OpenMind: From Android Robot Operating System to the Beginning of the Machine Collaboration Economy

Author: 137Labs

Recently, OpenMind has once again been brought into the crypto market’s attention due to the public sale of ROBO.

But if you really treat it as a “Web3 project,” chances are your initial direction is off.

What OpenMind is doing is actually very “old school”—it’s solving a problem that has existed in the robotics industry for over a decade:

Robots almost cannot cooperate well with each other.

The problem in the robotics industry is not “not smart enough”

Today’s robots are already very intelligent.

They have vision, speech, navigation, large models, and their capabilities are visibly improving.

The real issue is:

These robots operate independently.

Different manufacturers, different systems, different protocols—

A robot can hardly collaborate with another “outsider” to complete a task.

Even in the same space, they seem like they come from different planets.

This is not a technical capability issue, but a matter of lack of unified infrastructure.

OpenMind’s approach is actually very clear

OpenMind is not trying to create a “smarter robot,”

Its goal is the more fundamental layer:

· Enable robots to think and act in the same language

· Establish basic trust and collaboration rules among different manufacturers

To achieve this, they did two things:

OM1— An AI-oriented, hardware-agnostic robot operating system

FABRIC— A decentralized protocol layer for identity, rules, and collaboration

In simple terms, it’s aiming to be the Android + network protocol layer of the robot world.

Why does “blockchain” appear here

Many people get stuck at this point.

OpenMind uses blockchain not for finance, nor for hype around “decentralization.”

But because in robot collaboration, there are a few things that traditional systems really find hard to do well:

· Are robot identities trustworthy?

· Who sets these rules, and have they been tampered with?

· When problems occur, how to trace responsibility?

What FABRIC aims to solve are actually these trust and audit layer issues, not controlling robots’ real-time actions (which is obviously unrealistic).

You can think of it as:

Blockchain here is more like a “public rules ledger,” rather than a “control center.”

Latest progress: ROBO public sale is actually a signal

At the end of January, Fabric Foundation launched the ROBO public sale through Kaito Launchpad.

The significance of this isn’t about “how much the token is worth.”

It’s about a signal:

OpenMind is starting to seriously think—

If a “robot collaboration network” really exists in the future, how should its incentive mechanism be designed?

Of course, this also brings controversy:

· Technology is still in early stages

· Large-scale real-world collaboration has yet to be validated

· The market often prices expectations in advance

These doubts are quite reasonable.

But at least, this step indicates that OpenMind is moving from “concept and architecture” to “economic layer design.”

This is not a short-term story

If you’re used to Web3 projects, OpenMind will definitely make you uncomfortable:

· Slow pace

· Hard to implement

· Strong competitors (ROS, big tech companies, self-developed systems)

But on the other hand, if you believe:

Robots will not operate in isolation in the future, but need collaboration

Then the layer OpenMind is trying to build will eventually be touched by someone.

It may not win.

The probability of failure is even high.

But at least it’s solving a real, long-standing problem that no one has truly addressed.

Finally

OpenMind is not a “buy and it will rise” project,

Nor a story that can be judged with a few valuation models.

It’s more like a test of patience and execution:

· Can OM1 truly be handed over to developers and manufacturers?

· Can real cross-brand collaboration cases be achieved?

· Can a balance be found among security, rules, and incentives?

ROBO is just the beginning.

What truly matters is whether robots can collaborate like network nodes for the first time.

If that day really comes,

Many of the debates you see today will seem very early.

This article is for personal research and industry observation only and does not constitute investment advice.