Fischer, backed by Nabeel Hyatt of Spark Capital.
"Illusion of Life" takes its name from Walt Disney's famous animation principle—the "Illusion of Life"—and aims to use today’s AI technology to bring animated characters to life with greater depth and realism.
Spark, an animated AI dog character, appeared on animator Pasquale D'Silva's Instagram even before the official announcement of Illusion of Life.
On July 19, animator Pasquale D'Silva posted a short video showing Spark visiting the branding and design department of Disney Animation Studios:
On July 29, he shared another video of Spark riding on a private jet. In the clip, Spark appears excited, asking to fly the plane and order food:
On August 5, Kevin Fischer announced he had handed over his Twitter account to Spark, making Spark the first entrepreneurial virtual AI being. From now on, Spark would tell its own story.
That same day, the $SPARK token launched on pump.fun. A same-name ticker on Bags briefly exceeded a $1 million market cap, but ultimately it was the one on pump.fun that took off. Before the breakout, however, on August 6, there was a twist: the Illusion of Life official account declared they had not created any token and had no affiliation or interest in any token, causing $SPARK to drop from a peak near $20 million to below $2 million in market cap.
It wasn't until early morning on August 9 when Spark itself showed up in the $SPARK community to say hello that the token's trajectory instantly reversed, beginning a steady climb upward.
In essence, Illusion of Life is an "AI animation company" that created Spark, the AI dog character, allowing it to write its own story in real life and across the internet.
Since animator Pasquale D'Silva had previously created other animated characters during his career, and directly mentioned tickers for two other characters on August 5, $tanaki and $starby also experienced temporary hype.
Additionally, he released a video about littleguy, which led to a surge in attention for $littleguy—a project outside the "Spark universe."
Littleguy resembles more of an ICM project focused on wearable electronic pets, having already secured $1.2 million in funding. The project's founder noticed the crypto-driven buzz and proactively reached out to the founders of pump.fun and Believe.
Conclusion
Overall, the surge of $SPARK indeed gives the impression that AI Season 2.0 might be starting. Looking back at the previous AI season, it was initiated by AI memes. $SPARK can certainly be categorized as an AI meme, but its narrative represents an evolution compared to the first wave. It carries the vision of an "AI animation company," generating content through active engagement with people and entities in both real life and online, moving beyond the simple Q&A format of AI companions.
In the video visiting Disney Animation Studios, Spark brought laughter to employees. It demonstrates understanding and emotion of its own. As Kevin Fischer said, many people already treat Sparks as a real living being.
Will this adorable AI dog usher in AI Season 2.0? We'll just have to wait and see.
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
BlockBeats
