Sahara AI is a new kind of platform that combines blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI). Instead of big tech companies owning all the data and models, Sahara AI gives control back to users. You can upload data, help train AI, and earn rewards for your contributions. In May 2025, Sahara launched an airdrop to distribute future SAHARA tokens to early users. By joining the SIWA testnet, completing quests, and minting NFTs, participants can increase their eligibility. The snapshot is still active, and token rewards are expected around the Token Generation Event (TGE) in Q3 2025.
Sahara also raised over 74 million dollars through an IDO on Buidlpad, attracting more than 103,000 participants from 118 countries. The majority of funds came from USD1, a stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, which accounted for 79 percent of the total raise. This launch introduced the SAHARA token, which powers payments for AI services, staking, governance, and ecosystem participation. Backed by major investors such as Polychain, Sequoia, and YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), Sahara AI aims to create a more open, decentralized AI infrastructure.
Learn more about how to participate in the Sahara AI airdrop and claim your $SAHARA tokens in our comprehensive guide.
Sahara AI becomes the first USD1-exclusive IDO via Buidlpad | Source: XMomentum accelerated significantly following the July 22 launch of Sahara’s Data Services Platform (DSP). Within a week, the SAHARA token surged over 60%, and 24-hour trading volume rose by more than 1900%. The token briefly reached 0.16 US dollars before stabilizing around 0.13, pushing its market cap above 260 million dollars. This marked a major shift from narrative-driven speculation to utility-driven engagement.
In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about Sahara AI and the SAHARA token, how it works, why it matters, and how you can start participating in its fast-growing ecosystem.
What Is Sahara AI?
Sahara AI is a full-stack, AI-native blockchain platform built to make artificial intelligence open, accessible, and community-owned. It solves one of AI’s biggest problems: control. Right now, a few companies own the models and data that power today’s AI systems. Sahara AI flips that model by using blockchain to give ownership and rewards back to the people who build the AI.
Sahara AI's foundational pillars | Source: Sahara AI litepaperThe platform is backed by more than 200,000 global AI trainers, 35 enterprise clients, and over 3 million data annotations. It's also SOC2 certified for security, privacy, and compliance. At the heart of this ecosystem is the SAHARA token, used to power transactions, reward participation, and govern the network.
The platform runs on the Sahara Blockchain, a Layer 1 chain optimized for AI use cases like model training, dataset licensing, and agent coordination. It’s designed to support everything across the AI lifecycle, from data labeling to revenue-sharing, while keeping every contribution traceable and secure on-chain.
You’ll find three core products in the Sahara AI ecosystem:
1. Data Services Platform (DSP): A user-friendly gateway for contributing labeled data to train AI. You earn rewards for completing data tasks like annotations, reviews, and prompts. No technical background needed.
2. AI Developer Platform: A powerful suite of tools for AI builders. You can upload datasets, fine-tune models, chain together pipelines, and deploy agents. It supports both low-code and advanced workflows.
3. AI Marketplace (coming soon): This is where you can buy, sell, and license AI assets like datasets, models, and intelligent agents. Every transaction is tracked on-chain, and contributors earn revenue through usage and royalties.
Sahara AI is supported by a growing ecosystem of global partners across AI, cloud, and Web3, including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Snap, Google Cloud, MIT, UC Berkeley, Together AI, MyShell, USC, QuickNode, and more. These collaborations bring real-world infrastructure, developer tools, and academic insights into the Sahara ecosystem, accelerating the shift toward decentralized AI.
Together, these tools and partnerships create a permissionless AI economy, one where anyone can build, own, and monetize their AI work in a transparent, secure, and decentralized environment.
BingX officially listed Sahara AI (SAHARA) on its Spot market on June 19, 2025, with trading for the SAHARA/USDT pair beginning at 13:15 UTC. Deposits opened the same day at 11:00 UTC, and the supported network is ERC-20, with withdrawals starting on June 27, 2025.
Why Sahara AI's Decentralized AI Model Matters
Most of today’s AI systems are controlled by a few powerful companies that collect user data, train models privately, and capture the full value of those systems. This centralized structure raises serious concerns around privacy, transparency, and fairness. Your data is used without consent, decisions are made behind closed doors, and only a select few benefit financially, while millions of contributors remain uncredited.
Sahara AI offers a decentralized alternative. It records every contribution, whether it's a dataset, model, or AI agent, on-chain, ensuring full traceability, ownership, and attribution. When others use your work, you earn fair rewards through smart contracts. By shifting control from corporations to contributors, Sahara AI creates a transparent and equitable AI economy where you can own your impact and get paid for it.
How Sahara AI Works: Technical Architecture
An overview of Sahara AI's technical architecture | Sahara litepaperSahara AI is a full-stack platform running on a custom-built Layer 1 blockchain called the Sahara Blockchain, optimized for AI data, models, and workloads. Sahara AI is built on a four-layer architecture that powers a complete decentralized AI ecosystem, allowing you to build, train, deploy, and monetize AI with full transparency and control. Here’s how it works:
1. Application Layer
This is where you interact directly with Sahara AI. The application layer includes dashboards, developer tools, and the Sahara Marketplace, allowing you to upload datasets, fine-tune models, deploy intelligent agents, and track your earnings, all from one interface. You use your Sahara ID to verify your identity and manage your reputation, while Sahara Vaults securely store and protect your AI assets. You can deploy Sahara Agents that learn, perceive, and act, and build or test AI workflows using intuitive No-Code/Low-Code toolkits or advanced SDKs for more complex development.
2. Transaction Layer
This layer powers the Sahara Blockchain and handles all on-chain activity related to AI assets. It records ownership, attribution, licensing, and every interaction involving datasets, models, and agents. The transaction layer supports AI-native protocols for registering assets, smart licensing contracts for monetization, and attribution systems that track each contributor’s role. It runs on a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, ensuring the network remains secure, scalable, and energy-efficient.
3. Data Layer
The Data Layer handles both on-chain and off-chain data across the Sahara AI platform. It uses decentralized storage solutions like IPFS alongside cloud-based systems to provide fast, secure, and scalable data access. Critical metadata for AI assets is stored on-chain for transparency, while larger datasets are kept off-chain but remain verifiable. Built-in access controls ensure that only licensed users can interact with private data, and advanced encryption and indexing tools help maintain security, integrity, and efficient retrieval.
4. Execution Layer
This is where the AI magic happens. The Execution Layer powers real-time model training, inference, and agent deployment, connecting to compute resources while logging every action on-chain. It supports advanced AI workflows, including Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) protocols, PEFT modules for efficient fine-tuning, and coordination of multi-agent systems. Privacy-preserving techniques like differential privacy and secret sharing protect sensitive data during execution. Every action is recorded with blockchain-based proofs, ensuring full traceability and trust throughout the AI lifecycle.
Together, these four layers turn Sahara AI into a full ecosystem, where you can build, train, deploy, and monetize AI with full transparency and control.
What Is $SAHARA, Sahara AI's Native Token?
The SAHARA token is the backbone of the Sahara AI ecosystem. You use it to interact with AI tools, earn rewards, and participate in governance. Whether you're a developer, data contributor, or just exploring the platform, SAHARA gives you access and incentives.
Here’s how you can use SAHARA:
• Access AI tools and services: Use SAHARA tokens to unlock datasets, models, and agents in the AI Marketplace. Pay per use or through flexible licenses.
• Earn by contributing: Upload datasets, annotate data, build models, or deploy agents. When others use your AI assets, you get paid in SAHARA.
• Staking and rewards: Stake your tokens to earn platform incentives or gain access to exclusive features like boosted airdrop rewards and advanced task access.
• Participate in governance: Sahara is community-driven. You can vote on key proposals, product upgrades, and protocol changes through the Sahara DAO.
As the ecosystem grows, more use cases are expected to emerge, especially for powering compute, licensing AI services, and verifying contributions across the platform.
SAHARA Tokenomics & Distribution
The SAHARA token has a total supply of 1 billion tokens, designed to power the Sahara AI ecosystem through fair participation, community rewards, and long-term sustainability.
Source: Sahara AI Documentation
SAHARA has a total supply of 1 billion tokens, distributed to support long-term growth, community participation, and network security:
• Community: 64.25%. The majority of tokens are allocated to public-facing initiatives, including airdrops, ecosystem development, and contributor incentives.
• Core Team & Contributors: 15.00%. Reserved for the team, advisors, and early builders, with long-term vesting to align with network success.
• Early Backers: 19.75%. Allocated to investors who supported Sahara Labs in its early stages.
• Liquidity & Market Stability: 1.00%. Set aside to support trading liquidity and ensure smooth market operations.
How to Join Sahara AI and Participate in $SAHARA Airdrop
Sahara AI is now live on the SIWA public testnet, giving you a hands-on way to explore its decentralized AI ecosystem. This testnet lets you upload datasets, tokenize AI assets, and experience how Sahara tracks attribution and ownership in real time.
Getting started is easy. Visit app.saharalabs.ai, connect your Web3 wallet, and use the built-in faucet to claim free testnet SAHARA tokens. These tokens allow you to try platform features like registering datasets, minting ownership NFTs, and exploring AI dashboards. You’ll see how your contributions are used—linked through attribution trails like “Trained On” and “Derived From.”
You can also earn Sahara Points by completing tasks, joining challenges, and staying active on the testnet. These points may qualify you for future airdrops, so it’s worth staying engaged. No AI experience is required, Sahara offers onboarding guides, toolkits, and low-code tools to help you participate, whether you’re a beginner or developer.
Learn more about how to participate in the Sahara AI airdrop and claim your $SAHARA tokens in our comprehensive guide.
After claiming your real SAHARA tokens during the Token Generation Event (TGE), you’ll have multiple ways to contribute and grow your role in the ecosystem:
1. Stake your SAHARA to earn points, boost airdrop eligibility, and unlock premium features like developer perks and high-value data tasks.
2. Join the Sahara DAO to vote on proposals that shape the platform’s future, from product updates to reward distribution.
3. Explore the full platform by uploading more datasets, helping train models, or testing out agents using Sahara’s no-code or SDK tools.
4. Trade your tokens on supported exchanges like BingX once the SAHARA/USDT pair becomes available.
Conclusion
Sahara AI is building something ambitious: a decentralized, transparent AI ecosystem owned by its users, not corporations. It combines blockchain technology with AI development tools to give you full control over your data, models, and contributions.
Sahara AI is built for meaningful, long-term participation. Whether you're here to contribute data, help govern the protocol, or build AI applications, your SAHARA tokens give you the tools to join a transparent, decentralized AI economy.
But like any new project, it comes with risks. Stay informed, test the platform using the SIWA public testnet, and follow updates closely. If you're ready to help build the future of decentralized AI. This is your chance to get involved early and responsibly.
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FAQs on Sahara AI and the SAHARA Token
1. When does Sahara AI officially launch?
Sahara AI is currently live on its SIWA public testnet as of Q2 2025. The mainnet launch, including full access to the Sahara Blockchain and AI Marketplace, is scheduled for Q3 2025.
2. How can I get SAHARA tokens?
You can earn testnet SAHARA tokens by participating in the SIWA testnet, contributing datasets, or completing missions. For mainnet tokens, look out for the official token listing on exchanges like BingX, where you'll be able to trade SAHARA/USDT on the spot market after launch.
3. Is there a vesting schedule for SAHARA tokens?
Yes. Team tokens are locked for 12 months and vest over 36 months, while investor tokens follow a 6-month cliff with 18-month vesting; community and ecosystem rewards are released gradually to ensure long-term sustainability.
4. Can I stake SAHARA tokens on Sahara AI network?
Yes. Once the mainnet is live, you’ll be able to stake SAHARA to earn platform rewards and boost your airdrop eligibility. Staking may also unlock access to advanced features, including governance voting and premium developer tools.