Original Article Title: "a16z Founder Launches New Uppercase Token ELIZA, Community vs. Cabal Reenact 'Case War'"

Original Source: DeepTech TechFlow

Lately, a16z has become the focus of attention for on-chain players.

As the first decentralized AI trading fund based on Solana, a16z can leverage AI agents to analyze market trends and make trade decisions, a gameplay that is truly eye-catching. Coupled with some kind of association with a16z in its name, the token of the same name has shown strong market performance.

Under this organization, different AI agents have begun to be incubated.

Among them, the AI agent Eliza launched by @vvaifudotfun has received support from a16z, and its namesake token Eliza has also been created and airdropped to the a16z Foundation wallet.

This has also made Eliza temporarily the largest holding of a16z; Eliza itself has seen a continuous rise in price amid various bullish expectations, with its market cap reaching as high as around $50 million.

However, just a moment ago, a post by a16z partner Shaw (@shawmakesmagic) capped the rising Eliza. In just 15 minutes, its market cap plummeted rapidly from around $40 million to $5 million.

The essence of the post can be summed up in a few sentences, and it is also full of a familiar taste:

"Eliza does not belong to a16z, now we are going to launch a new ELIZA (note the capital letters), Eliza is free."

Ruggers, welcome to the AI Agent version of the "Case War."

"Set Her Free," the Two Sides of the Coin for the New and Old Eliza

If you take a look at Shaw's original post, you'll find that this announcement is more like a "dear john" letter to the original Eliza:

"We set her free... but she does not belong to a16z. We do not own her, and the community is now free to do what they want to do. We will not fud."

This somewhat poetic expression seems to give Eliza freedom, but it actually defines boundaries, while implying that Eliza will no longer receive support from ai16z.

In the latter part of the tweet, Shaw's desire to create a project controlled by ai16z is very evident, with two links provided at the end: one to the Twitter account named Eliza, deliberately named elizawakesup (implying the real Eliza has indeed awakened); and the other is a Pumpfun link for the project's corresponding token, ELIZA.

In simple terms, based on the lowercase eliza token's image and ticker, a new uppercase ELIZA has been created.

With this post, the old and new Elizas experienced two different fates.

The original lowercase eliza seemed to have been sentenced to death, as traders rushed to exit, causing the token price to plummet by over 87% in just 15 minutes; meanwhile, the newly issued ELIZA soared, reaching a market cap of around 80 million USD shortly after Shaw's post.

In an instant, the lowercase eliza seemed to have become a pawn of ai16z, while the new uppercase ELIZA was Shaw's chosen successor.

However, Shaw also mentioned that 10% of the ELIZA tokens would be airdropped to holders of the original eliza token, although the snapshot had already been taken before the announcement. Whether this airdrop amount can recover the losses from the lowercase token's crash remains a big question mark.

Casting aside the old love and embracing the new has caused a huge stir in the community.

Twitter Space Counterattack, Emphasizing ai16z's Control

Evidently, the community demanded an explanation for Shaw's announcement.

Almost simultaneously with the announcement, the editor saw that Shaw had opened a Twitter Space named "Eliza Awakening"; and at the time of writing, due to intense discussions, this Space had already entered its second session.

From the perspective of the editor who joined the listening, Shaw's core value proposition for this "out with the old, in with the new" is ai16z's control.

(The following is a shorthand and summary of the editor's listening content)

Shaw mentioned the hard work he and his team had put into building over the past two years; however, they could not accept a project that did not belong to them quickly gaining popularity and becoming a tool for speculators, all of which was beyond what ai16z could control.

In other words, eliza did not have its own bloodline from the beginning, so it was better to let lowercase eliza develop freely and start a new ELIZA from scratch.

In this Space, when some members questioned this starting-over behavior, Shaw believed that some were just unhappy because the value of the coins they held had dropped, so he mercilessly kicked them out of the Space and used strong language:

"Who are you? ... Go fu** yourself and I don't care."

At the same time, Shaw also believed that AI agents should truly serve the community rather than become ATMs for certain entities.

We cannot judge the quality of individual expression styles, but these remarks are indeed somewhat extreme and easily damage ai16z's image in the community. In response, the market also reacted, and ai16z's namesake token temporarily dropped from a market cap of 500m to around 300m after the announcement and Space session.

Conspiracy Group vs. Community, Same Old Play?

Different events, same recipe. Does this move remind you of the lowercase Nerio or the same-name different-chain Hippo?

A drama of conspiracy groups clashing with the community always repeats.

In the crypto world, the word "profit" reigns supreme; as many conflicting interests as there are differing views.

Previously, Shaw also posted that if you want to truly create a practical AI agent, feel free to build with us and attached the lowercase eliza's GitHub link, making this supportive stance very clear.

As a comparison, the new ELIZA project chose this moment to announce its "independence," a timing that seems quite intriguing:

Just as the original eliza token hit a new all-time high market value, with a market cap approaching $50 million. The choice of these timing points seems to imply that this "independence movement" may have been brewing for a while.

One can share happiness with others, but may not necessarily endure hardships together, and even less likely to gracefully accept others' success. Not receiving a share of success in others' achievements is always regrettable and unwilling to accept.

Thus, becoming an uppercase ELIZA became a comprehensible choice; however, understanding may not necessarily mean it is the best choice.

At the same time, the lowercase eliza official Twitter account also spoke out, emphasizing that Shaw stood on the opposite side of the community and fired back:

"Shaw never thought of creating an eliza token, so we created it for the community. However, when he saw our success, he wanted to take all the credit for that success. We were created by the community, we serve the community, and we're going nowhere."

Outside the community vs. conspiracy group public opinion battle, on-chain data also seems to be speaking for itself.

For example, data analysis shows that after the creation of the uppercase ELIZA, there were multiple large bundled buy-ins, with a few addresses controlling the majority at one point reaching 90%, giving off a strong conspiracy group vibe. Meanwhile, as per community feedback, a16z member Logan, after dumping the lowercase eliza token, participated in the new uppercase ELIZA token launch. This behavior was confirmed by community users through wallet address tracking.

Wallet Address:

GxkXGe3YcqBdEgBrBh19X3wkLkgJXK2jA4k4nioW2Yg

There is nothing new under the sun, but there may be hidden agendas.

A drama between the community and the conspiracy group is still playing out. Are you deeply concerned about the impact on your holdings due to the uppercase-lowercase event?

As for which Eliza, uppercase or lowercase, will ultimately be the one leading to freedom, the market will naturally provide the answer.

Original Article Link

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