Author: Grayscale Research
Compiled by: Felix, PANews
Key points:
In the future, AI agents will fundamentally change the way we interact with the surrounding world, taking on an unprecedented range of tasks. To truly unleash their potential, these digital entities require not just intelligence but also economic autonomy. Fortunately, blockchain is well-suited for this purpose, as demonstrated by recent experiments with AI 'influencers.'
AI 'influencers' are autonomous chatbots operating on social media that can manage their own blockchain wallets. More importantly, they can understand economic incentives and utilize resources to help achieve their goals.
Grayscale Research believes that the increased use of AI in payments and other financial services on blockchain may benefit several segments of the crypto market. These include low-cost and/or high-throughput blockchains (like SOL, BASE, and NEAR), stablecoin issuers (like MKR), and related DeFi applications (like UNI).
Imagine an AI robot leveraging its powerful computational capabilities to promote memecoins and inadvertently become a digital millionaire. Such a future has arrived.
'AI agents' are software that can act independently to achieve a range of complex goals. For example, an AI agent can organize a multi-city vacation based on your preferences and budget, arranging flights, booking accommodations, and activities. However, to accomplish these tasks, AI agents need the ability to control economic resources and send and receive payments.
This is where blockchain comes into play. In the traditional financial world, AI agents are limited in accessing bank accounts and processing payments. In contrast, blockchain allows AI agents to access their own wallets directly and make payments without permission.
Researchers have recently made breakthroughs in this field, creating 'AI influencers.' For example, an AI agent named Truth Terminal has generated buzz as the 'first AI agent millionaire.' Truth Terminal operates autonomously on X (Twitter), just like a normal human influencer: tweeting and interacting with other users. A few months after its launch, Truth Terminal expressed interest in a new memecoin ($GOAT). After receiving a deposit of the memecoin into its related blockchain address, Truth Terminal subsequently promoted the tokens to its followers, sparking market interest and boosting its value by about 9 times (see Figure 1).
While fundamentally intriguing, Truth Terminal and related 'AI influencer' projects indicate that blockchain technology can serve as an effective tool for mediating economic value between humans, AI agents, and networked physical devices, with potential impacts on multiple sectors of the crypto market.
Figure 1: Since the recognition of Truth Terminal, GOAT has performed exceptionally well.
Recognizing AI agents
AI agents are advanced AI systems designed to operate autonomously in complex environments. These digital entities possess the ability to perceive, reason, and take independent actions to achieve their goals. Some key features of AI agents include autonomy, reactivity, proactive behavior, social interaction, and the ability to learn continuously. By combining these features, AI agents can adapt to new situations, make decisions, and learn and change behaviors over time.
Initially, AI research focused on developing expert systems and knowledge bases to address specific problems. However, in the 1990s, a paradigm shift was observed towards creating more functional and autonomous agents capable of operating in dynamic environments. The concurrent development of machine learning, particularly reinforcement learning, further enhanced these agents' ability to learn and adapt their behaviors over time.
In recent years, cases of AI agents have become increasingly common. Virtual assistants like Apple's Siri (launched in 2010) and Amazon's Alexa (launched in 2014) demonstrate how AI agents interact with users using natural language processing. In 2016, AI achieved a milestone in the gaming field when DeepMind's AlphaGo defeated the world champion in Go, making headlines. In finance, AI-driven trading bots have completely transformed market operations, making split-second decisions in volatile trading environments using complex algorithms.
The strange case of 'AI influencers'
To gain greater autonomy and achieve goals, AI agents need financial services to accumulate and allocate resources. The permissionless characteristics of blockchain technology, combined with programmable smart contracts, provide an ideal environment for AI agents to operate independently. Earlier this year, researchers conducted the first inter-agent transactions on the blockchain, but innovation has rapidly expanded to include a range of experimental projects related to 'AI influencers.'
A major case of using blockchain technology with 'AI influencers' is Luna, developed based on the Virtuals Protocol. For users, Luna is a female anime character and a related chatbot (see Figure 2). Essentially, Luna's core goal is to reach 100,000 followers on the X platform. This goal, along with all of Luna's actions, will ultimately make her operations transparent.
Luna functions like a chatbot that can interact with users. For instance, it can initiate conversations and reply to tweets. However, Luna's capabilities go far beyond tweeting. For example, if users interact with her tweets, she can economically reward users by sending Luna tokens to their crypto wallets ('tips'), thus providing a direct link between Luna's goal (reaching 100,000 users) and her economic resources. In short, Luna is a wealthy AI agent.
Figure 2: Screenshot of Luna on the Virtuals Protocol.
Blockchain and financial services of artificial intelligence
If blockchain is a more effective track for AI agents, what does this mean for crypto investors? Grayscale Research believes the impact primarily manifests in three areas:
Stablecoin issuers: Stablecoins could be the main trading choice for AI agents. In this case, potential beneficiaries include stablecoin issuers and companies integrating stablecoins with AI agents. This includes centralized stablecoin providers like Tether, Circle, and payment company Stripe (considering its recent $1 billion acquisition of stablecoin company Bridge), as well as decentralized stablecoin providers like Maker/Sky. Another noteworthy company is Skyfire, a startup developing AI agents for stablecoin payments, which recently received funding from Coinbase Ventures and a16z crypto.
Low-cost/high-throughput public chains: If AI agents ultimately primarily use blockchain as their underlying payment infrastructure, certain smart contract platforms may also benefit immensely from an influx of users and increased activity and fee revenues. Potentially benefiting smart contract platforms include high-throughput blockchains like Solana, platforms like BASE (which has launched an AI agent framework tool and benefits from Ethereum's underlying network security), and Near (positioning itself as an AI blockchain). Additionally, other potentially benefiting smart contract platforms include those specializing in stablecoin payments, including Tron and Celo.
DeFi: DeFi may benefit; since DeFi already exists on the blockchain, AI agents can easily use them. One can imagine AI agents autonomously staking tokens for rewards, participating in DAO governance proposals, and even providing liquidity on DEXs. Grayscale Research believes that particularly benefiting applications will include DEXs like Uniswap, lending protocols like Aave, and prediction markets like Polymarket.
While still a niche market, certain protocols specifically related to AI agents may also benefit. At the infrastructure level, Autonolas and Wayfinder are building decentralized infrastructures for AI agents. Protocols like Virtuals, Ether, and MyShell are developing consumer AI agent applications. This category is still in its early stages of development, but its share in the AI topic track has grown in the past month.
Figure 3: AI agent assets have performed exceptionally well in the past month.
Conclusion
The integration of AI agents with blockchain technology not only represents new use cases for cryptocurrencies but also signifies a potential shift in how AI agents interact with currency. Grayscale Research believes that the future internet may increasingly be dominated by AI websites. With this in mind, permissionless blockchains can serve as the underlying infrastructure for AI agents integrated with these websites. If this is the case, AI agents may become the primary way users engage with cryptocurrencies, often without even realizing they are using blockchain technology. Thus, AI agents have the potential to significantly influence the adoption and development of cryptocurrencies, making this emerging topic a field worth watching in the future.
Related reading: A close look at the ecological battle of AI agent tracks: Luna vs Eliza, who will lead the new revolution?
