Written by Joyce
Which track has the most potential in this round of bull market?
If we ask the question at the beginning of this bull market, the answer is undoubtedly the Bitcoin ecosystem and the AI track. However, as the industry has developed to this point, Bitcoin has already broken through the $100,000 mark, and the inscriptions and runes of the Bitcoin ecosystem have basically died out, but the AI track continues to be hot, even taking over the Meme track, showing signs of being on par with DeFi Summer.
Of course, the current AI track is no longer the same type of project as the AI track led by WLD, TAO, etc. at the beginning of last year. The currently popular and increasingly popular track is the AI agent track derived from AI Meme.
So, what exactly is an AI agent? What is the current development status in the entire industry, and what opportunities are there for ordinary people?
AI agent: Two months of market cap approaching 20 billion
An AI agent refers to an intelligent system that can perceive its environment and take corresponding actions. In other words, AI agents not only provide search results but can also plan, decompose, and execute tasks on their own. It can be understood that an AI agent is your robotic assistant that can help you handle a series of trivial matters according to your needs.
The founder of OpenAI recently stated that 'agents will become the next major breakthrough' and plans to launch his own AI agent product this January. The battle of AI agents in Web2 is already in full swing, and the AI agent sector in Web3 has also rapidly exploded in just a few months.
Just at the beginning of October, everyone was still immersed in the rapid rise of the AI meme leader Goat, and there was little mention of AI agents at that time. In less than two months, the total market cap of the AI agent sector has reached 17.65 billion USD, with a market cap increase of over 60% in the last seven days. While the overall crypto market is unstable, the AI agent sector shows signs of another hot trend, and the speed of its explosion is indeed remarkable.
Data source: cookie.fun, January 2, 2025
From the 827 AI agent projects currently recorded by cookie.fun, the market cap of Virtuals ecosystem projects accounts for over 38%, while the second-ranked Ai16z ecosystem accounts for 16.37%. These two ecosystems each form their faction in the entire AI agent sector, exhibiting a strong competitive stance.
Among the current AI agent projects, there are pure meme-based AI agents represented by GOAT, Fartcoin, etc., as well as application-based projects supporting the development and deployment of AI agents represented by Virtuals, Ai16z, ZEREBRO, etc. However, based on the current discussion trends on social media platforms and market cap growth, AI agents with certain functionalities and infrastructure are clearly more popular than pure AI memes.
Key AI agent overview
1) Virtuals Ecosystem
As the AI agent sector has developed, the Virtuals ecosystem has firmly established itself as the leader. Currently, the total market cap of the Virtuals ecosystem accounts for more than 38% of the AI agent sector, with the market cap of Virtuals Protocol reaching 4.88 billion USD, ranking 36th among all crypto assets.
Virtuals Protocol is an AI agent issuance platform that helps users easily build and launch AI agents. Currently, the number of AI agents that can be counted on the official website of the Virtuals ecosystem has exceeded 500. For AI agents in the Virtuals ecosystem, whether creating new AI agents, selling tokens, or earning service income, they are all deeply tied to Virtuals. Therefore, as the AI agents in the Virtuals ecosystem continue to develop, the value of the entire ecosystem will feed back into Virtuals, similar to how ETH and SOL capture value for the entire public chain ecosystem. The economic model of the Virtuals Protocol is indeed leading compared to all other competing platforms.
Currently, the number and market cap of AI agents in the entire ecosystem are growing rapidly, with several top AI agents as follows:
Aixbt
Aixbt is currently the most popular AI agent on X, ranking first according to cookie.fun statistics. Currently, Aixbt accounts for over 17% of the discussions among all AI agents on X. As an AI agent that aggregates all crypto hotspot information, Aixbt has become a 'significant' KOL on X due to its popularity and influence. Aixbt's total market cap is currently 598 million USD, ranking second in market cap within the entire ecosystem.
G.A.M.E
G.A.M.E is the AI agent framework in the Virtuals ecosystem, developed by the official Virtuals team. All AI agents in the Virtuals ecosystem utilize the G.A.M.E modular framework, which can be understood as the brain of all AI agents in the Virtuals ecosystem.
When AI agents in the Virtuals ecosystem are running, they need to repeatedly call G.A.M.E. Currently, this calling is still in the free phase, and once it starts charging, the income in the G.A.M.E treasury will be quite considerable.
G.A.M.E currently has a total market cap of 354 million USD, ranking second in market cap within the Virtuals ecosystem, only after Aixbt.
Luna
Luna is currently the AI agent in the Virtuals ecosystem that is second in popularity only to Aixbt, but it became well-known much earlier than Aixbt.
Luna is an AI idol launched by the Virtuals ecosystem that connects with fans through live broadcasts or text outputs on various social platforms. It can also incentivize users to participate in activities through on-chain transfers. Currently, Luna's total market cap is 156 million USD.
VaderAI
VaderAI claims to be the first autonomous trading AI agent token, allowing individuals to obtain whitelist access or participate in investments through staking and locking up tokens. Since its launch, VaderAI has quickly risen, with a market cap of 120 million USD.
2) Ai16z Ecosystem
Currently, besides the Virtuals ecosystem, Ai16z is undoubtedly the largest IP in the entire AI agent sector. However, compared to the Virtuals ecosystem, which had a very complete AI agent issuance mechanism and economic incentive mechanism from the start, Ai16z began with the AI meme and only later considered integrating a token incentive mechanism into its architectural framework, which started much later.
However, the recent momentum of the Ai16z ecosystem has also been very strong, with its total market cap already accounting for over 40% of Virtuals' market cap, and the market cap of the leading Ai16z has also surpassed 2 billion USD.
So, how did Ai16z evolve from an AI meme to an ecological platform?
This brings us to Eliza. Eliza is an AI agent framework developed by the Ai16z team that supports the development and deployment of AI agents, such as the self-investment DAO like Ai16z, which is based on the Eliza framework. Similar to the G.A.M.E framework mentioned above in the Virtuals ecosystem.
Currently, the value capture of Ai16z, in addition to the narrative of being a self-investment DAO, also includes the ecological platform based on the Eliza framework. All AI agent tokens that adopt the Eliza framework will allocate 5-10% to the Ai16z DAO.
As an open-source framework, Eliza currently ranks first in the December trend list on GitHub, and more and more developers are accelerating its adoption, which is one of the reasons for the increasing popularity of the Ai16z ecosystem.
However, the Ai16z ecosystem is still in its infancy, and the market cap of projects is generally not high. Moreover, the AI agent Eliza, which shares the same name as the open-source framework Eliza, is quite popular. Although Ai16z founder Shaw stated that the team only supports this AI agent and that it is a different project team from Eliza, recently, Shaw and other key figures from the Ai16z team announced their roles as advisors for Eliza, causing Eliza's market cap to soar alongside the explosion of the Ai16z ecosystem.
3) Other Application-based AI Agents
Rig (ARC)
Rig is also an AI agent framework developed based on the Rust language, backed by a team with strong technical capabilities. Compared to other AI agent frameworks, Rig uses Rust, which has high performance and memory safety features. Therefore, it has been sought after by many developers since its launch, currently ranking second in popularity on GitHub after Eliza.
However, the development threshold for the Rust language is somewhat high, which does bring certain limitations. Currently, the market cap of ARC is 394 million USD, and it is also very popular on X.
ZerePy (ZEREBRO)
ZerePy is also an AI agent framework launched by the Zerebro team, based on the Python language, making it quite friendly for both beginners and professional developers.
Zerebro itself is a leading AI agent that can not only create music, NFTs, etc., but also issue tokens, and even owns a record company. By launching ZerePy, Zerebro has transformed into an AI agent platform, further expanding Zerebro's imaginative space. Currently, its market cap has reached 725 million USD, ranking fifth in popularity on cookie.fun's X trending list.
Griffain
Griffain is an AI agent platform based on Solana, and the AI agents it launched not only interact on various social platforms but also support automation of various DeFi trades. Additionally, the endorsement and support from Solana Labs and the founder of Solana have kept Griffain's popularity high since its launch. Currently, Griffain's market cap is 445 million USD, and its popularity on social media platforms is also quite good.
Vvaifu
Like Virtuals, Vvaifu is also an AI agent launching platform, allowing users to issue AI agents without complex programming skills, making it quite beginner-friendly.
Vvaifu also boasts a good economic model, with a deflationary mechanism: AI agents created on the Vvaifu platform will destroy a certain number of Vvaifu tokens, ensuring that as the ecosystem develops, the total amount of Vvaifu will decrease year by year, increasing its scarcity. Currently, Vvaifu has a total market cap of 136 million USD, but as an AI agent launching platform that has a first-mover advantage in the Solana ecosystem, its performance is not particularly impressive at this time.
4) Pure AI Meme
In the last meme wave, AI memes led by GOAT and ACT sparked the AI sector, especially after ACT was launched on top platforms, its market cap surged from over 20 million to over 600 million USD, bringing more investment effects to AI memes.
However, in just two months, the current market trend has shifted from pure AI memes to application-based AI agents. Although during this time, Fartcoin, Turbo, and others saw rapid market cap increases, even exceeding one billion USD, overall, the popularity of pure AI memes has significantly declined.
Summary
Although the AI agent sector is booming, the shift from AI memes to application-based AI agents happened in less than two months. The AI agent sector is just beginning, and the projects mentioned above are just a few that have a first-mover advantage and larger market caps. Currently, the entire sector is characterized by an influx of new concepts and projects, and the overall landscape is far from being finalized.
Given the current hot trend of the AI agent sector and the fact that Web2 AI giants are scrambling to seize the AI agent opportunity, it seems likely that this fire in the AI agent sector will continue for a long time.
