ai16z Controversy Causes Token to Drop 50%

Here’s an overview of the duplicate token drama.

AI Agent token $ai16eliza has dumped 50% after ai16z partner, Shaw, announced they are launching a new $ELIZA token. This is after Shaw had ‘challenged’ a team to create an agent, stating he won’t be launching his own.

So what exactly happened?

10 days ago Shaw stated that his team at ai16z won’t be launching an $ELIZA token. Ai16z themselves did not create $ELIZA. This had lead to an unknown team releasing the first Eliza token, named $ai16eliza, which had made it seem to buyers that this was an official ai16z token. Shaw had been front-ran.

While ai16z would not release an ELIZA token, Shaw made it clear that he wanted to partner with a team of his choice that will run the new $ELIZA token. This was to ensure the team was trustworthy to help build in the long-term.

The controversy continues:

The new token news lead to a mass sell-off of the initial $ai16eliza. Token holders saw their token drop 70% within an hour. However, Shaw promised they are going to be airdrop 10% of the new ELIZA token to $ai16eliza holders, which is why the team ‘sniped’ supply. Launching a new token and giving 10% to the previous holders of an established token may have left holders feeling disappointed.

The news lead to Crypto Twitter outrage and questions were being asked.

“Why a new Eliza token launch?”

“Why couldn't the old token be used?”

”Why was the airdrop only 10% value?”

As of now, the new $ELIZA remains a mascot for ai16z in Shaw’s AI universe. Despite this, $ELIZA is not recognised officially as part of the $ai16z and $degenai token family.

Both tokens, $ai16z and $degenai, had taken a massive hit after all the drama.

In his apology post, Shaw proposed solutions to repair the damage. He later admitted it’s best for both $ai16eliza and $ELIZA tokens to run together. Since then, the market has reacted negatively and AI Agent tokens have dumped, including ai16z related.