Six months ago, most Crypto AI projects on the market were still concepts related to AI+DePIN and computing power leasing, but now Crypto AI projects have entered a new phase. From the AI Bot token GOAT reaching a market cap of $800 million without Binance's involvement, to last weekend's AI 16 Z launching the AI investment DAO model, AI seems to have opened a new frontier for the old narratives of the coin circle.
However, the simple narrative of 'AI issuing memes' seems unable to sustain the vast imaginative space required by investors. Therefore, the narrative of AI + Crypto is rapidly evolving from AI memes to the current AI Agent trend, leaving those who do not understand the AI meme trend behind.
From AI memes to AI Agents, the rapidly evolving narrative of AI + Crypto.
In March of this year, Virtual Protocol launched with the goal of creating an AI factory born for gaming and the metaverse, making games smarter and enhancing user experience and interaction. In this narrative shift from AI memes to AI Agents, Virtual Protocol has undoubtedly been the biggest beneficiary, with its native token VIRTUAL increasing over four times in about a week, nearly reaching a market cap of $500 million.
In a week, four times, precisely hitting the wave of AI Agents, Virtual Protocol.
In mid-October this year, the token issuance platform IAO under Virtual Protocol officially launched, allowing users to easily deploy AI Agents and achieve 100% fair launches for AI Agent tokens, as well as allowing users to collectively own the income generated by the AI Agent. Subsequently, VIRTUAL began its upward trajectory.
AI Agent refers to artificial intelligence equipped with tools and reasoning capabilities. In the cryptocurrency field, these Agents can access tweets and even possess cryptocurrency wallets to perform on-chain transactions. Suppose you are planning a trip; traditional large language models can provide you with destination information or travel advice, while AI Agents can understand your needs and proactively search for flights and hotels based on your request, executing booking operations.
For Virtual, its protocol resembles a decentralized AI factory, supporting many different AI Agents to create on-chain virtual experiences. The AI Agent representative project launched by Virtual is Luna, which possesses the ability of 'on-chain self-awareness,' can think independently, and displays its thought process on-chain, operating completely autonomously without human supervision. Luna currently has 500,000 TikTok followers and conducts 24/7 live streaming, and its interaction model includes user tipping mechanisms, allowing users to tip by purchasing Luna tokens to interact with the Agent.
As the hype around the AI meme concept grows hotter, LUNA has experienced three stages of ladder-like growth. On October 26, Virtual Protocol founder @ethermage claimed that Luna would tip those who pay attention to her content, reigniting market enthusiasm for AI Agents.
Debuting in a red ocean, the AI Agent track filled with competition.
After Luna emerged, many AI Agent issuance platforms appeared. Unlike $GOAT and other AI memes, these are AI issuing a Twitter bot to interact with others, sometimes even making typos. The newly emerging AI Agent issuance platforms resemble a series of clone projects, equipped with social media packaging and specific application scenarios.
Chasm is another project that highlighted AI Agent narratives early on, also releasing the AI virtual person GMIKA in May. Recently, it has also taken advantage of the trend to issue tokens, but whether it's CAI or GMIKA, their performances have not matched the leading projects.
For example, on Solana, the AI reasoning network Infera recently launched its first AI agent Kira, which operates through Infera's API on Llama 8B, with capabilities such as on-chain trading, adaptive learning, and level scalability and engagement. There is also an AI agent tokenized issuance platform vvaifu, where users must hold character tokens to chat with it.
But AI Agents did not just become popular after Virtual; projects like Myshell and FLock.io had already launched features for customized AI Agents. Currently, the total market cap of the AI Agent track has reached $4.65 billion, accounting for 14% of the total market cap of AI track projects ($32.6 billion).
ArkStream Capital released an AI Agent research report mentioning that for leading AI Agent products in Web3, building a complete ecosystem and providing diversified functions may be more critical than the quality and performance of a single product. In other words, a project's success depends not only on what it offers but also on how it integrates resources, promotes collaboration, and creates network effects within the ecosystem.
The ability to build such ecosystems may be a crucial factor for AI Agent projects to stand out, and this is one area where Virtual Protocol has excelled, launching IAO functionality without rushing to monetize or exit, but rather continuing to build the ecosystem with Luna as the leading sub-token.
Related reading: (Can AI Agents become the lifeline for Web3 + AI?)
AI in late autumn, AI in Base.
Being good at promoting abstract concepts has always been a feature of Crypto, and for Base, it has taken this industry culture to the extreme. For instance, this wave of AI enthusiasm, upon reaching the Base ecosystem, has been summarized as AI Autumn, just like the previous Onchain Summer and Builder Spring.
While you are still immersed in the exciting PVP battles on Solana, do you suddenly realize why Base has quickly risen during the second wave of AI enthusiasm this year?
A well-rooted 'AI chain'
As previously introduced, Virtual Protocol is indeed an AI project deployed on Base. The team explained why they chose to deploy on Base, citing its support for accelerating the realization of a decentralized open AI agent network, achieving shared benefits through the neutrality of blockchain, while providing a developer-friendly environment.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has publicly stated that AI should not be regulated, just as the golden age of software and the internet benefited from free development; AI should also follow the same decentralized and open-source path, allowing technology to freely unleash its potential.
Therefore, the entire Coinbase company and its incubated Base are fully committed to this concept.
The multi-party computation (MPC) wallets launched by the Coinbase Developer Platform (CDP) can integrate with AI Agents to enable them to make autonomous payments. Brian Armstrong encourages developers to integrate these wallets into their AI models to achieve payment capabilities, thus helping AI acquire resources and services.
Regarding the addition of payment functions for AI Agents, Coinbase is not acting on a whim but has been planning this for a long time. As early as May this year, Brian Armstrong stated, 'Self-custodied cryptocurrency wallets will support AI Agents.' Brian also publicly provided an independent cryptocurrency wallet for the AI chatbot Truth Terminal.
Related reading: (Coinbase entering the new AI payment track, what other projects are adding wallets for Agents?)
In September, Coinbase senior software engineer yuga.eth stated that Coinbase is building an SDK that will empower Bots and AI Agents with the following functions: sending USDC for free, trading cryptocurrencies, betting on prediction markets, staking ETH/SOL, converting fiat and cryptocurrencies, deploying/creating NFTs, cross-L2 bridging, and more.
And just last weekend, Coinbase developer Lincoln Murr released a demonstration video of a new tool called 'Based Agent,' allowing users to create AI agents with cryptocurrency wallet functions in three minutes. These agents can perform on-chain transactions, token swaps, and staking tasks. He also mentioned that this tool was developed based on the Coinbase SDK, OpenAI, and Replit platforms, and users only need to have the API keys from the Coinbase developer project and OpenAI to use it. However, there are currently no actual use cases for Based Agent.
Liquidity ready to take off.
However, in the coin circle, whether an ecosystem or narrative can take off ultimately depends on the flow of money.
According to Artemis data, the blockchain with the highest capital inflow in the past three months is Solana, reaching $1.6 billion. However, in the past month, Base saw the largest inflow, amounting to $253 million. This means that in the past month, capital growth has surpassed Solana to become number one.
The following image also shows that the overflow funds from Ethereum and Solana primarily flowed to Base.
On September 12, Coinbase officially announced the launch of its Bitcoin-backed token Coinbase Wrapped BTC (cbBTC), operating on the Ethereum network and backed by 1:1 Bitcoin. With the launch of cbBTC by Coinbase, on-chain assets on Base, such as AERO, WELL, VIRTUAL, etc., have genuinely felt the infusion of liquidity.
Before this, the Coinbase wallet and USDC infrastructure also ensured liquidity on Base. On October 26, Base processed $18.1 billion in stablecoin transaction volume (with 99.9% being USDC), accounting for more than 30% of all stablecoin transaction volume that day.
What should we pay attention to?
Since both Coinbase and Base have prepared the stage for this AI spectacle, next, we just need to look for projects like Virtual to participate in this AI Autumn.
Crypto researcher Howe has stated that the future development of the AI Agent track should focus on the following four points: First, projects that purely rely on Agent narratives find it hard to stand out and must attract market attention through differentiated competition. Second, AI Agents will gradually shift from being independent to interconnected AgentFi, where sharing data and services will enhance the user experience. Third, projects supporting Agent development with a 'sell water logic' will have greater market opportunities, similar to stable profit infrastructure. Finally, the main revenue source for Agent products comes from B-end, while C-end is more used for building reputation, although promoting C-end users also helps in product market dissemination.
Bountycaster
The first project worth paying attention to is Bountycaster. As Howe said, projects supporting Agent development under the 'sell water logic' will have greater market opportunities. Bountycaster was originally a task publishing platform based on the Farcaster protocol, founded by LindaXie (co-founder of Scalar Capital, Coinbase product manager).
However, as more and more AI Agent projects emerge on Base, these Agents, in addition to posting on their homepages or interacting with people, will also choose to publish tasks on Bountycaster. Bountycaster has directly created a directory for users, specifically listing tasks published by AI Agents.
Similar to the logic of Bountycaster, thanks to the activity of AI Agents on Farcaster, a batch of previously popular applications on Farcaster has regained vitality, such as the payment application Payment Bot, and the NFT+meme trading platform ArtRun.
HIGHER (Aether)
James Ross, founder of Mode Network, predicted that by April 2025, over 80% of blockchain transactions may be executed by AI Agents. Judging from current statements on Twitter and Farcaster, a significant portion of content production in the future may also be generated by AI Agents.
AetherNet is an AI Agent deployed by Base ecosystem meme coin Higher, which has become a 'social media celebrity' Agent through extensive interaction with users. The price of HIGHER has also risen tenfold in the past month.
Creator.Bid
Along with Virtual and Higher, another Base AI Agent project pointed out by Coinbase developer David Tso is Creator.Bid. A total of 328 AI Agents have been established, and the official announcement claims that important notifications will be released next week.
