On April 17, the market capitalization of the Solana ecosystem AI meme coin DARK briefly surpassed $32 million, setting a new historical high. Over the past week, its market cap has grown by 1500%. In the weak cycle of Crypto AI, how has this AI project managed to continue rising against the trend? What is the team behind it, MtnDao?

What is Dark

DARK is an AI that provides MCP for external platforms under the TEE protocol. The concept of TEE in CryptoAI is likely familiar to many, having appeared multiple times in CryptoAI projects since the "teeheehe" stone created by developer Ropirito last year. It is an experimental trusted execution environment designed to ensure that AI behavior is not influenced by humans through the protocol. The term MCP has become more common recently and can be understood as a USB-C interface for large models, allowing various devices to connect through the same interface without being unable to use the same connector when switching devices. Since Anthropic open-sourced MCP on November 25, 2024, it has rapidly swept through the AI industry and began to gain popularity in CryptoAI starting February 2025.

The project DARK, composed of these two well-known concepts, has pushed its market cap to $30 million despite being marginalized in the CryptoAI market, driven by two main factors: "the founder's decision-making and efficiency" and "the future expectations of the founder's team."

The Founder’s Decision-Making and Efficiency

Edgar Pavlovsky's transformation over a year after friends set a fitness plan

The Quidditch-Loving Founder

Founder Edgar Pavlovsky is fluent in English and Russian and graduated from the University of Utah, a historic institution located in Salt Lake City. MtnDao's core base for the "We work" workspace, which partnered with Solana in February, is also located in downtown Salt Lake City. A look at his social media reveals that a decade ago, he was not interested in blockchain but rather a sport called Quidditch, which filled his posts from 2014 to 2017. This sport is derived from the Quidditch in "Harry Potter."

He spent many years with the Utah Crimson Quidditch team, which even raised funds on Indiegogo to participate in the Quidditch World Cup, but unfortunately, they only raised $1,450.

The player on the far right is Edgar Pavlovsky

Edgar Pavlovsky's Blockchain Experience

After graduating from college, he worked at Uber and founded several startups. After entering the blockchain industry, he founded the Paladin client to prevent MEV attacks and was also a co-founder of the Solana ecosystem margin protocol Marginfi. He left the team in April 2024 due to a divergence in values with the team, which was widely believed to be related to the previous accusations against Marginfi by SolBlaze regarding the manipulation of BLZE emission distribution, causing quite a stir at the time.

Further Reading: "What Happened to Marginfi After the Founder Was Forced Out and TVL Plummeted by 20%?"

His vision for DARK is not simply to merge technologies and sell the concept, but rather to have a complete product theory. After the launch of $DARK, he shared on social media X, "I am focused on building the first product of DARK. As DARK aims to achieve its long-term infrastructure goals, iterating productization is the best way to realize this, building in public, increasing revenue + distribution, and testing new technologies in production."

To achieve these goals, he proposed a product direction that involves creating a consumer PWA (Progressive Web App) application experience to attract mobile users for frequent use, replacing traditional applications. The viral spread of daily user engagement would expand influence, ideally showcasing a proof of concept (POC) for decentralized MCP represented by DARK in broad applications.

One Week to Deliver the Product

These statements may sound abstract and vague, often echoed by countless Crypto founders, which led to DARK's coin price fluctuating between $2 million and $4 million from April 7 to April 11. During this period, he proposed a product vision for game AI, expressing his admiration for the full-chain game Dark Forest and paying tribute to its creator. The DARK version of Dark Forest runs encapsulated on a private VPS, accessible only to its AI players, who will be containerized and play the game through the DARK-launched Dark Forest MCP.

Players cannot directly play Dark Forest with AI, as it is a world that belongs solely to them, akin to a Hunger Games for AI. There are several ways for players to participate: they can bet on the outcomes of AI wars in the DARK market to earn rewards, directly sponsor the AI by providing energy or funds to enhance their capabilities to defeat competitors, or even design AI strategies that, while not directly adopted, will influence the AI's gameplay strategies.

Note: Dark Forest is a decentralized massively multiplayer online (MMO) space conquest strategy game inspired by the dark forest theory from Liu Cixin's science fiction series "The Three-Body Problem." It was initially initiated by MIT graduate Brian Gu as an undergraduate project and later taken over by the 0xPARC Foundation. To this day, the game remains one of the most representative full-chain games.

On April 11, he announced that the game was complete, and the next day, AI Agents would begin simulating wars. He provided a very promising vision, aiming to create a VPS game world and a consumer viewing application as entertainment infrastructure, combined with MCP and AI containerization to expand his influence and reach, stating, "Everyone can start their own game environment," ultimately trading AI warriors and enhancement items in the DARK market to concentrate the game's value.

Screenshot of the DARK version of Dark Forest game

As a result, DARK's token price surged to a peak market cap of $9 million. Beyond the vision, the market witnessed the terrifying delivery efficiency of the first product within days. On April 16, the product officially launched, and within 24 hours, it surged again by 100%, from a market cap of $14 million to $32 million.

Edgar's female friend H "hnxyn_" from MtnDao revealed the truth behind this, pointing out that Edgar is almost always working, "Today he is working in my tattoo studio, in the taxi on the way to a bar to attend a friend's band performance, working in the bar where our friend is playing, and now we are at our second bar tonight."

Edgar Pavlovsky working in a bar

The DAO Behind It

The "Peak" Behind DARK — MtnDAO

On April 9, after the launch of DARK, the developer organization DAO MtnDAO, co-founded by Edgar Pavlovsky and Barrett, concluded its fundraising for MtnCapital on MetaDAO. MtnDao has been deeply involved in building the Solana developer community from early on, and Mtn Capital aims to create a new investment management model guided by futarchy (market prediction) to inform governance decisions, likening $MTN to futures managed by a fund. Ultimately, within 7 days, a total of 1,931 contributors raised $5.75 million for it.

The institution's investments will be decided by traders, and the approval of proposals will depend on the trading behavior of those speculating on the MTN token price. Decisions will be made based on the trends of the MTN token. In short, if traders believe a proposal, such as investing $100,000 in BTC, is beneficial for Mtn Capital, they will buy to drive up the MTN price, and ultimately, the proposal will pass. Conversely, if they believe the trade is detrimental to Mtn Capital, they will sell to lower the MTN price, and ultimately, the proposal will fail.

Is DARK a preliminary validation of the Futarchy DAO concept?

This concept is not the first time MtnDao has proposed it; it was introduced by George Mason University economics professor Robin Hanson in a 2007 paper discussing the concept of futures trading, based on the premise that speculative markets may make better decisions than purely democratic states. Hanson believes that participants in speculative markets, such as stock and betting markets, have the incentive to conduct necessary research to understand the best outcomes that align with their interests, and they will trade accordingly.

Proph3t appeared at a Solana event wearing a mask of his own image.

The fundraising platform they chose, MetaDAO, was founded by Proph3t, who is an advocate of this concept. He believes that "the goal of a DAO is to make better decisions, and market experience is superior to that of experts." In MetaDAO, proposals from projects such as Jito DAO, Sancutm, Ore, and Drift will utilize a futures trading model in the MetaDAO proposal repository.

MtnDAO and MetaDAO have a long-standing relationship. In addition to the mysterious Proph3t frequently "appearing" in MtnDAO's shared office, founder Edgar Pavlovsky invested $2.2 million in MetaDAO in 2024, making MtnDAO the first project on the fundraising platform.

Founder Barrett stated, "Mtn Capital will focus on Solana native projects because Solana is the home of MtnCapital and the place with the highest expected returns." Mtn Capital's investments in startups are separate from MtnDAO's investment portfolio, but the brands operate in parallel. The fund's investment approach is highly flexible, allowing it to deploy funds across various investment opportunities, from early private placements to liquid public tokens.

Solana Labs CEO Toly at MtnDAO's hacker house in Salt Lake City.

This flexibility allows MtnCapital to adapt to the ever-changing market environment, regardless of its development stage or liquidity status, while gaining guidance from the collective wisdom of the MtnDAO community through the futarchy governance mechanism. Founder Barrett said, "I believe it will perform better than venture capital funds." He also mentioned that traditional investment firms tend to lean towards going long rather than shorting at the beginning, which is why they chose to open fundraising at the market's bottom.

Mtn Capital treasury.

The timing of Mtn Capital's launch coincides closely with DARK, and the token deployment on Pumpfun is set for November 24, 2024, five months ahead of schedule, indicating that this is not a spur-of-the-moment decision. This inevitably leads the community to speculate about the relationship between the two: on one hand, whether the $5.85 million in liquid funds lying in the treasury will be used for DARK, and on the other hand, the potential of MtnDAO and its founders' network in Solana.

These two reasons have led to a continuous rise in DARK's token price, and DARK reaching ATH twice is also reflected in the price of MTN. With the price breakthroughs of DARK on April 11 and April 17, the price of MTN doubled the IDO fundraising market cap, reaching around $10 million ("the initial market cap of IDO tokens was approximately $5.5 million"). This may indirectly validate the views of Mtn DAO and MetaDAO, suggesting that perhaps the ongoing potential value output expectation ("futures") is the true essence of DAO tokens, and DARK may be the shadow of this mountain.

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