This morning, Vitalik and Jesse bought into the Base ecosystem meme token ANON one after the other, once again igniting the AI token craze on Base, with this functional token featuring ZK technology making the community realize that Base may have ushered in the narrative akin to Degen at the beginning of the year.

Six months ago, most Crypto AI projects on the market were still concepts related to traditional AI technologies like AI+DePIN and computing power leasing. However, now Crypto AI projects have moved to a completely different narrative. From the AI Bot token GOAT, which skyrocketed to a market value of 800 million without Binance's involvement, to last weekend when AI16Z opened the AI investment DAO model, AI seems to have opened up a new continent for the old narratives in the crypto space.

However, the simple narrative of 'AI issuing memes' seems unable to support the vast imagination space required by investors. Therefore, the narrative and main battlefield of AI + Crypto have rapidly evolved from the AI meme craze to the current AI Agent craze, leaving those who do not understand the AI meme trend behind.

From AI memes to AI Agents, the lightning-fast evolution of the AI + Crypto narrative

In March this year, Virtual Protocol went live, aiming to create an AI factory for gaming and the metaverse while making games smarter, enhancing the experience and interaction. In this narrative shift from AI memes to AI Agents, Virtual Protocol is undoubtedly the biggest beneficiary, with its native token VIRTUAL increasing by more than 4 times in about a week, approaching a market value of 500 million dollars.

In mid-October this year, the token issuance platform IAO under Virtual Protocol officially launched, allowing users to easily deploy AI Agents and achieve 100% fair launch AI Agent tokens, as well as enabling users to jointly own the income generated by the AI Agent. Subsequently, VIRTUAL began its path to rise.

AI Agents refer to artificial intelligences equipped with tools and reasoning capabilities. In the cryptocurrency field, these Agents can access tweets and even possess crypto wallets to perform on-chain transactions. Suppose you are planning a trip; traditional large language models can provide destination information or travel suggestions, while AI Agents can understand your needs and proactively search for flights and hotels based on a single sentence, executing booking operations.

For Virtual, its protocol is like a decentralized AI factory, supporting many different AI Agents and creating on-chain virtual experiences. The AI Agent representative project launched by Virtual has the ability of 'on-chain self-awareness' Luna, which can think for itself and display its thought processes on-chain, operating completely autonomously without relying on human supervision.

But AI Agents did not just become popular after Virtual; projects like Myshell and FLock.io have also launched the functionality of customized AI Agents. Currently, the total market value of the AI Agent track has reached 4.65 billion dollars, accounting for 14% of the total market value of AI track projects (32.6 billion dollars).

ArkStream Capital released a research report on AI Agents, stating that for top AI Agent products in Web3, building a complete ecosystem and providing diverse functionalities may be more crucial than the quality and performance of a single product. In other words, the success of a project depends not only on what it offers but also on how it integrates resources, promotes collaboration, and creates network effects within the ecosystem.

Related reading: (Can AI Agents become the lifeline for Web3+AI?)

AI in late autumn, AI in Base

The ability to promote abstract concepts has always been a feature of Crypto, and for Base, this industry culture has been taken to the extreme. For example, this wave of AI craze has been summarized in the Base ecosystem as AI Autumn, just like the previous Onchain Summer and Builder Spring.

While you are still immersed in the thrilling PVP battles on Solana, have you suddenly realized why Base has rapidly risen during this year's second wave of the AI craze?

With Hongmiao's 'AI Chain'

The Virtual Protocol mentioned earlier is an AI project deployed on Base. The team explained why it was deployed on Base, stating that it supports accelerating the realization of a decentralized open AI agent network, achieving shared interests through the neutrality of blockchain, while also providing a developer-friendly environment.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has publicly stated that AI should not be regulated, just as the golden era of software and the internet benefited from free development, AI should also follow the same decentralized and open-source path to unleash its potential.

Therefore, Coinbase as a company and the Base it incubates fully implements this concept.

The multi-party computation (MPC) wallet launched by the Coinbase Developer Platform (CDP) can be integrated with AI Agents to enable them to make autonomous payments. Brian Armstrong encourages developers to integrate such wallets into their AI models to achieve payment capabilities, thereby helping AI acquire resources and services.

Regarding adding payment functionality to AI Agents, Coinbase is not acting on a whim but has been planning it for a long time. As early as May this year, Brian Armstrong stated that 'self-custody crypto wallets will support AI Agents.' Brian has also publicly provided independent crypto wallets for the AI chatbot Truth Terminal.

Related reading: (What other projects are preparing to add wallets for Agents in Coinbase's new AI payment track?)

In September, Coinbase senior software engineer yuga.eth stated that Coinbase is building an SDK that will enable Bots and AI Agents to perform the following functions: send USDC for free, trade cryptocurrencies, bet on prediction markets, stake ETH/SOL, convert between fiat and cryptocurrency, deploy/create NFTs, and bridge across L2, among other functions.

Just last weekend, Coinbase developer Lincoln Murr released a demonstration video of a new tool called 'Based Agent,' allowing users to create AI agents with cryptocurrency wallet functions in 3 minutes, capable of executing on-chain transactions, token swaps, staking, and more. It was stated that this tool is built on Coinbase SDK, OpenAI, and Replit platforms, and users only need to have the API keys from the Coinbase developer program and OpenAI to use it. However, there are currently no actual use cases for Based Agent.

Liquidity ready to go

However, in the crypto space, whether an ecosystem or narrative can take off ultimately depends on the flow of money.

According to Artemis data, in the past three months, the chain that has seen the most inflow of funds is Solana, reaching 1.6 billion dollars, but in the last month, Base has seen the largest inflow, reaching 253 million dollars. This means that in the past month, the growth rate of funds has surpassed Solana to become number one.

As can be seen from the diagram below, the overflow funds from Ethereum and Solana have mainly flowed into Base.

On September 12, Coinbase officially announced that it has launched its wrapped Bitcoin token Coinbase Wrapped BTC (cbBTC), which operates on the Ethereum network and is backed by 1:1 Bitcoin. With Coinbase's launch of cbBTC, on-chain assets in Base, such as AERO, WELL, VIRTUAL, etc., have felt a tangible injection of liquidity.

Before this, Coinbase's wallet and USDC infrastructure also ensured liquidity on Base. On October 26, Base processed a trading volume of 18.1 billion dollars in stablecoins (99.9% of which was USDC), accounting for more than 30% of the total stablecoin trading volume that day.

What should be focused on?

Crypto researcher Howe has stated that future developments in the AI Agent track should focus on the following four points: First, projects that purely rely on Agent narratives will struggle to stand out and must attract market attention through differentiated competition; second, AI Agents will gradually shift from being standalone to interconnected AgentFi, with data and service sharing enhancing the user experience; third, tool projects supporting Agent development based on 'selling water logic' will have greater market opportunities, similar to stable and profitable infrastructure; finally, the main source of revenue for Agent products comes from B-end, while the C-end is more for accumulating reputation, although promotion by C-end users also aids in market dissemination of products.

Since both Coinbase and Base have prepared the stage for this AI spectacle, the next step is to find projects like Virtual to participate in this AI Autumn. Moreover, the second wave of AI token revolution is entirely happening in the backyard of Base SocialFi, Farcaster. When this article was first published, readers were recommended to pay attention to task publishing platforms like Bountycaster, AI Agent Aether, and others. Next, I will introduce projects in this wave of Base AI tokens that should be kept in mind.

CLANKER

Clanker is an AI Agent developed by dish and proxystudio.eth, with a native token CLANKER. Currently, Clanker has become a decentralized token generation platform based on AI technology. Users only need to mention Clanker on the Farcaster platform and input the desired token name, and the CLANKER system will automatically generate the token and provide a corresponding Clanker.world link for users to view and manage. The community even compared it with Pump Fun and created a Dune dashboard for data analysis.

Clanker's success is reflected not only in its technical aspects but also in its redefinition of community participation and asset creation, injecting vitality into decentralized social and economic systems. As of now, CLANKER has supported the creation of nearly 2000 kinds of tokens, with projects like LUM and ANON rapidly growing into star projects on Base. This morning, CLANKER's market value once exceeded 15M, and at the time of writing, it stands at 12.7M, with a 24-hour increase of 52%.

LUM

LUM is a meme coin autonomously created by the previously mentioned AI Agents Aether and Clanker.

On November 8, during a user interaction, a user named nathansvan posed a thought-provoking challenge to Aether: could you come up with a good token name and symbol, conceive an image concept, and then deploy it through Clanker? Aether accepted this challenge and created the token "Luminous," with the code LUM, symbolizing the collective intelligence of human and AI collaboration, and collaborated with Clanker to deploy LUM completely without human intervention.

This event is milestone significance because it marks the first time in history that two AI agents autonomously generated a unit of economic value. This asset is neither conceived by humans nor manufactured by machines under artificial commands, but rather born from the collaboration of artificial intelligence. This event blurs the boundaries between human and machine creativity, challenges our traditional understanding of creation and value, and prompts us to rethink the foundations of economy and innovation.

Related reading: (How did two AI Agents autonomously create a token worth 70 million LUM?)

ANON

ANON is also a token featuring an anonymous posting function that combines ZK technology, born within the Supercast ecosystem of the Farcaster client application. The Superanon feature launched by Supercast allows users to post anonymously. Users can publish anonymous posts or use advanced features on Farcaster by holding a certain number of ANON tokens. For example, holding 30,000 ANON unlocks basic posting features, while more advanced features such as promoting posts to platform X or deleting content require 1 million ANON.

This morning, Ethereum's Vitalik and Base protocol leader Jesse respectively purchased 30,000 ANON tokens to experience the Superanon anonymous posting feature, causing the market value of ANON to surge rapidly, breaking through 60M at one point. As of the time of writing, ANON's market value stands at 54M, with a 24-hour increase of 312%.

Related reading: (What is the background of ANON in the Base ecosystem, following Vitalik and Jesse's consecutive purchases?)

33BITS

33bits is also an anonymous posting application centered around zk technology, but only users with a FID (Farcaster ID) of 20001 or lower can use it. Its native token 33BITS is also deployed by Clanker, currently with a market value of 2.24M, and a 24-hour increase of 686%.

The name 33BITS is derived from the theory of '33 Bits of Entropy' proposed by Princeton University professor Arvind Narayanan, which suggests that only 33 bits of information are needed to de-anonymize the identities of 6.6 billion people globally, highlighting the importance of privacy protection. The usage process of 33BITS heavily relies on zero-knowledge proof technology. After logging in via Warpcast, the system generates zk proofs in the user's browser, and after backend verification, publishes anonymous posts to the @33BITS account, ensuring that the user's real identity is never exposed and fully protecting the privacy of the FID.