imgnAI: The Next Generation

imgnAI - $imgnAI
12 min readAug 4, 2023

--

Major Keys:

  • imgnAI is well-positioned for growth as a censorship-resistant competitor to leading consumer AI applications like Midjourney.
  • We aim to out-compete proprietary consumer AI products by leaning into open-source compatibility and user experience.
  • The $imgnAI token provides a solution to the single-point-of-failure problem that web2 products face. They’re entirely reliant on payment processors for revenue and cashflow. This vulnerability leads to increasing censorship and creates a major opportunity for imgnAI.
  • User growth and revenue drive value accrual to the $imgnAI token via a buy-and-burn mechanism. This allows token holders to benefit from the growth of imgnAI’s product suite. Additional tokenomics strategies are being developed for future products and features.
  • imgnAI can grow and leverage a cult-like community for virality and market awareness.

Genoratoooors, we’ve come a long way :)

As we prepare for the mass market / revenue phase of imgnAI, it’s important to take note of our overall product thesis, and how we plan to take imgnAI from crypto-native startup to a web2 market leader. Our aim will always be to take imgnAI as far as we can in the web2 world, while staying true to our crypto roots.

It’s been quite a ride, but we’re only getting started. Welcome to the next generation!

Our Vision

We’re building a consumer AI product suite that empowers users to have fun while exploring the full extent of their imaginations. Our products are built to maximize freedom, virality and social engagement while leveraging the latest advances in open-source software.

Why Crypto x Consumer AI?

As crypto-natives, we bring a philosophy of freedom to everything we build. While competitors like Midjourney and Replika have impressive products, we believe that leading consumer AI products will become more and more restricted for global users as companies cater to the mandates of payment processing and advertising partners.

We’ve already seen significant increases in censorship and restrictions since we started, and this will only increase over time. Consumer AI products require large monthly server burns to scale, so these companies are especially incentivized to protect revenue and cash flow. With crypto, we don’t have to worry about fiat processing as a single point of failure. We can maintain a borderless, censorship-resistant payment method for all products and enforce our own boundaries around content moderation.

Furthermore, there are distinct business advantages that come from both censorship resistance and understanding the nuances of crypto culture. We already have discussions with high level potential partners as a result of current industry leaders’ content restrictions; and we believe these opportunities will only increase. As we build and expand our product suite, we can leverage the freedom of crypto as a tool for accessibility, marketing, and revenue generation.

Open-Source Advantage

The most common question we get is about the existence of a proprietary tech moat. The proprietary elements we have built are exceedingly difficult to replicate (rapid auto content moderation, scalable/fast image processing, B2B APIs, etc), and we’ll continue to solve problems with innovative, in-house solutions. However, we believe that focusing entirely on proprietary tech is a short-sighted strategy.

In the long run, open-source developers will not just keep up, but likely out-pace proprietary consumer AI software. For this reason, we’re positioning imgnAI as both a consumer product suite and as a hub for open-source developers. In this way, we can support open-source development while allowing global users to easily access the latest and greatest in consumer AI.

This aspect is especially prominent in image generation, where our own model quality has drastically increased with the release of Stability’s SDXL framework. Not only will open-source improvements continue to amaze us and benefit our own models, but skilled model trainers around the world will be able to work with us to host their custom models alongside imgnAI models and earn rewards based on model usage!

In brief, we’re well positioned to bring the power of open-source innovation to imgnAI users around the world.

A Real Moat: Growth and User Experience

Currently, the highest quality of generative AI is only accessible to people who understand how to use complex software and have the necessary hardware to run it.

We’re changing this.

Our Discord product already offers model quality and user experience similar to leading text-to-image products like Midjourney; and the current growth numbers suggest we have serious product-market-fit. In the past 2 weeks alone, our Nai bot was added to over 10k unique Discord servers. At the time of publishing this article, Nai is live in over 44k unique servers and regularly outputting over 250k images per day. Furthermore, our backend infrastructure is handling all of these requests with 4-image output at 768px base resolution.

Discord will always be a primary retail-facing product for imgnAI. However, our web app will take user experience even further.

imgnAI Web App

The imgnAI web app will be our primary retail product for text-to-image. As discussed above, our aim is to make the web app a hub for both retail users and open-source developers.

Talented developers will be able to work with us to upload their models alongside our own, and retail users around the world can access the latest advances in open-source text-to-image without the need for high performance hardware and complicated software setups.

We’ll also include elements of gamification, social sharing and point-system incentives to keep users hooked and encourage network effects. Ultimately, we see the imgnAI web app as a digital town square for global text-to-image users and developers.

Since you’ve taken the time to read through this magnum opus, enjoy some previews below :)

Note: web interface will be updated to include GenXL model generations.

Onboarding the Next Million Crypto Users — More Than a Meme

To truly onboard the next million crypto users, we need more than just token speculation. We believe the key to mass adoption is consumer apps that seamlessly blend the web2 and web3 worlds. Our web app is designed to convert web2 users to web3 users via gamified reward systems and effortless crypto payment rails. True adoption comes only when crypto feels platform-native and as seamless as fiat.

Crypto payments are also a key product advantage, as they offer a protective layer of censorship resistance that our web2 peers lack. For example, imagine a user wants to generate content that is no longer allowed with Midjourney. To give you a sense of the increasing restrictions, here’s what happens when you prompt “cleavage”

And after we appealed this shocking suspension…

It’s easy to imagine this user getting frustrated with censorship and discovering imgnAI. From there, the path to crypto adoption is simple.

After experiencing the ease and freedom of our platform, imgnAI becomes a daily fixture in their life. They engage in the social sharing and gamification elements, and soon they’re part of a crypto-native community. They begin to understand the benefits of a token, and have some balance of $imgnAI as a result of being an active user of the platform.

AI image generation is a perfect fit for this kind of onboarding scenario, as there is a clear differentiator between us and our web2 peers that exists outside of the token. We’re able to offer a real product advantage that engages web2 users, and onboard them into the crypto elements of the product via social and token-based incentives. Furthermore, the shared ideals of freedom and reduced censorship that permeate our community are the same ideals that lead many to discover the merits of crypto in the first place.

Next Generation Models

The imgnAI web app will feature our new GenXL model at launch. Soon after, we’ll integrate our next generation of models built on top of Stability’s SDXL framework. This includes our super hi-res anime model, trained on a massive library of hand-selected anime and digital art styles; as well as our highly anticipated NSFW-specific models.

Adult AI

The immense (and growing) censorship by leading web2 companies creates an incredible opportunity for imgnAI to lead the way in Adult AI. By enabling NSFW content in a responsible and scalable manner, we can position ourselves as a market leader in what is likely the most popular AI content category of the future.

Already, we’re tagging a massive data set of hi-res NSFW content to solve many of the problems around NSFW image generation that exist today. If all goes as expected, this model should soon be the most accessible high-performance NSFW model on the market.

Due to consumer demand, all NSFW-specific models will be pay-gated and maintained with scalable and effective auto content moderation. In this way, we can leverage our positioning as a leader in Adult AI to drive real value accrual to the $imgnAI token.

In addition to our consumer models, we’re also developing exclusive products for B2B partners that are capable of NSFW generation. While we can’t say much here, we’re incredibly excited to see how the Adult AI industry grows and the role that we play in shaping it.

Tokenomics and Premium

The success of imgnAI is based on how effectively we can grow our user base and revenue; and how well we can leverage this growth to accrue value to the $imgnAI token. The latter part depends specifically on our tokenomics.

We have clear goals in mind when designing and advancing our tokenomics:

  • $imgnAI holders benefit from the platform’s growth via buy-and-burn of $imgnAI tokens on the secondary market. This utilizes a portion of fiat revenue generated from premium subscriptions and other paid features.
  • $imgnAI token has direct utility by allowing token holders to access pay-gated products. We can also provide holders with early access to new products and features, further incentivizing users to buy and hold (note: $imgnAI staking is currently being explored).
  • $imgnAI token incentives are tied to platform use and designed to convert web2 users to web3 users, encouraging worldwide crypto growth.

Our D2C revenue model will include fiat, crypto and stablecoin payment options, with the focus of making accessibility seamless for both web2 and web3 users. All forms of revenue are designed to drive value to the $imgnAI token.

Our first form of revenue, text-to-image Premium, will come online shortly after the release of our web app. To give you a sense of the opportunity here, Midjourney estimates ~15 million global users and ~$500M annualized revenue (source).

Premium text-to-image features will include:

  • access to NSFW and premium models
  • access to higher resolution outputs
  • watermark removal
  • queue priority
  • higher simultaneous jobs in queue
  • greater number of stored images in history
  • and more

Premium will be accessible via both fiat and crypto payment rails. Both payment options will drive value back to the $imgnAI token. A portion of the revenue generated from both fiat and crypto purchases will be utilized to buy-and-burn $imgnAI tokens on the secondary market, thus providing a deflationary force on the $imgnAI token.

The platform is designed to convert as many users as possible to paid Premium and directly accrue value to the $imgnAI token via platform revenue. Incentives are aligned for both the team and token holders to create the best products possible, with a seamless onboarding flow (converting web2 users to web3 users) and user experience to drive revenue and maximize value accrual to $imgnAI.

As we launch new product lines like Naifu, our upcoming digital companion, we’ll always incorporate mechanisms that drive value back to the $imgnAI token.

Naifu: Digital Companion

Naifu is an all-in-one digital companion. She can chat, solve complex problems, and cater to your every need. Due to our brand positioning and existing image generation infrastructure, we can offer a unique product in the digital companion space with clear differentiators from existing market leaders. The tech that backs Naifu also blends seamlessly with our B2B strategy.

Key Differentiators

Real Social: The number one problem with companion bots today is they don’t feel like a real personality. Bots are overwhelmingly designed to be relentlessly sycophantic, rather than represent a real personality with unique thoughts and opinions.

Using the latest advances in open-source large language models, we’ve been able to create personalities that feel far more real than existing competitors. We can also offer users the ability to fine-tune their ideal personality, and even create a marketplace for personality prompts in the future.

AI Unleashed: Unlike other digital companions, Naifu is largely uncensored. You’re free to roleplay, discuss taboo topics, and explore the limits of your imagination.

Currently, companion bots shy away from even remotely controversial topics and often get confused when you consistently bring them up. Furthermore, while there are companion products that currently offer NSFW role play, we believe commercial companion products will become increasingly censored due to payment processor concerns.

Image Generation: One of our greatest advantages is the fact that we already understand and manage a large infrastructure for on-demand image generation. It makes little sense for existing companion products to spend the time and money to build this simply for one feature. In our case however, we already have the infrastructure to do image generation in a way that is far superior to existing companion products.

We currently have a beta sign-up for Naifu. You can sign up there and be among the first to meet Naifu when the beta product is live!

Cults Will Inherit the Earth

Throughout history; the memorable brands, products, artists and personas have not gone quietly into the good night.

Our initial growth thesis was based on the memetic transfer of information e.g. we optimize for virality and the product spreads organically via users. For this reason and more, we’ve heavily prioritized freedom, fun and social engagement.

We’ve created robust systems and developed multi-layered, proprietary infrastructure to auto-moderate and filter content at-scale. This allows us to responsibly enable NSFW content and maintain a low censorship approach moving forward. Furthermore, our positioning as crypto natives allows us to easily lean into this position, as people expect us to lead the way on censorship resistance and dabble in absurdity.

Our team understands how to harness virality and memes without crossing ethical lines. And with the growing power and accessibility of our generative tooling, our community can act as a global marketing army to keep us relevant in the fast-moving attention economy.

Fun fact: we were partly responsible for Elon changing the Twitter gold tick algorithm and removing it from certain accounts, as we harnessed the previous algorithm a bit too effectively for his liking :)

As a cult of freedom and fun maxis, we can operate in worlds where our web2 peers fear to tread; and these worlds are the exact places where content has the most potential to go viral. We can also leverage our low censorship approach to build high-value B2B partnerships, some of which are already underway.

In the coming years, we intend to grow a global cult and gain market share by focusing on:

  • best-in-class UX: products are habit-forming and fun
  • tech advantage: bringing the latest advancements in open-source tech to global retail users
  • viral marketing: a growth team that understands how to leverage content and community to succeed in the attention economy
  • value accrual: revenue and product adoption drive value back to the $imgnAI token, which attracts users and serves as a market narrative
  • unique founder persona: an engaging anon founder who can bring attention to the product and attract PR opportunities

Thank you to all the genoratooors who have supported us thus far. We truly have the best community, and we’re constantly amazed by the endless creativity of your genooorations.

As traditional systems work to censor and restrict, we can empower users around the world to explore the full potential of their imaginations. And the best part is…

We can do it together :)

As always…

More soon, genoratooors.

--

--

imgnAI - $imgnAI

ImgnAI is building the future of generative AI. More freedom. More fun. Let's generate!