Source: Tomb X account
Author: Tomb
Compiled by: TechFlow
Key points of this post
Review the development of agents and AI in the past few months;
Review some of the obvious investment opportunities in the market;
Taking a break during the New Year, I observed many things from an outsider’s perspective and reflected deeply on past successes and mistakes;
Next, I will try to share all of my thoughts as clearly as possible;
A review of the past few months of agent and AI developments
AI Agent Review
Very happy with the performance at the end of last year.
In September and early October, we got very early into many of the narratives around AI, Agents, and Infrastructure.
Without overcomplicating the analysis of these trends, it is clear that these are the next stage of the AI supercycle (and there will be more important catalysts in the future).
This mature judgment comes from long-term experience in capturing narratives in the market. When you can identify these trends, you can rapidly allocate funds without excessive hesitation.
Even now, I still see some people arguing about trivial issues such as the packaging applications of ChatGPT, the specific functions of certain agents, or a protocol's delayed responses.
But are these really important? Our purpose here is to make money, not to prove ourselves right.
The key is to be clear about the stage of the market cycle you are in. Each cycle has its unique rules and strategies.
This is also why many people hold onto old projects for too long, missing out on some 'simple model' trending opportunities. When I say 'old', I don’t mean it in the literal sense, but rather that it has become 'relatively old' compared to the fast pace of industry development.
Remember, new hotspots emerge every day, and the speed of capital flow is increasing—if the team cannot clearly convey their ideas or demonstrate a clear roadmap, capital will flow to those protocols that communicate better and can quickly implement projects.
When I first encountered Goat, I realized its potential and focused on it very early—I was surprised that others took so long to migrate to Base through cross-chain bridges or start exploring agents on Sol.
This phenomenon is largely due to the 'mid-curve effect' (the tendency to overcomplicate thinking) and market panic. If you only realized these issues up to now, you need to seriously reflect on the reasons.
I am very grateful for the past few months, as I have not experienced too many serious losses.
I seized the opportunity with ai16z when it had a market cap of $30 million, also entered at $30 million for aixbt, in addition to some gaming and conversational projects when their market cap was below $10 million.
Of course, there were also some missed opportunities, like Zerebro, Fartcoin, Snai, and Swarm Node. But that's okay; it's impossible to catch all opportunities. What's important is to reflect on why you missed them and why they succeeded.
Quality
As always, quality is the key to determining victory or defeat:
High-level developers;
Excellent branding;
Innovative ideas or unique technologies with competitive advantages;
Cohesive, high-quality community;
Clear and valuable information and communication;
These are the core elements we have always been paying attention to. If two or more of the above are missing, then there is a risk. Why? Because there will definitely be other teams that can do better.
For instance, in the current environment of Virtuals, as long as a high-quality team launches AI agents or related infrastructure, I will quickly invest early (i.e., 'go all in'). The developers are transparent (doxxed), they have been deeply involved in this field for over 5 years, and have participated in multiple protocols—once I discover such a team early, I will decisively enter.
In fact, you don’t even need to invest a lot of money to achieve considerable returns. For example, I discovered the GEKKO project when it was just launched, with a market cap of only $4 million. Since it was developed by the Axal team and received investment from a16z—that was enough for me, so I decisively invested. As a result, it grew from a $4 million market cap to $40 million, with very substantial returns. I believe it will see further growth. Turning $4,000 into $40,000 is a year's salary for some people. Sometimes, you don’t need to invest huge amounts; $2,000 or $4,000 can bring considerable returns. Don’t underestimate the potential of these funds.
Another project I have been laying out is Acolyt, which has a very strong team, with narratives similar to GEKKO. I mentioned before that if there are 100 different AI agents that can provide high-quality market intelligence (alpha), then the only things that distinguish them are identity, user interface (UI), branding, developer level, etc.—this is no different from other fields in life.
This is what I have been looking for: teams that have been focusing on building for a long time—those passionate top developers who keep tweeting and continuously launch new products. They are the only destination for my funds; I will not consider other places.
Things to avoid
Avoid single-developer teams with undisclosed identities, especially when building speculative agent projects; the risks are high.
Another thing to be cautious about is agent projects initiated by individual 'influencers'. These projects are often abandoned shortly after being announced because the developers realize the responsibilities exceed expectations.
Struggling narratives
I have to admit that there are some narratives I personally have high hopes for, but their development has indeed encountered some difficulties. This doesn’t mean these projects are bad, but their pace of advancement is relatively slow.
Investing funds into a seemingly promising project only to find its performance below expectations, while other projects around it achieve 2-3 times growth in a short period, is indeed frustrating.
These projects often fall into the category of 'slow starters', or ultimately become 'auxiliary test subjects' for other projects.
For example, $GRIFT + $REALIS + $OMEGA. I still hold some of these, but practically speaking, I should have cut losses earlier and transferred my funds to stronger AI infrastructure projects like REI and ARC. The potential of these projects is more obvious, and their performance is more stable.
At that time, I invested about $100,000 to $120,000 in these 'experimental' projects, expecting them to capture a larger market share. But looking back, projects like Griffain, supported by Solana, are clearly stronger, while projects like Realis need more time to mature, possibly because their ideas are too advanced or their team is relatively small.
Reflecting on it, when you achieve 20-30 times return on projects like $GAME, you feel you have enough capital to 'test the waters' or take risks, so you don’t care much about putting funds into a slowly progressing project. But in reality, as a trader or investor, we should not treat our funds this way.
In the coming weeks, I will continue to share observations about agents and market operations, while also keeping an eye on the next potential market rotation opportunity. We all know that no narrative can last forever. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the narrative of agents has ended, but they may be entering a new stage of development.
Remember, the market changes very quickly now, almost an all-around acceleration. If you let your guard down, you may be eliminated. Pay attention to market dynamics every day, as 'hot potatoes' are becoming increasingly hot.
Reflecting on some obvious investment opportunities in the market
Some market opportunities are very obvious for some people, but may not be so for others. I won’t list all the examples, but I will share some major cases and how I grasped the narratives.
VIRTUALS
When I first saw the GOAT project take off, I was deeply attracted. Realizing its potential, I immediately invested. However, I completely missed the opportunities with $ZEREBRO and $BULLY, which have shown very impressive performance to date. This made me more urgently seek the next possible opportunity.
At this moment, I discovered aixbt. When I learned about its functions and positioning, I immediately realized it was the next project worth paying attention to, especially after seeing discussions in the community about $GOAT, $ZEREBRO, and $BULLY. I noticed the market is gradually shifting from entertainment projects to practical projects. This shift is precisely why I began to focus on projects like Base, Virtuals, $GAME, and $CONVO.
In fact, it was an article by Jeff about how Virtuals could become a billion-dollar protocol that made me determined. The tokenomics, branding, and ecological advantages of the Base chain mentioned in the article further convinced me of the great potential of Virtuals.
By studying $GAME, I finally managed to correctly understand the concept of 'frameworks'. This knowledge allowed me to seize many excellent investment opportunities in the following weeks. Although I am not a tech geek and cannot fully grasp all the details, I am very interested in this field and willing to learn as much as possible.
Interestingly, when the market cap of Virtuals reached $500-600 million, I did not invest in it.
I believe that when you confirm the potential of a certain ecosystem, such as its potential to grow to $5 billion, $10 billion, or even $20 billion in scale, you need to pay attention to two key points: first, 'pioneers', and second, those agents that continuously occupy users' minds.
For example, $LUNA is a typical pioneer, while $VADER is the first DAO/ALPHA project.
In this ecosystem, there are many projects worth focusing on. For me, the team is the most critical factor, followed by concept and practicality, and finally, branding and identity. These three make up the 'holy trinity'.
Here are some outstanding projects worth researching:
> $WAI ;
> $ACOLYT ;
> $SEKOIA ;
> $GEKKO ;
These projects are all worth paying attention to, especially those that belong to the Agentstarter ecosystem.
AI16z
It may sound a bit casual, but when I first came across and promoted daos.fun, I almost invested in AI16z just because of the name. After deeply researching projects like Truth Terminal funded by Marc, I was convinced this was a project worth paying attention to.
When I learned that AI16z DAO is attracting top developers from around the world and is committed to accelerating the construction of its ecosystem and framework, I became even more convinced of its enormous potential. The activity on GitHub continues to rise, and the momentum of the entire project is rapidly accumulating; this cannot be explained by 'mid-curve thinking'.
Despite some FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) during this period, their test projects $ELIZA and $DEGENAI in the agent ecosystem have great potential. For instance, Eliza's market cap has reached $160 million, while @degenspartanai has reached $100 million. With the continued expansion of AI16z, these two projects are expected to grow further—these are very obvious investment opportunities.
Other ecosystems
In Agentic Outlook One, I analyzed each major launchpad/protocol and its Alpha agents or Beta projects in detail:
Creator.Bid | $BID (potential dark horse)
Algo | Growing from $2-3 million market cap to $25 million (an obvious opportunity)
Holoworld AI | $AVA
AVA | Growing from about $25 million to $150 million
vvaifu.fun | $VVAIFU
@dasha | Growing from $15 million to $150 million
The following ecosystems are also worth noting:
$UOS
$AIMONICA
$STOIC
Moemate | $MATES (coming soon)
We also early covered Nebula | $MOE, growing from $5 million to $25 million.
Other ecosystems worth noting:
ALCHEMIST AI | $ALCH
FXN | $FXN
arc | $ARC
griffain | $GRIFFAIN
Top Hat 🎩 AI | $HAT
Empyreal | $EMP
Spectral | $SPEC
3σ | $TRISIG
Many of these projects have already achieved multiples of growth.
For a complete analysis, see here: link
This list can continue; the potential of these projects will be even higher—they are all very obvious investment opportunities.
However, I still hold some other projects that I believe have potential, such as $GRIFT and $REALIS. I believe they just need more time and some adjustments to perform well.
Here are some projects I haven't had time to analyze deeply, but they are also worth paying attention to:
$REI | REI Network
$SERV | OpenServ
$HEU | Heurist
Among these projects, particularly $REI, is worth paying extra attention to.
Beyond the on-chain ecosystem, I am very optimistic about the combination of decentralized finance (DEFI) and agents:
$MODE | Mode, a project I believe has great potential.
Another development worth looking forward to is the further development of Uomi.
Stick to choosing projects with excellent teams, strong infrastructure (Infra), and high attention/popularity/user mindshare (Mindshare), and you won’t go wrong.
For me, the lifecycle of agents is usually short, as most projects struggle to maintain market attention over time. However, in my view, AIXBT and GOAT are benchmarks and exemplars of success in the agent field.
Why reflect on these?
Because this can help you discover the next worthy investment opportunity.
Notes
It is worth paying attention to some early projects, such as $GNON, $PROJECT89, $AVB, etc.
$OPUS's market cap has dropped by 85%, and many early AI projects may have bottomed out.
We need to pay attention to whether these projects are still actively developing, while also remembering that the potential of AI infrastructure (Infra) and agents is enormous.
New ideas and concepts emerge every week, and these new projects usually have stronger teams and better branding, so we need to continuously scan the entire market.
I am not saying these projects are bad, but I want to emphasize that the speed of market changes is very fast—many traders who have experienced 80-100 times returns will quickly take profits and then turn to the next more attractive opportunity, whether in the fields of swarm intelligence, decentralized science (DeSci), or DEFI agents.
Excellent teams always find ways to keep themselves relevant in the market for the long term.
Finally, there are some trends worth noting:
Currently, many hackathons are underway, fostering some very interesting ideas and projects. Participating in these events can not only help you broaden your horizons but also give you a better understanding of future technological trends.
Data sources for AI agents:
Cookie DAO | $COOKIE ;
Alphanomics ;
Decentralised.Co, in collaboration with Sentient Market ;
In the coming days, we can discuss the future development direction of the agent field together, so that when the market narrative changes, we can seize the opportunity.