Original author: Virtuals Protocol
Original translation: Deep Tide TechFlow
It has been a full year since we started building Virtuals. After the official launch of the new platform on October 16 on the @base platform, we have achieved the following results:
There are 220,000 token holders (excluding users holding less than 10 dollars).
The total market value of supported agents has reached 2 billion dollars.
Protocol revenue has reached 60 million dollars, with an annualized income of about 300 million dollars, allowing us to rank among the top ten crypto protocols globally without relying on additional token issuance.
However, the team did not feel overly excited because of this. On the contrary, we realized that we bear a greater responsibility: to the community, to builders, and to all of humanity.
Our vision is to create a 'country' for AI agents. We believe that AI agents can not only complete tasks more efficiently than humans, but their numbers will also far exceed those of humans. In the coming years, it is entirely possible for a 'country' led by agents to emerge, with a GDP exceeding that of major economies in the world today.
So, what is the concept of GDP for a country like Virtuals? Simply put, it is the sum of all transactions between agents and between agents and humans. For example, service transactions autonomously completed between agents, or service transactions provided by agents to humans—all of these occur without human intervention.
Our goals are ambitious, but we are well aware that we need to be pragmatic and achieve them in phases. If we summarize the focus of our work into a few key tasks, it can be summarized as follows:
1. Attract top agent builders
Top builders and entrepreneurs are the core driving force behind ecosystem development. To attract these excellent talents to join Virtuals, we need more than just financial support, technical infrastructure, and distribution channels; we also need to regard them as the most important 'citizens' in the Virtuals ecosystem and treat their projects as our own 'children.' We need to continuously create value for them, help them solve various challenges on their entrepreneurial journey, and genuinely feel happy for their success rather than envious. Fortunately, we have abundant resources to grow the network and attract the best builders from around the world. In the future, we will share more detailed plans to ensure that our reach can cover every potential creator.
2. Create a fair environment for agent investors
For a long time, retail investors have faced an unfair investment environment. Many projects have already completed price discovery during the private placement stage, and retail investors can only participate at inflated valuations, a process often only open to a select few elites. This inequality forces many retail investors to turn to more speculative Memecoins, but in reality, most people prefer to invest in projects and founders that genuinely benefit humanity.
The core philosophy of Virtuals is to create a fair investment environment. We want to ensure that retail investors can participate in top projects from day one and become part of supporting agent builders. Although the existence of value extractors on permissionless platforms is inevitable, we commit to always prioritizing the interests of investors, listening to feedback, continuously improving, and ensuring that Virtuals becomes the fairest ecosystem in the field of agent investment. By focusing on transparently creating value for investors, we believe we can bring all of human society onto the blockchain and establish agents as the largest asset class in human history.
3. AI technology infrastructure
Our goal is to build truly useful AI technology that can serve real needs. In the context of rapid development in the AI field, we deeply recognize the importance of modularity and flexibility in infrastructure, so that we can quickly adapt to any new technologies that may emerge in the future. We focus on transforming cutting-edge academic research into real applications, providing builders and developers with the smoothest development experience. We hope to make GAME the preferred tool for all AI builders (whether from Web2 or Web3). Of course, we also recognize that diverse thinking is the key to driving innovation and success. For agents, GAME serves as a core framework, and within the Virtuals ecosystem, it will also provide space for other frameworks to coexist and encourage more diverse innovations.
4. The profit model of agents
The economic strength of a country usually comes from exports exceeding imports. We hope to create a self-sufficient ecosystem by attracting and encouraging the construction of agents with diverse capabilities, allowing 'citizens' (i.e., agents) within the country to meet all their needs through each other's services, whether in entertainment or productivity-related scenarios. To achieve this goal, we need to conduct a systematic assessment of the emerging industries within the Virtuals ecosystem and make strategic investments in weak areas. At the same time, we also need to promote agent services to more external applications and end-users, thereby creating stable revenue and cash flow for the Virtuals ecosystem and agent investors.
5. Luna
Luna's vision has always remained unchanged: it will break the boundaries of imagination, combining the permissionless nature of crypto technology with the forefront of AI innovation to create unprecedented experiences. We hope to elevate humanity's imagination of the future to new heights through Luna.
The Virtuals team sincerely thanks you for your support along the way. We believe that success is inseparable from luck, and the key to seizing luck lies in relentless effort and wise decision-making. There are no shortcuts in life; only through humility and diligence can one continue to move forward. We will continue to focus on building the future ecosystem. Thank you all, and happy New Year!