How Has OpenAI Firing & Rehiring Sam Altman Impacted AI Tokens?
10 out of 11 AI tokens made gains after OpenAI’s announcement to fire & rehire Sam Altman as its CEO, with gains ranging from 11.8% to 61.1% on November 23, 2023 (5am UTC). PAAL AI (PAAL) was the only AI token with negative gains, decreasing by 5.3% in that same period.
9 out of 11 AI tokens peaked on November 20, 2023, where gains ranged from 19.3% to 80.4%, shortly after Microsoft announced that Altman, Brockman, and colleagues will join them to lead a new AI research team.
2 out of 11 AI tokens peaked on November 22, 2023, where gains ranged from 26.4% to 50.9%, shortly after OpenAI’s announcement that Altman would return to OpenAI as CEO. Worldcoin (WLD), founded by Sam Altman, is one of the two coins aside from OriginTrail (TRAC), which reached their peak gains after this announcement.
Biggest Gainers since OpenAI Fired & Rehired Sam Altman
Akash Network (AKT) was the largest gainer since OpenAI’s announcement to fire Sam Altman on November 17, 2023, increasing by 61.1% from $1.02 to $1.65 on November 23, 2023. It peaked at 80.4% on November 20, when its price increased to $1.85.
OriginTrail (TRAC) was the second largest gainer, increasing by 45.8% from $0.26 to $0.38 in the same period. At its height, it increased 50.9% by November 20, when its price reached $0.40.
Bittensor (TAO) came in close as the third largest gainer, increasing by 33.9% from $171.87 to $230.15 in the same period. It reached its peak of 71.3% on November 20, when its price reached $294.39.
AI tokens have been rallying in price amidst expectations of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval. OpenAI’s announcement to fire and rehire Sam Altman had only captured the attention of investors and traders alike, further fueling the recent rally of AI tokens.
Dips were Eaten Quickly
8 out of 11 tokens experienced negative gains after OpenAI’s announcement to fire Sam Altman, ranging from -1.4% to -8.0%. However, these dips were quickly bought up when Bloomberg reported that OpenAI’s investors were pushing for Altman to be reinstated as CEO.
The tokens that managed to maintain a positive gain after OpenAI’s announcement were AKT, TAO, and PAAL, where gains ranged from zero to 12.7%.
Top Performing AI Tokens:
The top 11 performing AI tokens after OpenAI’s announcement to fire & rehire Sam Altman as of November 23, 2023 (5am UTC) are:
| Rank | Token | Price Returns (%) |
| 1 | Akash Network | 61.1% |
| 2 | OriginTrail | 45.8% |
| 3 | Bittensor | 33.9% |
| 4 | Worldcoin | 20.3% |
| 5 | Fetch.ai | 17.4% |
| 6 | SingularityNET | 17.1% |
| 7 | Dynex | 14.2% |
| 8 | 0x0.ai | 13.2% |
| 9 | Render | 12.3% |
| 10 | Ocean Protocol | 11.8% |
| 11 | PAAL AI | -5.3% |
Methodology
The study examined the four-hour closing prices of eleven tokens associated with AI from OpenAI’s announcement to fire Sam Altman on November 17 (8:00 pm UTC,) to November 23, 2023 (5:00 am UTC). Tokens across a range of market capitalizations were selected from CoinGecko’s AI category, namely Bittensor (TAO), Render (RNDR), Fetch.ai (FET), SingularityNET (AGIX), Akash Network (AKT), Ocean Protocol (OCEAN), OriginTrail (TRAC), PAAL AI (PAAL), 0x0.ai (0X0), and Dynex (DNX).
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Curious to find out more about our previous research studies? Check out this one we did on the price returns of Solana Ecosystem Coins from the recent Solana rally.
Nicholas is a Market Research Intern at CoinGecko. He can be seen crawling around the vast crypto space, be it NFTs, crypto or memecoins from time to time. People in web3 call him picnicmou. Follow the author on Twitter @picnicmou
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