Millions of people pay for AI every month through ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, and that money flows in one direction. The platforms grow, and the people using them own none of that growth. Stargate LLM was built to change that equation, and its presale just opened Batch 1 at $0.0005 per token.
That same question, who actually shares in the value a platform creates, applies just as much inside crypto as it does in mainstream AI. NEAR Protocol and Internet Computer are two of the strongest AI-adjacent blockchains on the market today, each with real technology and real usage behind them, NEAR trading near $1.88, and ICP holding near $2.14.
Stargate LLM: Built So Users Earn, Not Just the Team
Every major AI platform runs on the same basic model: users pay, the company grows, and the upside stays with the people who built it. Stargate LLM flips that structure from the ground up. Half of its entire 150 billion token supply, 75 billion tokens, is set aside specifically as Proof of Usage rewards, meaning the people using its chat, image, video, and private search tools are the ones the system is designed to pay first.
Vault staking, referral rewards, and usage-based rewards sit at the center of how the token works, not as extras layered on later. Stake STARGATE in the Vault and earn rewards tied to platform revenue. Refer active users and earn ongoing rewards as they stay engaged. Use the platform itself, and rewards flow back automatically. Using Stargate LLM and earning from it become the same action, which is a meaningfully different relationship than the one most people have with the AI tools they already pay for.
This is a platform built with real ambition behind it, spanning chat, image generation, video generation, private search, and its own agent marketplace. This can become the next ChatGPT. The difference is what happens after you sign up. ChatGPT doesn’t offer its users any ownership in the company behind it, no matter how long they’ve paid for it or how much they’ve used it. Stargate LLM does. Holding STARGATE gives users an actual stake in the platform’s growth, not just access to it, through Proof of Usage rewards, Vault staking, and revenue sharing voted on by the community that holds the token.
Batch 1 is open now at $0.0005 per token, the lowest point across the entire 9-batch presale, sitting well below both the batches that follow and the eventual $0.025 launch price. As more people join and use the platform, the reward pool built specifically for them grows right alongside it, since it draws directly from the 50% of total supply reserved for usage-based rewards. That’s the kind of setup people are searching for when they look for an AI crypto with 500x potential, a token designed from day one to share what it earns with the people actually using it, not just the people who bought in early and walked away.
NEAR Protocol: Infrastructure Built for an AI-Driven Future
NEAR has spent 2026 rolling out dynamic resharding, an upgrade that lets the network automatically scale itself as demand grows, without needing a manual protocol vote every time. It’s exactly the kind of groundwork that AI-driven, agent-heavy blockchains will need as usage increases.
NEAR Price Change | Source: changelly.com
The token has moved through an active stretch recently, currently trading near $1.88 after a pullback over the past week.NEAR Protocol has fallen by almost 16.09% in the last 7 days. NEAR remains one of the more credible AI-focused Layer 1 networks by developer activity, and its price today reflects a project that’s already been through a full market cycle.
Internet Computer: Positioning Itself as an Alternative to the Cloud Giants
Internet Computer’s pitch is straightforward: build a blockchain that can host full applications on-chain, at a fraction of the cost of traditional cloud providers. The network leads most blockchains in monthly transaction volume and has been expanding its tools for AI-driven applications.
A mid-June rally tied to renewed interest in decentralized AI gave the token a lift before it settled back near current levels. It’s a technically ambitious project with real usage, and like most established tokens, its price today reflects years of market cycles already priced in.
The Bottom Line
NEAR and Internet Computer are both genuine, working pieces of AI infrastructure, and holding either one means owning a stake in real blockchain technology. Stargate LLM takes a different approach to the same broader trend: instead of asking users to simply hold a token and wait, it’s built so that using the platform and earning from it are part of the same action, starting at Batch 1 pricing before the presale moves to its next stage. Different paths, same growing market, and each one is worth understanding for what it actually offers.
This article is not intended as financial advice. Educational purposes only.
