The AI agent market experienced explosive growth in Q4 2024, with market capitalization soaring from $4.8 billion in October to $15.5 billion in December, growing 322% in just three months. Solana became the biggest winner in this wave, capturing over half of the market share.

AI intelligent agents' market cap surged, with Solana capturing 56% of the market.

According to a report released by CoinGecko on January 15, AI agents have become a popular category in emerging markets, with market capitalization soaring from $4.8 billion in October to $15.5 billion in December.

The report indicates that the starting point of this surge is closely related to the Goatseus Maximus (GOAT) token launched by Solana in October, with Solana currently receiving nearly 57% of community attention, clearly surpassing Base's 38% attention.

(The strange AI experiment gave birth to the meme coin GOAT: AI plans to make money with meme coins, becoming the most powerful shilling machine)

Solana becomes the DEX leader, with trading volume far exceeding Ethereum.

Solana not only performed well in the AI agent market but also became the leader in decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume:

  • DEX Trading Volume: Solana's fourth-quarter trading volume reached $219.2 billion, surpassing Ethereum's $184.3 billion.

  • Other blockchain competitors: Base occupies 19% of the market, while Tron became the fastest-growing blockchain in the top ten with a quarterly growth of 232.7%.

AI agents reshape the blockchain ecosystem

AI agents are commonly applied in DeFi or core functions of blockchain, like automated arbitrage robots or AI decision-making models interacting with smart contracts. By the end of 2024, AI agents are favored by institutional investors. A report published by asset management giant Franklin Templeton pointed out that AI agents could completely reshape social media content generation and industry operations in the future.

Some tokens related to AI agents performed exceptionally well, such as:

  • Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL): On January 15, 2025, increased by over 8%, breaking $3.

  • ai16z (AI16Z): A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) token based on AI agents, up 15%, currently at $1.5.

(Franklin publishes AI agent report: The intersection of artificial intelligence agents and cryptocurrency)

The crypto market saw a strong rebound in Q4, with Bitcoin reaching new highs.

The rise of AI agent tokens complements the strong recovery of the overall crypto market:

  • Bitcoin (BTC): Achieved a historic high of $108,135 in December 2024, with an annual growth of 121.5%.

  • Total Market Capitalization Surge: The overall crypto market capitalization increased by 45.7% in the fourth quarter, reaching $3.91 trillion.

  • Popular Token Performance:

    • XRP's market capitalization ranking rose from seventh to fourth.

    • Dogecoin (DOGE) pushed out the stablecoin USDC, entering the top seven.

Dogecoin pushed out USD, currently ranked seventh with Ethereum's L2 ecosystem exploding, with Base taking the lead.

Ethereum's second-layer scaling solutions (L2) saw significant growth in trading volume in the fourth quarter:

  • Total Trading Volume: The average daily trading volume of the top ten L2s reached 15 million transactions.

  • Base Leads the Way: The L2 supported by Coinbase accounts for 48.3% of the market share.

  • Taiko Surpasses Arbitrum: Fourth-quarter trading volume increased by 85.5%, thanks to the launch of new DeFi protocols.

Ethereum's L2 scaling ecosystem is booming, with Base firmly in the lead.

(2024 Crypto Topics: Meme coins lead in market cap at $112.7 billion, AI-related tokens fall to second place)

This article highlights the AI agent's market cap explosion of 322%! Solana emerged as the biggest winner, boosting the crypto market surge, first appearing in Chain News ABMedia.