If you follow AI, then you’ve probably seen this big story that, for some reason, not many people are talking about. I’m talking about Ocean Protocol leaving the ASI Alliance. It’s a complex decision with lots of factors to take into consideration.
Let’s look at the events behind Ocean’s departure.
Intro to The Main Players
First, we have the 3 projects involved in the alliance, and it was the biggest crypto merger involving tokens that we’ve seen so far. We have
- Ocean Protocol
- Fetch.ai
- Singularity
Now, I’m not getting too deep into all the projects. Yet, one of the reasons for conflict and this ultimate business divorce is that the projects focus on different areas. Ocean in particular. Both Fetch and Singularity have a focus on building and deploying autonomous AI agents. So they are building out things such as agent app stores and such so you can find an agent for financial tasks or health care. And that’s great. But that’s not what Ocean does.
Ocean is more involved in decentralized AI infrastructure. This includes things like access for AI models and datasets, as well as the computing power that AI models need. Both are great goals and necessary developments for AI in crypto to be successful. And yet, they are very different from each other.
A Simple Question
But first, a simple question. You get married. Then you find out that your spouse expects access to your accounts at all times but does not give you access to theirs. The moment something goes wrong, everything is your fault. Instead of trying to talk it out, the first step is to threaten to go to lawyers. You marry your spouse, yet you find out that their mother controls their entire financial life.
What do you do? Do you stay married? Or do you acknowledge you made a mistake and cut your losses? Well, keep that in mind for what you are about to hear…..
Now onto the events that led to Ocean’s departure.
The Announcement and Short Honeymoon
The announcement of the alliance took place in March 2024. Immediately after, Humaun Sheikh, CEO of Fetch.ai, made some forceful and (some would call) shady decisions. These include the need to use the Fetch L1 chain that would lock out a number of Ocean’s pre-existing partners.
And we know this is not the way to start a successful, new marriage, business or otherwise. Everyone needs to compromise on something.
I guess this is why we have annulments. But what’s the business equivalent?
Less than 2 months later, seeing that the Ocean team had made a mistake, they asked to be let out of the Alliance. All of this was done in private and in good faith to inform both Fetch and Singularity.
Sheikh’s first reply, and you can see his email on this blog post in the April 2024 section, was to threaten lawsuits with major damages if Ocean leaves. The legal disputes started in May. And they are still going on now…….
Meanwhile, starting in the Summer of 2024 and continuing now, Fetch and Singularity have sold $500 million worth of tokens. And Ocean has sold none. This does not account for the reckless spending and questionable ethics on moving money & tokens to and from the Singularity Treasury wallet, as reported in December 2024.
Put simply, there was a lot of shady stuff going on, leaving Ocean and its community holding the bag. It’s been Ocean’s position all along that Sheikh, who controls Fetch, has not been acting in good faith with them as a full partner should.
Remember my simple question earlier?
The TRNR Deal
So Ocean’s partners are freely spending Ocean’s money. Or trying to. And it’s capped off with this deal on TRNR in June 2025.
Imagine having a partner who pledges a huge chunk of their Treasury to back a loan you don’t know about or approve of. And using volatile crypto assets can lead to margin calls.
It’s ridiculous, right? I mean, who would do that? Well, read on to see…..
Independent of Ocean, and Ocean isn’t even mentioned in the SEC filings, Fetch was working on an ETF deal. It would include funding from Treasuries (including Ocean’s) and a $50 million loan to ISI and market maker DWF. It’s a pretty arrogant move on Fetch’s part to think they can make a deal this big that involves Ocean’s Treasury and not even consult them or mention them, let alone get them to sign off on it. It’s ridiculous. No one would put up with that type of behavior in a partnership.
That was June. Then, thanks to market volatility and the huge October 10th liquidation event, large amounts of $FET used to back this deal got liquidated.
What a mess. $FET was the collateral for the ETF deal and the loan, and it was called and liquidated. There wasn’t even any good reason why, except either the ego boost from having an ETF or deepening a relationship with one of the industry’s biggest and also most controversial market makers. It just makes no sense at all.
Response to Claims of Ocean Token Mismanagement
Then there are the claims of mismanagement by the Ocean team of trying to “drain” the Alliance Treasury. Now with no access to Fetch or Singularity funds, this claim seems a little silly. But what the team did, and the response is below on X, is convert $OCEAN to $FET, as was their right, and then move tokens to OTC providers to have liquidity for private trades. While we don’t always love that projects do this, it is both an accepted and legal way to help manage your Treasury and earn on those tokens. You could argue our markets might be better and more open without OTC and market makers like DWF and Wintermute. But they’d also be less liquid, harder to trade, and institutions would likely not be in the market at all. So it’s not an all-or-nothing deal.
The ASI Alliance from Ocean’s Perspective
By @brucepon
People are rightly angry and frustrated. No one is a winner in this current state of unease, lack of information and transparency, and mudslinging. Ocean doesn’t see the benefit of throwing around unfounded and false… pic.twitter.com/YUfTQmvhxZ
— Ocean Protocol (@oceanprotocol) October 23, 2025
OceanDAO Adds Services
In the meantime, Ocean still works to make things better for its community. And one way of doing that is through adding services like yield generation for $OCEAN token holders.
Since Fetch acted unilaterally in the TRNR deal, Ocean was looking to protect the community through its incorporation of Ocean Expeditions in the Cayman Islands.
Not surprisingly, Sheikh saw this as a betrayal since the Ocean Treasury would not be wide open for pledging or pilfering or committing in ways the community may not approve of.
You can see the ongoing themes here. Fetch wants to control all funding and tokenomics decisions. Even where Ocean and its community are concerned. It’s a good reason to worry.
$FET Price Tanks
Now, we get to the finger-pointing. Fetch is down 90% since the Alliance announcement. And to be fair, most of the market outside the top 20 or 30, and a few memecoins have been awful in this same period.
And yet, while Fetch mismanages its Treasury with deals like this TRNR deal with stupidly volatile collateral, Ocean gets accused of tanking the $FET.
Hardly.
It’s pretty clear that Fetch brought this on themselves and are looking for someone else to blame.
Ocean Exits The Alliance
After 18 months of this back-and-forth nonsense, Ocean Protocol finally had enough and said “we’re out”. That was around the same time as the TRNR collateral liquidation. And on the day of the announcement, $FET only dropped by 2 cents from 55c to 53c.
The Alliance had no enforcement mechanisms built in to hold the partners to the decisions they make. It was also not very decentralized, something important to Ocean and its community. Not when you consider all the control Sheikh has over Fetch and thus the partnership.
What’s Next?
This is an important question. Ocean has a proud, active community. And some of them converted their tokens, while others didn’t. We will be discussing that and its effects in a follow-up article.
As of now, there are some legal things to work out. And no one knows how long that will take. Ocean Protocol project will continue. They will continue to build out a decentralized infrastructure network for data and AI. That’s so developers and small projects can get what they need to build out their apps, protocols, or agents.
The Artificial SuperIntelligence Alliance is something that seemed like a good idea. Three projects that had taken time to establish themselves. And they wanted to push themselves and AI forward. With no means of enforcement, rules, or ways to engage and manage disputes fairly, it seems now that the Alliance was doomed from the start. Ocean Protocol is ready to move on and look to the future.
Disclaimer
The information provided by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. It is intended solely for educational, entertainment, and informational purposes. Any opinions or strategies shared are those of the writer/reviewers, and their risk tolerance may differ from yours. We are not liable for any losses you may incur from investments related to the information given. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk assets; therefore, conduct thorough due diligence. This post is sponsored by Ocean Protocol.
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