Artificial intelligence, perpetual contracts, and trading bots are three key crypto narratives to watch this week. AI-focused tokens like TAO and FET are up 61% and 71%, while VIRTUAL has reached a market cap of $3.3 billion, becoming the second-largest AI token.
Perpetuals are on the rise with Hyperliquid generating $98 billion in weekly volume and the HYPE token entering the top 20. Bots like Trojan, Banana and Bonkbot are moving millions, boosting tokens like BANANA and BONK.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence has emerged as one of the most prominent narratives in crypto throughout 2024, with significant price gains and market milestones achieved by several AI-focused tokens. Tokens such as TAO and FET saw significant increases of 61% and 71%, respectively, showing strong interest from investors.
VIRTUAL market value. Source: TradingView.
Furthermore, VIRTUAL has reached a market cap of $3.3 billion, establishing itself as the second-largest AI-focused coin, just behind RENDER. These developments highlight how AI-driven projects have captured a significant portion of the market’s attention and investment, solidifying their role in the broader crypto ecosystem.
Looking ahead, the rise of crypto AI agents is fueling expectations of further growth for projects aligned with this trend. Coins like VIRTUAL, ai16z, and ZEREBRO stand out as potential beneficiaries in the coming weeks as they position themselves to capitalize on the growing narrative not only around artificial intelligence, but also specific crypto AI agents.
Perpetuals
The past few weeks have been remarkable for perpetuals, largely driven by the explosive growth of hyperliquid. Weekly trading volume for perpetual contracts on DEXs soared to $98 billion on December 23, highlighting the growing enthusiasm around narratives like perpetuals.
Hyperliquid alone contributed significantly to this surge, hitting an all-time high of $51 billion in volume during the week of December 9-16, solidifying its dominance in the industry.
HYPE market cap. Source: CoinMarketCap.
Other key players such as DYDX, Drift, and Injective continue to maintain their relevance in the perpetual market.
Following its airdrop, Hyperliquid’s native token, HYPE, quickly reached a market cap of $9 billion, propelling it into the ranks of the top 20 cryptocurrencies.
Bots de trading
The narrative around trading bots gained significant traction in 2024, particularly those integrated with Telegram. Furthermore, these bots hit an all-time high of $482 million in daily volume on November 20.
Platforms such as Trojan, Banana, Photon, Maestro, and Bonkbot have rapidly grown in popularity, collectively reaching hundreds of millions in weekly trading volume.
Daily volume of trading bots. Source: Dune.
Much of this volume was driven by Pumpfun, as most of these bots derive their revenue primarily from Solana trading. However, if this trend continues, tokens like BANANA and BONK could benefit significantly.
The article 3 crypto narratives to keep an eye on in the coming days; check it out was first seen on BeInCrypto Brasil.