The price of Akash ($AKT) has increased by more than 15x year-to-date, with the token being one of the largest beneficiaries of the AI narrative, which collectively has outperformed the overall market and has reached $26.7B in aggregate market cap.

Source: kaito.ai – $AKT has been on a steep yearly uptrend even during periods of sideways sentiment.

With NVIDIA earnings taking place at the end of the month and the AI narrative not showing signs of slow-down, Akash stands to also benefit from a repricing that gets it closer to the valuation of the Render ($RNDR), which is the current leader.

Source: kaito.ai – AI currently represents more than 25% of the total narrative mindshare.

The upcoming $IO token launch at an elevated valuation might as well act as an extra tailwind, considering that most of the $AKT supply is in circulation and trading at $1.1B FDV. For context, IO Research recently announced raising $30M in Series A funding from Hack VC, Multicoin Capital and others, hitting a $1B valuation before the token is live. Meanwhile, pre-launch OTC markets like Whales Market suggest an initial market of $2B and FDV above $3B.

In addition to that, there are also some rumors on community forums that OpenAI might be announcing a Search Engine that competes with Google. This is also reinforced by some claims from Jimmy Apple, who reports the claims as an insider. According to him, this is tentatively scheduled for May 9.