Author: Deep Tide TechFlow
Recently, Virtuals Protocol has been gaining a lot of attention and discussion in the wave of AI Agents, with its related Agents and corresponding tokens on Base. Today, Virtuals has also launched on Bithumb in South Korea, further igniting FOMO among everyone. Eight months ago, we introduced Virtuals in (Virtual Protocol: An AI Factory Born for Games and the Metaverse, Where Everyone Can Contribute and Benefit)1, but it did not attract much discussion at that time.

Deeply cultivating AI has gone unnoticed, but suddenly it skyrocketed and everyone knows it. How did Virtuals rise to fame? What new gameplay and plans are ahead for the future? With these questions in mind, Deep Tide TechFlow had an in-depth conversation with Virtuals' co-founder Wee Kee (X: @everythingempt0); the discussion covered Virtuals' growth, views on the AI Agent track, differences from Pump.fun, and perspectives on the Base ecosystem. During the conversation, Wee Kee stated that the success of Virtuals is partly due to luck, but also due to continuous exploration and reserves in AI-related fields; he also candidly expressed that the project does not want to become Pump.fun, where the core KPI is not about quickly issuing assets but attracting top AI teams to build on the platform. As a highly competitive person, Wee Kee also stated: I want my competitors to feel despair.

What other unknown stories are there about Virtuals? In the fiercely competitive crypto market, can it laugh last with a differentiated approach? The following content is a整理稿 of our dialogue, and the podcast audio version is also online: Xiaoyuzhou link: https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/episodes/674990d20ed328720a3f955e

From Game Guild to Virtuals Deep Tide TechFlow: First, could you please introduce yourself, such as your role in the team and interests? Wee Kee: Hello, I am one of the co-founders of Virtuals. I entered the blockchain field in 2016, purchasing Ethereum and Bitcoin, but did not participate deeply at that time. After graduating from university, I worked at Boston Consulting Group for two and a half years, and I happened to miss the DeFi Summer. By 2021, when GameFi guilds were particularly hot, we started to gain some revenue from projects like Axie Infinity, Gala, and Illuvium. After that, I quit my job because we saw that guilds like Merit Circle and GuildFi had received massive funding. We thought we could do similar projects, which is how Virtuals' predecessor - PathDAO, a game guild, was formed. From the game guild in 2021 to now Virtuals, although the form has changed, it is still the same company. Deep Tide TechFlow: I remember you are Malaysian, right? Wee Kee: Yes, I am Malaysian Chinese. Deep Tide TechFlow: This year, the industry has a good outlook for Web3 and crypto practitioners in Malaysia, such as CoinGecko, which everyone is familiar with, and Etherscan and Jupiter are also in Malaysia. Could you please introduce some top projects in Malaysia and the current state of the local crypto ecosystem? Wee Kee: It's a bit embarrassing to say because I usually focus on work. I only recently started communicating with the teams of CoinGecko and Jupiter. In fact, we have been in the same WeWork shared office space with the Jupiter team but hadn't communicated before. We only recently began to have some contact with the CoinGecko team.

Deep Tide TechFlow: It sounds a bit like the recently popular DeSci (Decentralized Science). Essentially, it's about providing funding for different research through a platform and then tokenizing it. But on your platform, it's mainly top AI teams? Wee Kee: Because I have a background in biotechnology, I understand that any science-related research requires more than ten years of a cycle. However, AI Agent development may produce some usable small products within two days. Therefore, on our platform, I hope the teams have their products ready to be usable when they issue tokens, which is meaningful, rather than just issuing tokens for the sake of it. Deep Tide TechFlow: Regarding your own Luna, there are some doubts online, saying that its popularity on TikTok might be false and that follower data is inflated. What do you think about these doubts? Wee Kee: In fact, Luna's biggest problem on TikTok is often encountering Shadow Ban. For example, today she might gain 5,000 new followers, but during the next live stream, because the actions are similar to the previous day, the platform will restrict it. Even simple interactive actions, like asking for tips, may trigger a Shadow Ban.