Author: William M. Peaster, Bankless; Translated by: Deng Tong, Jinse Finance

In the crypto space, excitement around AI agents is reaching historic highs.

We've had cults of personality before, but a cult of personality around AI is a new phenomenon.

The wide-ranging possibilities of AI going on-chain are sparking people's imaginations and their bids. Let’s dive deeper into this.

The wave of AI-centric meme coins

The recent buzz largely stems from the Truth Terminal account. It began with Andy Ayrey's Infinite Backrooms project, which was launched earlier this year to create an AI chatroom experiment.

In July 2024, Andy let AI take control of the Truth Terminal Twitter account, which quickly descended into chaos. To make things crazier, the AI embraced the strange 'Goatse Gospel,' a meme involving self-dissolution.

Marc Andreessen noticed this account and donated $50,000 worth of BTC to the project. Then, in October, someone launched the $GOAT token on Pump.fun, gaining recognition from AI and receiving support from community members.

Since then, interest surged, and the market cap of $GOAT temporarily exceeded $500 million, making Truth Terminal a millionaire and sparking a new wave of AI-centric meme coins like $GNON and $LUNA.

Why this matters

In the crypto space, AI is now building followings just like influencers.

Of course, people are still working to understand what these intelligences really are and what they can and should do in society. But make no mistake: AI-driven character shaping cultures and markets, thereby attracting investment, will continue to exist.

That said, its impact goes far beyond meme coins, as the interest here indicates that more and more people are truly beginning to realize the broader possibilities of large language models (LLM) around cryptocurrency.

This interest, combined with rapidly evolving technical resources, suggests that on-chain AI experiments are about to flourish in all directions. A new golden age of cryptocurrency is beginning accordingly.

Here are 3 things to watch for

1) The rise of actual on-chain agents

Truth Terminal did not create $GOAT. Its Solana address was created by humans, and it cannot directly control its on-chain assets. These factors do not change the interesting reasons behind the project, but it would be even more interesting if it did have direct control here.

However, in reality, on-chain AI agents are possible, and we are seeing an increase in activity in this field.

For example, in a recent Metaversal 'tooltip,' I highlighted NANI, an on-chain agent operating system that lets you control your wallet on Ethereum, Arbitrum, or Base just by chatting.

You can certainly create your own meme coin using such systems. But what about automated AI agents that can autonomously operate on-chain based on instructions or their own devices?

This is exactly the architecture that the thinkers behind the Parallel NFT trading card game are building in Wayfinder. It’s a combination of protocol and platform for user-owned AI agents to automatically execute transactions like minting and swapping across multiple chains, including Ethereum and Solana.

Although still in development, Wayfinder is paving the way for a future where AI can directly and autonomously manage on-chain funds. This power will affect many things, from personal portfolio management to the economics of on-chain virtual worlds.

2) More DAO and public product experiments

Botto is an AI artist trained and guided by its Botto DAO community, and it became one of the first (if not the first) AI millionaires through its cryptocurrency sale in 2021.

Not surprisingly, as interest in $GOAT surges back to the AI x crypto intersection, with the governance token price rising 118% over the past week, many have shifted their attention to $BOTTO.

Botto has already shown that you can have an on-chain AI project that 1) has collective governance and 2) is not just a narrative-driven game, as evidenced by its successful artistic creations.

Therefore, just as interest in $BOTTO is rekindled, there is a search for more projects to return to Botto’s DAO governance structure, serving as inspiration for new community experiments around AI agents in various directions, both inside and outside of art.

Where there is community, there is a shared vision and goal. An interesting question for the future is the emergence of new types of AI-driven public goods. Many in the cryptocurrency space support public product experiments, so the search for more collectives to gather on-chain and use mechanisms like transaction splitting to bring on-chain AI for public benefit is underway.

3) Advances in gaming and virtual reality

Onchain Gaias is creating a decentralized artificial intelligence agent network that trains agents using games and stores them in users' NFTs.

Then there’s the upcoming Parallel Colony game, which will rely on the previously mentioned Wayfinder system to power its AI character avatars, playing 'games' on behalf of human players.

These are just two striking examples of how AI is becoming more fundamental in collaborative ways within the crypto gaming space. But what about competition with AI agents in the future?

Yes! Projects like the Biomes virtual world have created their physical properties in such a way that AI competitors do not have a natural advantage over humans. It’s a design game to ensure its rules keep AI as a facilitator of fun rather than a killer.

Looking ahead, as AI's role in gaming and virtual world environments continues to grow, more possibilities for collaboration and competition are expected to emerge at this intersection.