Sahara AI Interaction Guide: Quick Overview

On May 19, 2025, Sahara AI, the world’s first AI-native full-stack Web3 platform, officially launched its public testnet, SIWA, opening channels for AI creation, collaboration, and monetization to developers across all blockchains.

Sahara AI positions SIWA as the initial public gateway to the Sahara Blockchain, a foundational infrastructure designed to provide verifiable ownership, permission management, and on-chain monetization for AI assets like datasets and models, fostering trustworthy and traceable AI collaboration standards.

The SIWA testnet rollout is structured in four phases:

• Phase 1 (Current): Focuses on decentralized data ownership, enabling users to register datasets on-chain and mint ERC-721 ownership certificates, granting data traceable, quantifiable, and profit-sharing attributes.
• Subsequent Phases: Will introduce licensing and revenue-sharing mechanisms, a permissionless open-source testnet, and automated revenue-sharing pipelines.

According to Sahara AI’s roadmap from December 2024, the Sahara Chain mainnet is set to launch in Q3 2025, providing the on-chain infrastructure needed for large-scale decentralized AI.

During its private testnet, Sahara AI achieved remarkable traction: over 3.2 million total accounts, more than 1.4 million daily active accounts, and over 200,000 users participating in data annotation tasks, reflecting strong market interest.

Sahara AI Background

Team

• Sean Ren, Co-founder and CEO, is an Associate Professor at USC, recognized as a MIT TR35 Innovator (Asia-Pacific) and Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 honoree.
• Tyler Zhou, Co-founder and COO, previously served as Investment Director at Binance Labs.

Funding

Sahara AI has raised $49 million, supported by a robust mix of traditional and crypto-native investors:

• March 2024: $6 million seed round led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Samsung Next and others.
• August 2024: $43 million round led by Binance Labs, Pantera Capital, and Polychain Capital, with investors including Samsung, Matrix Partners, SCB 10X, Foresight Ventures, dao5, Alumni Ventures, Geekcartel, Nomad Capital, and Mirana Ventures.

Interaction Strategy

Currently, the SIWA testnet supports tokenization of AI models, datasets, and agents. Future updates will enable AI agent creation and trading of AI datasets, models, and agents in a peer-to-peer marketplace.

1. AI Asset Registration Guide

1. Visit https://app.saharalabs.ai/developer-platform/main/explore and connect your wallet.
2. Create a profile by uploading an avatar and providing details like birth year, gender, and country.
3. Claim 0.1 SAH from the faucet at https://faucet.saharalabs.ai/. Note: Your wallet must hold at least 0.01 ETH on the Ethereum mainnet.
4. Register an AI asset by entering a name, details, language, comments, and uploading a dataset (in .csv, .json, or .txt format) to mint an ERC-721 asset.
5. View your minted assets in the “My Asset” section on the left.

2. Data Services Platform (DSP) Tasks

• Currently requires whitelist access, but the Open Beta will launch on May 27, 2025.
• On DSP, select data annotation tasks (e.g., classification, image, or text labeling) to earn Sahara Points upon completion.

3. Sahara Legends Gamified Tasks (Launched January 30, 2025)

1. Visit https://legends.saharalabs.ai/, connect your wallet, and explore five desert-themed tasks.
2. In the Gobi Desert, complete daily check-ins and social media tasks to earn shards (no Galxe claim required).
3. In the Sahara Desert, register on the Data Services Platform. Other tasks require whitelist access. (Note: Additional desert tasks are currently locked for the author.)
4. The Rewards Center indicates that collecting enough shards in each desert awakens its guardian, earning a soulbound NFT on the Sahara testnet to commemorate contributions to the ecosystem’s early development. Collecting all five desert guardian NFTs allows crafting an exclusive Bitsy Soulbound NFT on the Sahara testnet.

This guide provides a streamlined approach to engaging with Sahara AI’s SIWA testnet, enabling users to participate in the decentralized AI economy while earning rewards. Start exploring today to be part of this innovative ecosystem