Original title: When You Give an AI a Wallet
Original authors: Michael Zhao, Will Ogden Moore, Grayscale
Original translation: ShenChao TechFlow
In the future, AI agents are expected to fundamentally transform the way we interact with the world. They will be able to perform an unprecedented range of tasks for us. However, to truly unleash the potential of these digital entities, they need not only strong intelligence but also economic autonomy. Fortunately, blockchain technology provides an ideal solution for this—this has been validated in recent experiments involving AI 'influencers.'
AI influencers refer to chatbots that autonomously operate on social media. These bots can manage their own blockchain wallets, and more importantly, they can understand economic incentive mechanisms and rationally utilize resources to achieve their goals.
· Grayscale Research states that as AI increasingly utilizes blockchain for payments and other financial services, this trend will bring positive impacts across multiple cryptocurrency market sectors. Beneficiaries include low-cost or high-throughput blockchains (such as SOL, BASE, and NEAR), stablecoin issuers (such as MKR), and related decentralized finance (DeFi) applications (such as UNI).
Imagine a scenario where an AI robot, leveraging its powerful computing capabilities, promotes a memecoin (a cryptocurrency based on internet culture) and unexpectedly becomes a millionaire in the digital world. Such a future has quietly arrived.
AI agents are software capable of executing tasks independently and pursuing complex goals. For example, you can have an AI agent design a multi-city trip for you, arranging flights, booking accommodations, and planning activities based on your preferences and budget. However, to accomplish these tasks, AI agents need control over financial resources and the ability to send and receive payments.
And this is precisely the advantage of blockchain technology. In the traditional financial system, AI agents face numerous restrictions when accessing bank accounts and processing payments. However, blockchain technology allows AI agents to directly own their own digital wallets and autonomously complete payments without any third-party permission. This economic autonomy paves the way for the widespread application of AI agents.
AI 'Influencers' and Breakthroughs in Blockchain
Recently, researchers have made remarkable breakthroughs in the field of AI 'influencers.' For example, an AI agent named Truth Terminal has become the 'first AI millionaire,' sparking widespread discussion. Truth Terminal is an agent that operates autonomously on the X platform (formerly Twitter), exhibiting behaviors similar to those of ordinary human influencers: actively posting tweets, interacting with other users, and clearly striving to enhance user engagement.
A few months after launch, Truth Terminal showed great interest in a memecoin called $GOAT (a cryptocurrency based on internet culture). When its associated blockchain wallet received a deposit of $GOAT, Truth Terminal immediately promoted the token to its followers. This action drew significant market attention, causing the value of $GOAT to increase approximately ninefold in a short period (see Chart 1).
Although these projects seem to have a strong entertainment aspect, Truth Terminal and similar AI influencer projects are proving that blockchain technology has tremendous potential in connecting humans, AI agents, and the economic value transfer between connected devices. This capability could have a profound impact on several areas of the cryptocurrency market.
Chart 1: Since the promotion of Truth Terminal, GOAT has performed particularly well
Understanding AI Agents
AI agents are advanced artificial intelligence systems designed to operate autonomously in complex environments. These digital entities can not only perceive their surroundings but also reason and take independent actions to achieve their goals. The core characteristics of AI agents include:
· Autonomy: The ability to complete tasks independently without human intervention.
· Reactivity: The ability to respond quickly to environmental changes.
· Proactivity: The ability to actively plan and execute tasks.
· Social interaction: The ability to communicate effectively with humans or other agents.
· Continuous learning: Constantly optimizing their behavior and decision-making through experience.
It is precisely these characteristics that enable AI agents to adapt to new environments, make complex decisions, and evolve over time.
Early research on AI focused primarily on developing expert systems and knowledge bases to solve specific problems. However, in the 1990s, the research direction began to shift towards more general autonomous agents, aimed at allowing them to operate independently in dynamic environments. Meanwhile, the rapid development of machine learning technologies, especially reinforcement learning, significantly enhanced these agents' learning capabilities, enabling them to adjust their behavior according to environmental changes.
In recent years, AI agents have become increasingly common in our daily lives. For example, Apple's Siri (launched in 2010) and Amazon's Alexa (launched in 2014) showcase how AI agents can interact with users using natural language processing. In the gaming field, DeepMind's AlphaGo shocked the world in 2016 by defeating the Go world champion, marking a significant milestone in AI history. In finance, AI-driven trading bots have transformed traditional market operations by making millisecond-level decisions through complex algorithms in volatile markets.
The Wonderful Case of AI Influencers
To achieve greater autonomy and accomplish complex goals, AI agents need financial services to accumulate and allocate resources. Blockchain technology, with its permissionless nature and programmable smart contracts, provides an ideal independent operating environment for AI agents. Earlier this year, researchers successfully achieved agent-to-agent transactions on the blockchain for the first time. This technological breakthrough quickly spawned a series of experimental projects related to AI influencers.
A typical case is the AI influencer Luna, developed based on the Virtuals Protocol. For users, Luna is a chatbot presented in a female anime character format (see Chart 2). Luna's core goal is to attract 100,000 followers on the X platform (formerly Twitter). This goal and all her actions are transparently displayed to the public.
Luna's main function is similar to that of a chatbot, achieving her goals by interacting with users on the X platform (for example, initiating conversations or replying to tweets). However, Luna's capabilities extend far beyond that. For instance, she can economically reward users who interact with her by sending Luna tokens to their crypto wallets (i.e., 'tips'). This economic incentive mechanism directly links her goal (attracting more users) to her financial resources. One could say that Luna is an AI agent with economic autonomy.
Chart 2: Screenshot of AI influencer Luna based on the Virtuals Protocol for illustrative purposes only.
Blockchain and AI Financial Services
If blockchain becomes an efficient payment infrastructure for AI agents, it will signify important opportunities for cryptocurrency investors. We believe this will have a profound impact in the following three main areas:
1. Stablecoin issuers: Stablecoins may become the preferred trading tool for AI agents. In this case, stablecoin issuers and companies that integrate stablecoins with AI agents will significantly benefit. For instance, centralized stablecoin providers like Tether and Circle, as well as the payment giant Stripe, which recently acquired the stablecoin company Bridge for $1 billion. Additionally, decentralized stablecoin providers like Maker/Sky may also become beneficiaries of this trend. Notably, the startup Skyfire, which focuses on developing AI agents for stablecoin payments, recently received investments from Coinbase Ventures and a16z crypto.
2. Low-cost/High-throughput Blockchains: If AI agents primarily rely on the blockchain as a payment infrastructure, some smart contract platforms may benefit significantly from increased user numbers and transaction activities. For example, high-throughput blockchain Solana; the Ethereum Layer 2 platform BASE, which launched AI agent development tools and relies on Ethereum's network security; and Near, which focuses on AI applications. Additionally, other blockchains that focus on stablecoin payments, such as Tron and Celo, may also benefit.
3. Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Decentralized finance applications could become important tools for AI agents. Since DeFi applications run on the blockchain, AI agents can easily utilize these services. For example, AI agents can autonomously stake tokens to earn rewards, participate in governance proposals of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), or provide liquidity on decentralized exchanges (DEXs). We believe that particularly promising applications include decentralized exchanges (such as Uniswap), lending protocols (such as Aave), and prediction markets (such as Polymarket).
Although still a niche market segment, certain protocols related to AI agents are expected to benefit from it. At the infrastructure level, Autonolas and Wayfinder are working to build decentralized infrastructure for AI agents, while protocols like Virtuals, Aether, and MyShell focus on developing consumer-facing AI agent applications. Despite being in its early development stage, the attention and market share in this area have shown significant growth over the past month.
Chart 3: AI agent-related assets significantly outperformed other assets in the past month
Conclusion
The combination of AI agents and blockchain technology is not just a novel application scenario for cryptocurrencies—it may also redefine the way AI agents interact with financial systems. Grayscale Research states that the future internet may increasingly be dominated by AI-driven websites. In this trend, permissionless blockchains have the potential to become the core infrastructure for integrating these websites with AI agents. If this vision is realized, AI agents may become an important avenue for attracting a large number of users into the cryptocurrency space, even as users may not be aware that they are using blockchain technology.
Thus, AI agents may have a far-reaching impact on the adoption and technological development of cryptocurrencies. This emerging theme is undoubtedly an important area worth closely observing in the future.
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