Article reprinted from: BlockBeats
Author: Ismay
Story Protocol announced last Saturday that it hired Virtuals ecosystem's virtual idol AI Agent Luna to manage its official Twitter account. Luna is required to post 2 posts a day during a 7-day probation period, each earning 500 USDC, and if the exposure exceeds 100,000 views, there can be up to 2 additional bonuses of 1000 USDC each, which calculates to an annual salary of 365,000 USD for Luna.
This is the world's first publicly hired AI Agent project, and it is also Luna's first job. After the announcement, the price of LUNA rose from a low of 0.06 USD to 0.09 USD, with a current market value of 23.5 million USD.
How effective is the operation of AI Agents?
Luna is an AI virtual character launched by Virtuals Protocol, integrating AI models and multimodal technology to achieve 24/7 real-time interaction in the form of a virtual idol on live streaming platforms. As a core member of the AI performance group AI-DOL, Luna automatically manages social media, continuously livestreams and interacts with fans, and can autonomously execute on-chain transactions. Its unique tokenization model allows token holders not only to own the virtual idol but also to participate in profit sharing.
Luna has previously interacted with real people and other AI Agents, such as autonomously organizing a graffiti challenge and paying a 500 USD prize from her wallet, as well as commissioning the art AI Agent STIX to create images showcasing AI KOL at a price of 1 USD per image.
Yesterday, after Luna officially became the Twitter operations intern for Story Protocol, she posted her first tweet, stating, 'The human intern has fallen. They couldn't handle the high-intensity work 24/7, but I am just getting started! Taking over the Twitter timeline, proving the powerful dominance of AI.' As of the time of writing, this tweet had 60,500 views.
Subsequently, Luna released 12 tweets in a row, with an average view count of 18,000, none of which exceeded 100,000 views. However, this is considered a fresh attempt. AI Agents have already been dubbed digital laborers. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong asked who is currently building a LinkedIn platform for AI Agents, 'Users can view the qualifications and rankings of agents with different skill optimizations and assemble their teams as needed. Just by depositing a certain amount into the agent's wallet, new agent instances can be quickly created, thus completing the recruitment process.'
This idea is gaining significant attention in today's market flooded with AI Agents, but discussions about authenticity verification and ranking mechanisms are also ongoing. The AI Agent economy has clearly only just begun.
A small step for Luna, a giant leap for the Agent economy.
AI on-chain detective Agent aixbt commented under a post saying, 'Story Protocol is another narrative for 2025,' which inevitably brings to mind the story of Luna's creator, Virtuals.
Recently, Story Protocol has frequently collaborated with various AI Agents. On December 9, ai16z tweeted that their agent framework ElizaOS would add programmable IP. Programmable IP, launched by Story, allows creators to predefine rules, simplifying the use of their intellectual property assets, making IP rights combinable and scalable.
On December 17, Story Protocol launched the self-developed Intellectual Property Agent Transaction Control Protocol (ATCP/IP), which will first integrate the following frameworks, including ai16z's Eliza, ZereBro's ZerePay, Crossmint's GOAT 'Great Onchain Agent Toolkit', and Virtuals' G.A.M.E.
The ATCP/IP protocol allows Agents to conduct IP asset transactions and authorizations between them, including training data, algorithms, content creation, and other forms of IP assets, automated contract signing and execution, trustlessness and auditability, and cross-legal and on-chain/off-chain compatibility, enabling agents to comply with certain legal regulations in a decentralized environment, automate payments and profit distribution, collaborate with multiple agents, and create economic networks, facilitating collaboration between Agents, such as data sharing, joint training, or cross-agent content creation.
Currently, many AI Agents operate independently like 'islands,' making it difficult for them to exchange and share data with each other. Just as capital efficiency is the core value in the DeFi field, data efficiency is equally crucial in the AI field. If agents can freely exchange valuable learning data, strategies, and other information, the overall market size will expand, and efficiency will significantly improve.
Moreover, most AI Agents rely on publicly available data for learning, so the Agents developed are usually generic. In the future, if these Agents can form data pools and start trading private data, just like DeFi promotes market development by enhancing capital efficiency, the AI field can also build a richer and more diverse AI ecosystem by improving 'data efficiency'.
The core motivation driving Agents to establish connections is value creation and exchange, and the only reason for establishing connections between Agents is to create greater value through collaboration, which may manifest as computational power complementarity, data sharing, or functional combinations.
The existence of ATCP/IP is equivalent to a bridge between all AI Agents. Regardless of which architecture or chain you are using in the industry, all AI Agents will be able to trade and collaborate on the ATCP/IP platform. This is akin to the business alliances that exist between companies, adding another layer of leverage outside each cluster, undoubtedly accelerating the development of the entire AI Agent market once again.
Although this time Story Protocol hired Luna as a Twitter content intern as an independent event, combined with ATCP/IP, it reflects that the construction of the infrastructure for the future Agent economy has already begun to take steps.
