——Understanding the two 'turbocharged' carriages of AI Agent:
1) Virtuals is relatively closed and has taken an 'Apple-like' ecological expansion route, which certainly has advantages in the early stages. AI Agent projects within the ecosystem can synergistically form potential energy, continuously empowering Virtuals, while ai16z is more open-source, resembling an 'Android-like' developer ecological alliance route. In the early stages, most of ai16z's related coins have weaker relationships, which can create a sense of chaos in the market.
2) Virtuals had a complete Tokenomics early on, requiring users to stake tokens to create AI Agents. Users need to consume Virtuals to purchase new AI Agent tokens; thus, as more AI Agents are issued on Virtuals, the demand for Virtuals tokens increases, naturally creating a positive growth flywheel effect. However, Virtuals focuses on being an asset issuance platform, providing a standard AI Agent framework, leading to heavier homogeneity among the AI Agents on the platform.
Of course, theoretically, it is also possible to connect to project-specific framework models and only use Virtuals as an asset issuance platform, but this would sacrifice some of its own value capture ability, such as acquiring off-market traffic like Solana.
The ai16z DAO has taken another extreme without Tokenomics. The ai16z token is like a fund company token, and its main business is to occasionally invest in and incubate new projects to obtain airdrops or protocol share allocations from these projects. The ElizaOS framework and standards are its flagship products, but the ELIZA token only has official backing and lacks relevance; DegenAI seems to have a profit buyback agreement with ai16z, etc.
In summary, this entire profit distribution model has become a mess, leading to a lack of reasonable evaluation models for the ai16z family of tokens, making it impossible to form synergy in the short term. However, all of this will be resolved after a systematic Tokenomics.
3) Virtuals is more like an AI Agent 'Star-making Factory'. The explosive popularity of Virtuals is beyond doubt. After Virtuals, mainstream projects like AIXBT, GAME, LUNA, Convo, etc., can easily form a focused synergy and grow rapidly in a short time. The rapid rise of the GAME framework and standards is a typical example; essentially, these are all internet celebrities created in a 'production line' manner by the closed, focused, and synergistic Virtuals platform.
In contrast, ai16z is like an 'Avengers Alliance'. The tokens of ai16z, ELIZA, degenAI, MetaV, and a series of upcoming family tokens each come with super capabilities. The status of ai16z as the ecological mother coin goes without saying. ELIZA was originally a pure MEME, but Shaw's repeated statements have made it quite perplexing, yet it has basically placed the MEME value on the expected growth of the ElizaOS framework; MetaV has opened the door for AI Agents to autonomously issue tokens, and the AI Agent version of PumpFun carries the market's subsequent growth expectations.
What can I say? Looking at it individually, each member of the ai16z family shows its unique abilities, but it just cannot form synergy in the short term, hence its overall MCAP valuation of 30-80m is noticeably lower than that of Virtuals.
But why do I say it is an 'Avenger'? The vast ocean of stars in @shawmakesmagic's eyes must be above the Virtuals ecosystem. If you believe in the energy released by the ai16z open-source ecological alliance, how can it be considered a value lowland compared to Virtuals? Of course, most traders might prefer the certainty of opportunities in the Virtuals ecosystem, which is understandable.
4) The focus of Virtuals is actually on the launchpad itself, heavily investing in asset issuance while lightly focusing on technological ecological breakthroughs, which is an inherent limitation of a closed ecosystem. In contrast, ai16z's strength lies in the power of the developer community. The emergence of MetaV is just the first step in empowering the community with technical value; next, PHA is increasing the firepower of TEE autonomous asset custody empowerment, focEliza is working on on-chain empowerment, and the launch of the Launchpad platform, the comprehensive integration of Tokenomics, etc., will further amplify the energy of the ai16z family.
Therefore, the first thing Shaw needs to do is to lead the scattered family tokens into a super open-source growth flywheel driven by a technology open-source community, as there is greater imagination space due to incompleteness.
Of course, many people in the market find ELIZA's positioning awkward. Just one logic: the core product framework of ai16z is ElizaOS, and the mission of this framework is to empower the entire family. You wouldn't expect Shaw to place such great energy on a MEME coin, would you?
That's all.
I am continuously monitoring both ecosystems for potential opportunities, and clarifying the logic is just to hope everyone finds the track they are good at based on personal preferences. Of course, it would be best if Virtuals and ai16z could compete with each other more intensely, as that would be the time when the grand narrative of AI Agents ignites like a wildfire.
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