Contract: GZik7vJSnDAao9tbbcLrMGKfxLu7VCjoAtkDhsv8A3iE
Overview
The Kevin Startup Fund recorded an all-time high of approximately $1,560,000. It emerged from a widely shared story about AI research funding.
Background
Kevin Bass, whose account is followed by Elon Musk and a number of prominent AI researchers, has been investigating METR, one of the main third-party groups evaluating frontier AI models. According to his posts, of roughly $71M in recent commitments only about $350,000 is publicly identifiable, raising questions about who funds third-party AI evaluators.
The coin
After Bass said he was running out of AI tokens for the research and posted his X Money handle, supporters began funding him directly through UsePaid. Bass engaged with the effort publicly, thanking contributors.
Speculation
There is widespread online speculation that major AI labs could be behind some of the funding in question and could be seeking to influence how third-party audits are handled. That claim is unverified. An animated video about the controversy has also circulated widely.