Back to collectionThe Token's First Year Closes Down 86%, with the Chain Still Running
As the token's first year closed, the narrator set out to bring the market account, the chain's operation, and the people who remained in the community into one chronicle entry. XAI closed at USD 0.2248, down 86% from the March 11 high of USD 1.60. The narrator's year-end account held another side of the story: no major chain incidents all year, throughput leading comparable chains, the halving executed on schedule, and a Sentry network of tens of thousands of home laptops that stayed online.
A creative chronicle combining project history with imagined scenes. Story events are not verification of network activity.
As the token's first year closed, the narrator set out to bring the market account, the chain's operation, and the people who remained in the community into one chronicle entry. The Night Watchman was still running a node. A-Zhen had moved from chain engineering to the “new direction.” Sisyphus had carried his hopes from the year's opening airdrop all the way to its end.
XAI closed at USD 0.2248, down 86% from the March 11 high of USD 1.60. In January it arrived with the fanfare of Binance's 43rd Launchpool project and a brief opening spike to USD 2.50; the value of an airdrop of 125 million tokens rose from USD 70 million to USD 140 million within a week. March's USD 1.60 peak brought a paper valuation in the billions of dollars and cries of “the next IMX” across the community. Then came April's fear of unlocks and the unfulfilled “100 games” promise. May's scheduled emissions halving could not rescue the price. Unlocks began in July, even as the team voluntarily extended its own lockup. XAI fell to USD 0.182 amid August's global market crash, drifted in a range through September and October, then recorded the year's most absurd doubling in November after a post by its namesake rival. December's activity centered on keys rather than the token price: each key became 100; the cap rose from 50,000 to 5 million; the price for newly minted keys fell from ETH 1.43 to ETH 0.0143. Airdrop promises from more than 12 ecosystem games rested on those keys, and nearly 60,000 were minted on the sale's first day. Bitcoin reached USD 100,000 while XAI remained subdued.
The narrator's year-end account held another side of the story: no major chain incidents all year, throughput leading comparable chains, the halving executed on schedule, and a Sentry network of tens of thousands of home laptops that stayed online. Yet selling pressure from unlocks, a flagship game forever “coming soon,” the fading GameFi narrative, and confusion with a giant bearing the same name weighed together on price. The Night Watchman's one-page report said full attendance, rewards restaked, and more next year; his key count had gained two zeros. Leaving her chain role, A-Zhen had said, “The problem was never on the chain.” Sisyphus crossed into the new year with holdings down 80% and his node still running. He called it “something to hold on to”; the narrator heard the dignity of someone trapped in a loss. The frenzy showed that this chain had been loved, and the fall exposed the cost. The 2024 volume ended with a question: once misunderstandings fade, subsidies recede, and another name still dominates the conversation, what will make people stay?