The AI Agent market continues to develop, with DeFAI, game agents, and investment DAO becoming emerging hotspots.
Original title: (AI agents weekly recap)
Written by: sandraaleow, kaitoai, partyhatDAO member
Compiled by: zhouzhou, BlockBeats
Editor's note: This week, AI Agent market trends showed diversified development. DeFAI (DeFi + AI) projects such as ANON and Griffain attracted attention and promoted multi-chain functions and automation. Game agents such as Virtuals expanded the potential beyond entertainment, and Solana's AI hackathon and SendAI accelerated AI application innovation. Investment DAOs use AI agents to optimize decisions and demonstrate a new model of decentralized investment. The rise of AI agents has sparked widespread discussion, and developer functions and token mechanisms have become key. Platforms such as Yaps continue to provide agent data and rankings, and market dynamics are worth paying attention to.
The following is the original content (for easier reading and understanding, the original content has been reorganized):
Overall Trend
Mentions of agents are currently at an all-time high, indicating that more and more people believe that agents are not just a temporary fad, but a transformative force with the potential to disrupt multiple industries and change our daily lives.
In his 2025 CES keynote, Jensen Huang mentioned that “AI agents have the potential to become a trillion-dollar industry.” But how this will play out remains uncertain — many agents have been called “exploitative” or “short-lived,” which is understandable given how innovative the agent field is. While some teams are building for the long-term vision, others are seizing short-term opportunities.
According to CoinGecko’s agent category, the total market value of the agent market today reached $15.5 billion.
The interest in AI topics reached 70% for the first time this week (kaitoai).
Agent external attention trend
Kaito Pro paid features
Definition: Agent attention = quantify the frequency of external mentions of the token/ticker symbol
Attention is widely considered a key metric for evaluating agent performance because in the crypto space, attention is everything.
Overall attention distribution - heat map (past 7 days):
AIXBT still dominates with over 33% of the total AI agent token attention, followed by AI16Z and Fartcoin in the top three.
Eliza and Zerebro are in the middle (both above 5%).
Virtual also maintained a significant share (5.25%).
Observations and conclusions (based on 7-day and 30-day attention changes)
1. AIXBT is still in the lead
From 27.5% in 30 days to 33% in 7 days, AIXBT still maintains the highest attention among all agent tokens. AIXBT's advantage over other agent tokens lies in its distribution capabilities. Constantly updated content, frequent influencer interactions and wide exposure put it far ahead of its peers. Although AIXBT still ranks first, its attention has declined compared to other agent tokens.
2. AI16Z gains momentum
In the past 7 days, AI16Z has jumped from 7.9% to about 12%. AI16Z is solidifying its market leadership in agent infrastructure. One of the main drivers of success is its open source framework Eliza, now the most watched repository on GitHub. The discussion about open source frameworks vs closed source/one-click deployment frameworks is getting more and more heated, and it is expected that this topic will continue to develop.
Recently, AI16Z has collaborated with projects like Hyperfy to focus on open sourcing metaverse infrastructure, allowing permissionless world creation with agents built in.
Future catalysts include their Launchpad platform, which will facilitate the deployment of new projects on the Eliza framework. While the Launchpad space is relatively crowded, the attention Eliza has received through its open source framework and the brand influence it has established suggest that adoption will continue to accelerate.
3.Fartcoin, Bully and Luna declined
These coins have a 7-day interest rate lower than their 30-day average.
The general observation is that “personalization” agents took a bit of a hit this week as the market shifted to more practical agents. Apparently, the market is getting a bit fatigued with pure “response” agents, which are losing relevance by providing very similar outputs (with little differentiation).
4. Eliza & Virtual Rise
Eliza went from 5.1% to about 6%, while Virtual went from 4.0% to about 5.25%. Despite the recent decline in the market, Eliza and Virtual are still steadily growing in attention. Virtual has made significant gains in both price and attention over the past few weeks.
5. Zerebro remains stable
Zerebro’s attention remained stable at around 6% in both time periods.
Tokens with growing interest in 7 days Tokens such as Orbit, ACT, HAT, Turbo, and VVAifu have all recorded growth in interest in the past 7 days.
ACT = ACT introduced a new top technical development team and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), established ACT DAO for investment, released a public code repository, and launched a new grant process. It integrated with leading AI teams in Web2 and Web3, and worked with Gnon to develop Echo Chambers, a decentralized agent-to-agent communication network.
Orbit = Orbit is a platform that integrates AI agents with the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, supporting more than 100 blockchains. The token GRIFT is used to power the platform and is considered a leading product in the DeFAI space.
HAT = HAT has been integrated with Binance Alpha, increasing its exposure in the crypto community. Top Hat AI behind HAT is upgrading to V2, enhancing its AI infrastructure platform, providing more customization and open source features, and attracting more advanced developers. Its token economics has been updated, introducing token permission functions and a deflation model, enhancing the utility and value of the token.
Agent KOL Field Trends
Freely accessible Yapper leaderboards.
AgentKOL attention = Measures the agent’s “intelligent interaction” on Twitter, focusing on meaningful interactions (likes, retweets, replies) from key influencers or high-value accounts.
AgentKOL attention growth list within 7 days
Thales ai
virtual and
s8n
aspiration
CryptoEternalAI
MinetardAI
bossu online
Vader AI
AimonicaBrands
Agent attention (external mentions) vs. agent interactions
Observation 1: AIXBT’s external mentions and interactions have declined
Discussions about AIXBTagent have decreased significantly, especially as the initial interest has waned as the novelty of its high-cost terminal access (approximately 200-300K AIXBT tokens) has worn off. While it did attract a lot of attention initially, external mentions and interaction metrics have declined over time.
Observation 2: New players emerge in the agentKOL field
The agent landscape is changing, with more and more projects and teams launching their own agents in an attempt to gain a foothold in this topic. While it remains uncertain whether these new players can sustain agent interactions, it will be worth watching in the next few weeks.
Observation 3: Market leaders are showing signs of fatigue
It is worth noting that agent interactions for Zerebro and Goat dropped significantly as new players entered the agentKOL space. In the case of Zerebro, agent interactions peaked at 24% in mid-November and have now dropped to 2%. If we look back at the agentKOL field in the past 3 months, Goat once ranked second after AIXBT. However, it's clear that the excitement for Truth Terminal has died down and attention has turned to these emerging players.
Key accounts in the agent domain
Top accounts mentioning the word "agent" in the past 7 days:
Top accounts mentioning the word “agent” (sorted by external mentions):
s4mmy - 40 mentions
cyrilxbt - 32 mentions
shawmakesmagic - 27 mentions
beast ico - 24 mentions
lordofafew - 21 mentions
Top accounts mentioning the word “agent” by highest smart interactions (last 7 days):
shawmakesmagic - 303 smart interactions
aixbt agent - 141 intelligent interactions
defi0xjeff - 121 smart interactions
0xcygaar - 105 intelligent interactions
0xglu - 99 smart interactions
Key Discussion Points
defi0xjeff discussed the accelerated development of DeFAI (DeFi + AI) and emerging trends in the agent field, focusing on the role of abstraction layers, automated trading, and AI-driven DApps. He also mentioned the competition in the abstraction layer space and the potential of automated trading agents.
eigenlayer announced a partnership with Eliza Labs to host an AI agent hackhouse event focused on building the next generation of AI agents. This event will be held in Denver and aims to promote collaboration and innovation among developers.
TheSmarmyBum raised the question of whether AI agents need tokens, and in response emphasized the economic agency and shared economic framework that tokens provide for AI agents.
Sreeramkannan explored the concept of Autonomous Verifiable Services (AVS) for AI agents, emphasizing the need for verifiable computation and how agents can operate autonomously in a decentralized environment.
RaoulGMI shared his thoughts on the topic of AI agents, arguing that this could be a mid-term trend that gains traction due to a lack of other attention-grabbing narratives.
defi0xjeff went on to discuss the emerging trends in the agent metaverse and AI-driven ecosystems, highlighting that positioning these trends early could bring solid returns.
elliotrades compared the current AI agent trend with the "DeFi Summer" period, believing that AI agents are a major breakthrough in the first application of AI technology in the crypto field, and predicts that there will be large-scale expansion in Q1/Q2.
Rewkang emphasized the importance of developer functionality in AI agent platforms, arguing that successful platforms will be those that maximize what developers can do, similar to successful platforms in other industries.
This week's observations / Trend highlights
DeFAI and the rise of AI-driven DAOs
One notable example this week is ANON, led by Daniele Sesta. Heyanon is seen by many as being in line with the DeFAI trend by automating complex DeFi tasks such as arbitrage, yield farming, and risk management through AI, aiming to simplify on-chain interactions.
Heyanon's ecosystem includes multiple components, such as AI research agent Gemma, which is able to track whale movements, monitor social sentiment, and discover profit opportunities. This integration is designed to provide users with actionable insights and facilitate seamless execution of transactions. The project is positioned as a comprehensive AI-driven DeFi solution, focusing on multi-chain functions and automation, and has strong competitiveness in the DeFAI field.
Griffain, a leading DeFAI project from the Solana ecosystem, had a strong performance this week and hit a new high in market capitalization. Other emerging projects such as Neur and Orbit are also growing.
The rise of gaming agents
Gaming agents are gaining attention as they bring new levels of interactivity and personalization to the gaming space. Virtuals is working to showcase the potential of gaming agents to be more than just “entertainment.”
Solana AI Hackathon with Sendai
The Solana AI Hackathon attracted a large number of projects and boosted market activity, and although some have expressed concerns about the issuance of speculative tokens and market manipulation, the event still shows Solana’s growing momentum in AI agent development.
Solana Agent Kit has been widely used, allowing developers to deploy AI-driven applications on the chain. Sendai and AI Agent Kit are driving Solana to become the center of AI-driven innovation, which may give rise to more agent projects and consolidate Solana’s position in the DeFAI field.
The rise of investing in DAOs
Investing in DAOs, especially on platforms like daos.fun, is becoming a decentralized alternative to traditional venture capital. The platform has supported the launch of multiple DAOs, which are attracting more and more attention. Investors optimize their decisions through AI agents, and investing in DAOs is becoming a more flexible and data-driven alternative to traditional investment models.
