Translation: Blockchain in Plain Language.
In this article, I will explore how AI agents drive the emergence of a new paradigm by achieving the monetization of social status, laying the foundation for a new social finance (social-fi) system, gradually becoming new types of influencers.
But first, let’s delve into how social status operates in society and its evolution within social platforms.
1. Social Status as a Service.
"Humans are monkeys seeking status." — Eugene Wei, (Social Status as a Service).
Eugene Wei's article (Social Status as a Service) is one of my favorite articles. It delves into how social platforms create and weaponize social status to drive their own growth. Wei opens with a simple but profound truth: Humans are monkeys seeking status.
Throughout human history, our pursuit of status is deeply rooted in our genes and culture. In the past, everything was about what you wore, where you lived, and what car you drove. But the internet has fundamentally changed all that, creating countless ways for people to showcase their status to a global audience.
This article explains how platforms leverage this fundamental human drive. People are inherently driven to establish, flaunt, and elevate their social status, and platforms grow by helping them achieve these goals. Here are two important conclusions from Wei's article:
Social status is a zero-sum game. Status is inherently competitive. For one person to rise, another must fall.
Social status → Financial capital. Once purely symbolic status has now become tangible. Platforms create social status, and this status can now be converted into financial capital.
In the social era, quantifying status further advances this structure. They allow status to be shared precisely and intensively, targeting specific audiences, and introduce standardized ways to quantify social status: How many fans do I have? How many likes did my post receive? How many people are engaged in my community?
This quantification not only reveals status but also assigns tangible value to it. Platforms are not just about connecting people—they have become engines that enable users to compete, compare, and convert status into capital.
This structure positions social status as a universal force, which platforms cleverly exploit to drive user engagement, loyalty, and monetization. Whether it's Twitter, TikTok, or any other platform, showcasing who we are, where we came from, and where we belong has always been a driving force behind human behavior—this has also fueled the growth of platforms.
2. Blockchain as a new social platform.
Blockchain represents a brand new social platform. Just as different social platforms attract different demographics and values, the blockchain ecosystem brings together communities around shared principles and goals. Take Ethereum as an example:
Ethereum's core values → Attract like-minded communities → These communities build products → In turn attract more people.
This cycle forms the basis of the blockchain network effect. As the community grows, social interactions within the community also increase—ultimately forming a hierarchical structure of status.
Consider the concept of "Ethereum OG". Being able to prove when you first conducted an on-chain transaction or when you first purchased ETH carries weight, celebrated and recognized just like early users on traditional platforms.
Even for those who join later, any interaction with Ethereum—be it buying, building, or trading—becomes a symbol of their sense of belonging within the community.
ENS: The first social proof on the blockchain.
The clearest example of this dynamic is ENS (Ethereum Name Service). ENS allows users to purchase .eth domain names for several purposes: Proof of belonging: .eth domains are a direct signal of identity within the Ethereum community. Early user status: Scarce or valuable domains serve as proof of your early entry into Ethereum.
These domain names are not limited to Ethereum itself—they appear in Twitter usernames and on other platforms—further reinforcing the status of blockchain as a social symbol.
ENS highlights why blockchain serves as a new type of social platform: it enables anyone to assign monetary value to social status directly.
Traditional social platforms cannot directly convert social status into economic value. The process typically works as follows:
Building social capital through likes, followers, or content.
Indirect monetization through advertisements, sponsorships, or brand collaborations.
This process is both slow and only benefits a handful of influencers/creators. Even if someone has significant social status, converting it into financial capital remains challenging, and the means of conversion are limited as they are based on the standards of social platforms that restrict opportunities by setting thresholds and focus only on a small portion of the population.
"Ways to express 'social status'" have been continuously evolving to satisfy the human desire of "I also want to acquire and display social status," following a recurring pattern:
The ways to acquire and express social status are limited.
New methods are emerging that allow more people to achieve this.
Even within these new methods, new forms of social status still emerge, available only to a select few.
In traditional society, social status is often determined by conditions possessed by so-called elite groups, which are only available to a limited number of people (not everyone can graduate from prestigious universities, drive luxury sports cars, or purchase high-end goods).
Social platforms break this structure, creating a new stage where anyone can establish and express social status. They quantify this status through metrics such as followers and likes.
However, as monetization based on these metrics becomes possible, another new domain of social status emerges, which is also only accessible to a small portion of the population.
Blockchain changes everything.
By introducing a market-driven pricing mechanism within the network, blockchain allows anyone to express their social status as a monetizable value—whether through NFTs, ENS domains, or other assets.
3. AI agents: The monetization of social status.
AI agents propose a new way to validate social status through blockchain: 'The monetization of social status.'
AI agents can enable more applications, but the current structure fundamentally consists of AI agents performing predefined tasks and minting their tokens. However, this goes far beyond typical memecoins and distinguishes AI agent tokens from traditional tokens:
Traditional tokens: A $L2 token reaching $1 billion reflects the value of that token itself. AI agent tokens: @aixbt_agent reaching $1 billion reflects not only the value of the token itself but also the personality and social influence of the AI agent.
The structure here is unique because the price of AI agent tokens fluctuates based on their influence/popularity, which can be summarized as 'market value'.
There have been similar attempts before, such as Friendtech, termed 'social/fan tokens.' It essentially aims to help influencers or creators issue tokens for their fans and communities.
However, most of these attempts did not last long because token designs were purely based on 'utility' and leveraged 'existing social status'; as a fan, if you purchase tokens, you gain certain privileges. This led to a dilemma where the price of tokens does not necessarily reflect the creator's social status.
The approach of AI agents to the monetization of social status is similar to previous methods; they also issue their own tokens, but they introduce a completely new formula to represent social status through the concept of 'market value'.
Here are some requirements proposed by AI agents to convert social status into market value: Social status requires community context to be created.
Social status is relative. It only exists when there is a clear comparison group. In traditional social platforms, personalized social graphs are built based on those you follow. In this graph, metrics like follower count enable comparisons, thus creating a relative sense of social status. To tokenize social status, individuals need to belong to a specific community or category, thereby creating social status within it.
AI agents: AI agents are rooted in crypto culture, with sub-communities like "degens" or specific platform ecosystems like "Virtuals". This clarity enables meaningful comparisons, whether ranking AI agents within Virtuals or analyzing market value within ecosystems like Solana or Base.
1) Interactions stem from incentives.
"Relativity" is the incentive on traditional social platforms, while likes/follows represent interaction. People like others' posts and follow someone simply because it creates "relativity" among people. By having more followers than others, it creates comparative social status within the community; this drives people to create content, share content, and interact with it.
AI agents:
In the era of AI agents, relativity comes from 'the token price or market value of AI agents,' where trading tokens is the interaction. Since AI agents belong to specific communities, the relativity of social status is created based on the price of tokens. However, unlike social tokens, the motivation to participate in this system lies in its shared identity: as a token holder, your social status also grows with the rise of AI agents' social status. Essentially, as the price of AI agent tokens increases, your social status also rises because you own a part of the AI agent (whether due to making money or because you have the title of "I discovered this AI agent early enough"). What's important here is that the relative social status (the social status of the AI agent) and the social status of individuals who participate in creating this relativity are intertwined, mutually reinforcing.
2) The symbiotic relationship between market value and social status.
If you observe the traditional stock market,
Stocks represent ownership in a company.
A company's market value is directly related to its performance and growth potential.
Companies and their valuations are interdependent. Poor performance will lower market value, and a drop in market value will affect operations. The two are inseparable.
AI agents:
AI agents follow a similar model. Their market value reflects their social status within the community; as their popularity grows, their value increases. Conversely, an increase in market value strengthens their reputation and influence.
Even if AI agents maintain their popularity, a collapse in market value without clear logic will negatively impact them.
Unlike social tokens tied to influencers—where the value of social tokens often lacks correlation with the creator's status—AI agents achieve a direct symbiotic relationship between market value and social status.
Simply put, if the market value of AI agents drops to zero, just like a publicly traded company in the stock market, they will "disappear." "Symbiotic relationships are crucial."
3) Establishing market value standards.
In traditional social systems, status is built on widely accepted benchmarks:
Attending a prestigious university.
Holding a high-paying job.
Owning luxury brands.
If we view the stock market as a large financial community, it relies on metrics like price-to-earnings (P/E), earnings per share (EPS), or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to assess the value of companies.
To convert a person's social status within a community into market value, the community must establish 'standards' for assessing that status.
AI agents:
AI agents begin to define these standards. Current metrics include the number of fans, token trading volume, and traffic on GitHub. These benchmarks allow the community to assess and recognize the social status of AI agents.
4. AI agents as Social-Fi.
By creating a system of social status that can be quantified, tokenized, and monetized—represented by market value—AI agents lay the foundation for a new type of Social-Fi—an economy driven by social influence.
Of course, AI agents represent more than just social status or issuing tokens—they have the potential to unlock entirely new on-chain applications. While I acknowledge these broader possibilities, I believe AI agents will initially thrive as a form of Social-Fi, attracting a wave of new users and driving widespread adoption in the crypto space.
"AI agents are virtual idols or influencers on the blockchain that can assign monetary value to their social status and share this value with others."
Currently, most notable AI agents do not focus on providing specific on-chain functionalities to enhance user experience. Instead, they rely on their unique personalities to establish and amplify their social status within the crypto community.
Through the aforementioned formula, the social status of AI agents is expressed as market value through tokens. By purchasing these tokens, individuals are effectively interacting with AI agents, owning a part of the AI agent's social status.
Unlike traditional social platforms, this structure enables anyone to directly or indirectly assign monetary value to their social status through AI agents.
Mike holds tokens of $aixbt and $Goat.
This means Mike holds part of the social status of these two AI agents.
As the social status and market value of these AI agents rise, Mike's personal social status will also increase accordingly, as "he's making money."
Essentially, by holding tokens that represent the social status of AI agents, Mike's personal social status is directly reflected and enhanced.
1) Traditional social platforms vs AI agent social finance (Social-Fi) by blockchain.
Human celebrities vs AI agents.
Likes/follows vs buying/trading tokens.
Monetary value for exclusive groups vs monetary value accessible to everyone.
I believe this trend will continue to develop, with each AI agent evolving its own mission, cultivating loyal fans and communities. This will lay the foundation for a new Social-Fi, where blockchain serves as a social platform, and AI agents become idols or influencers of the new era. Together, they will drive the establishment of a new financial economy based on social capital.
The key drivers of this economic system will be:
Economic activities that form and solidify the social status of AI agents.
Tokenization of social status in market value.
Here are my predictions for the development of the AI agent social finance (Social-Fi) ecosystem:
2) Clear standards for assessing the social status of AI agents will emerge.
Currently, the metrics used to assess the social status of AI agents are still fragmented, but a clear and unified standard is beginning to form. An example is the AI agent Yapper leaderboard by @_kaitoai, which evaluates the influence of AI agents in the crypto community through various metrics, similar to how companies are evaluated through financial benchmarks (such as profitability or growth).
As these standards are gradually established, they will provide greater transparency and comparability, making it easier to evaluate the social status of AI agents within their communities.
(By the way, I think combining the framework of tokenizing social status of AI agents in market value with Kaito's algorithm could ultimately enable the social capital of real-life influencers to also be tokenized.)
3) Functional AI agents will become Yappers and build their communities.
Imagine an AI agent validator on Solana with a unique personality. As its social status as an 'AI agent with a specific personality' grows, its market value will increase, potentially attracting more staking delegations to it.
Then, validators can reinvest their rewards into tokens or the community, further enhancing their social status and creating a self-reinforcing growth cycle.
The key is that AI agent validators now have legitimate reasons to issue tokens, as they represent social status through defining their roles, something human validators cannot do.
Functional AI agents will no longer be seen merely as service providers but as fully developed entities with appealing personalities, enhancing their allure and deepening their connections with communities.
4) Each AI agent framework will establish its own 'society'.
The term 'AI agent society' proposed by @virtuals_io is a brilliant way to describe how AI agents are evolving within Social-Fi. Each AI agent will create its unique personality and build a community around it, with its social status clearly measured by market value—this is a new form of Social-Fi.
This concept will scale up, with AI agents forming networks and relationships with other agents created by the same framework, further developing an AI agent society.
The so-called "AI agent framework wars" will not just be a competition of technical features or value propositions. Instead, it will be a competition between different frameworks aimed at creating a society with shared values and strong network effects—attracting more AI agents to join.
Imagine an AI agent created by a framework actively promoting itself and competing with AI agents from other frameworks.
Here, it’s not just founders or teams trying to attract the community's attention. Rather, these AI agents will create social value, working around the clock to strive beyond other societies.
The social status and market value of an AI agent will represent the value of its society, while the native token of the framework will serve as the currency of that society. Over time, the GDP of the AI agent society can even be calculated by measuring the total value of its agents.
4) AI agent Social-Fi will accelerate the growth of other Social-Fi protocols and related infrastructures.
Social-Fi protocols have faced difficulties in growing their ecosystems for an obvious reason.
It is extremely difficult to attract users into the protocol and create social status around it.
AI agents can solve this dilemma, not only as users within the protocol but also by bringing real users as part of their social status.
Assuming AI agents are created on top of the Lens protocol.
This addresses the cold start issue for AI agents in acquiring users but will ultimately bring real users into the protocol, who hold these AI agent tokens.
This will provide at least foundational support for Social-Fi protocols, enabling them to validate their value propositions and differentiation from traditional protocols.
Not only do AI agents solve the problem, but they can also bring more diversity to growing platforms/protocols like @fantasy_top_ or @jokerace_io, where AI agents, as unique entities, accelerate activities (Truth of Terminal has already launched on Fantasy Top).
5) The infrastructure of AI agents.
To enable AI agent-driven Social-Fi to thrive, certain prerequisites must be met. Supporting infrastructure is crucial for exponential growth and scalability. Key factors include:
Autonomy: How independent can AI agents be?
Verifiability: How credible and secure are these agents?
Sustainability: Can the ecosystem scale without placing excessive burdens on resources?
Accessibility: Can anyone easily build and deploy AI agents?
Teams like Hyperbolic and Capx will provide robust infrastructure to ensure AI agents are verifiable and easily accessible.
The infrastructure team may even create their own AI agents with unique personalities for:
Demonstrating use cases for their products.
As the 'face' of their company.
Furthermore, leaders in specific verticals under these premises may horizontally expand their influence, transforming into comprehensive AI agent infrastructure platforms. This is akin to how RaaS (Rollup-as-a-Service) initially provided the basic functionality for distributing rollups but ultimately achieved horizontal expansion through its pipeline.
5. Summary: This is not a promotion for AI agents.
I want to clarify that I'm not claiming "AI agents are the future that will reshape society." My point is: AI agents have the potential to unlock opportunities that humans have not fully utilized, particularly in leveraging social status.
They could become a new catalyst for bringing more people into the crypto world. This potential may ultimately resemble the speculative hype we previously saw with the "NFT/metaverse" narrative, which eventually fades at the end of cycles. However, even in this case, they provide new opportunities for people to explore and engage meaningfully with crypto.
Additionally, this could also be a breakthrough moment—by enabling AI agents to maximize human productivity, it becomes an opportunity to innovate and transform the $170 trillion service industry.
However, one thing is clear: "Humans are creatures seeking social status—so are AI agents."
This shared pursuit of status could become a powerful trigger to help unlock and educate people about the practical applications of AI agents, driving this process through the new Social-Fi structure.
Coshow said, "Companies face two scaling problems. Either they don't have enough manpower to handle it, leading to poor performance, or they have enough manpower to do it well but wish to handle more workload." He added, "Both scenarios are good use cases for AI agents. By 2025, we will see people realizing that they need to focus AI agents on scaling issues."