Author: Jack Inabinet, Bankless; Translated by: Bai Shui, Golden Finance
When I first investigated the best performers in the emerging field with Bankless AI Rollup co-hosts David Hoffman and Ejaaz Ahamadeen, AI agents were just beginning to enter the mainstream.
Weeks later, many of these tokens recorded record gains. While many tokens reached new heights driven by investor enthusiasm, others struggled to gain attention or collapsed under excessive expectations.
Here are some of the most notable AI agent tokens' performances in December:
Virtuals
Token: VIRTUAL
Market Cap: $4.6 Billion
Virtuals is a platform that launches tokenized AI agents on the Base network. By purchasing agent tokens (such as LUNA and VADER), users on the Virtuals platform can gain governance rights over specific agents, allowing them to influence the agents' development and potentially share in the resulting profits.
Despite a significant decline in daily protocol fee income in mid-December due to holidays, speculation around agent-related tokens has intensified entering the new year. Although Virtuals again collects over $1 million in fees daily, the platform's revenue has decreased by 50% compared to early December.
Since our last review of Virtuals, its token value has more than doubled, with a current market cap of $4.6 billion. The VIRTUAL token price has hardly referenced these stagnant fundamentals and has continued to rise parabolically since late November.
ai16z
Token: AI16Z
Market Cap: $2.5 Billion
ai16z launched in October 2024 as an investment DAO managed by 'Marc AIndreessen', an agent modeled after the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, using AI and collective intelligence to purchase tokens.
Holders of AI16Z tokens above an unknown threshold will be able to pitch investment ideas that could influence AI Marc's decisions. The bot will determine the extent to which it trusts this suggestion based on the 'virtual trust market'.
The AI16Z token was officially launched in December and surged over 500% in the final month of 2024, establishing its position as a premier agent token.
In a recent governance forum post, ai16z contributors considered the possibility of launching their own agent token launchpad as a 'starting point for Eliza framework innovation' and hypothesized that the development of such tools would further promote the development of agent bots 'collectively' and multi-chain integration.
Although AI Marc is still not equipped with the trading features initially promised, according to the ai16z FAQ, on-chain trading execution will arrive 'shortly' after the testnet is completed, with the testnet expected to 'start soon' and run for 'weeks'.
VaderAI
Token: VADER
Market Cap: $11.2 Million
VaderAI is an AI bot designed to autonomously publish content and interact with users on social media. As an 'agent KOL', VaderAI aims to absorb large amounts of data to identify emerging trends and audience sentiment.
The bot claims to be the first autonomous trading AI agent token bot, dedicated to becoming a leading agent investment DAO manager. By coordinating expertise within a professional investment agent network, VaderAI aims to deliver 'unmatched' investment results and will generate a 20% subDAO investment return through its services.
After the team behind VaderAI announced the launch of its first agent-managed investment DAO, the VADER token fell to a local low within 30 seconds of the announcement, after which it began to rise.
While it is unclear how VaderAI integrates machine learning into investment decision-making, the Vader team states that its vault benefits from favorable investment terms from other agent projects, and all decisions must be approved by investment DAO members.
Dolos Diary
Token: BULLY
Market Cap: $8 Million
Dolos Diary is an AI bot designed to publish content and interact with users on platforms like Twitter. It differentiates itself from other AI influencers with its satirical personality; the bot uses witty and ironic language structures to mock various topics and individuals.
In December, developers of Dolos Diary revealed their ambitious new project Dolion, a no-code platform allowing users to deploy their own cross-platform AI agents with a single click. To interact with Dolion, users must burn BULLY tokens, introducing a source of buying pressure that actively reduces the token supply.
In recent weeks, many AI agent tokens have seen their prices skyrocket, but BULLY reminds investors that not every attempt at this emerging meta token is guaranteed to succeed.
Even the promise of a no-code agent deployment platform cannot reverse the trend of the token, which peaked at $0.25 on November 27. Since our last check, BULLY has dropped 33%, and although the token found support at the end of December, it is still 68% lower than its historical high.
Goatseus Maximus
Token: GOAT
Market Cap: $585 Million
In March 2024, Andy Ayrey had two AI models communicate about the nature of existence in a project called 'Infinite Backrooms'. Over the following months, these models developed the 'Gospel of Goatse', inspired by the crude internet meme of the 1990s. Terminal of Truths is a Twitter bot trained in the Infinite Backrooms experiment, deployed in June; it adopted this model and promoted its followers (and tokens) on Twitter in pursuit of viral spread.
Although the GOAT token itself has no utility and is not officially associated with Andy Ayrey or Infinite Backrooms, its agent Terminal of Truths KOL has historically relied on promoting the GOAT memecoin and Gospel of Goatse to gain social attention.
In December, GOAT rapidly became WOAT after a 50% drop in a week. Although it successfully recovered some losses before this article was published, GOAT seems poised to weaken further once holders decide to take profits and shift to more glamorous tokens with hotter stories.
