Original author: Wenser
Reprint: Luke, Mars Finance
At the CES 2025 event in the U.S. on January 7, Jensen Huang, the founder of Nvidia and a key figure in the AI industry, stated: 'AI Agents are expected to become the next robot industry, with an industry scale reaching trillions of dollars.' Although the audience at the event responded lukewarmly to this bold statement, the crypto industry has long bought into AI Agents—tokens related to AI Agents, such as VIRTUAL, ai16z, and swarms, have become some of the few focal points in the recent market, and their price trends have performed well compared to the overall market; in contrast, many established AI concept projects such as FET, WLD, and ARKM have appeared somewhat desolate recently, with their prices significantly down from their peaks.
This article will compare and analyze new and old AI concept tokens, providing a glimpse into market trends.
Current status of new and old AI concept coins: AI Agent tokens are in high demand, while AI concept coins are cooling off.
In terms of intuitive market perception, AI Agent tokens represented by VIRTUAL, ai16z, and swarms are undoubtedly the most eye-catching projects at the moment. Compared to AI concept coins like FET, WLD, and ARKM, the former not only integrates the AI concept but also presents a more grand narrative, with a lower participation threshold and greater expected returns. The reasons for this, in my opinion, include the following aspects:
Market inertia of trading new over old: new cars attract more people, old cars are too heavy.
As an industry that operates 24/7, the cryptocurrency market's enthusiasm for new hotspots and technologies is a commonality in the industry, leading to the practice of 'trading new tokens over old ones': for market retail investors and the crypto community, compared to the 'old AI coins' with a large number of buyers, concentrated chip distribution, and a significant locked-in group, the new coins related to AI Agents are undoubtedly more attractive—lower buying thresholds, whether in terms of the price of a single token or overall market cap, present more opportunities to get involved with AI Agent tokens.
More attractive narrative: AI Agents are far more appealing than merely 'riding the AI concept.'
From the perspective of the most discussed narratives in the cryptocurrency industry, issuing tokens, trading, and engaging with followers on social media by AI Agents are undoubtedly more interesting and enjoyable, generating more discussion than attempting to create a serious project that merely 'rides the AI concept.'
After the emergence of Truth Terminal (GOAT), the cryptocurrency industry has essentially opened a Pandora's box of AI Agents, liberating the power of AI in ways that many did not previously anticipate. This has endowed cryptocurrency with a stronger technological and futuristic attribute, as well as a narrative with greater imaginative potential. The things that AI Agents in the crypto space can do go beyond merely assisting humans in content generation; they also have the potential to directly participate in human social and economic activities and currency transactions.
Project development differences: teams, technology, and development directions vary significantly.
In terms of project development paths, the current AI Agent and token projects also exhibit certain differences compared to previous established AI concept coin projects.
On the team level, AI Agent and token projects are often backed by solo developers in the early stages. On one hand, AI and AI Agents provide developers and even ordinary people with a lower-cost, lower-barrier development path; on the other hand, relatively independent developers can respond quickly to market hotspots and adjust project directions based on market feedback, with lower decision-making and optimization iteration costs. In simple terms, this aligns better with the 'grassroots ensemble' positioning. In contrast, previous established AI concept projects typically started with mature teams, harboring grand mission visions and aiming to attract high-value investments through grand narratives, with project development progress measured in years, and they were relatively more accountable to investors rather than originating from the community. For example, FET (Fetch.ai) is a typical case, having raised $5 million and $40 million in March 2021 and March 2023, respectively, and being the second crowdfunding project released via Binance IEO, representing top-tier resources.
From a technical perspective, previous AI concept coin projects tended to view technology as a tool and packaging, emphasizing practical use cases and user scenarios, but the actual business landing was far from AI, resulting in a strong sense of distance from users. In contrast, current AI Agent and token projects are relatively simpler and more straightforward; their technological roots lie in the explosive growth of AI technology, which has a lower understanding threshold, and greater technological extensibility, allowing users to engage in hands-on practical operations, with more direct and in-depth user education on technology.
In terms of development direction, established AI concept coin projects emphasize leveraging AI to build the future digital economy, which sounds more like 'drawing a pie' and has relatively limited relevance to the interests of the market and users. In contrast, AI Agent and token projects not only have a concrete visual image for users to interact with, but also offer more direct token trading, satisfying market demands whether for speculative trading or social media interaction.
In summary, AI Agent token projects, including VIRTUAL, ai16z, and swarms, resemble meme coins draped in an AI cloak; whereas AI concept coins, including FET, WLD, and ARKM, are closer to the 'VC coin' concept, with a greater detachment from the community. The meme attributes are vastly different from the former, and the level of topic discussion is difficult to compare with the new hot trends surrounding AI Agents and their underlying tokens and developers, naturally drifting further away from value discovery.
Recent status of established AI concept coins: projects are progressing steadily, with varying degrees of token deflation, selling pressure, and unlocks.
Despite the relatively flat market performance, various established AI concept coin projects have recently made varying degrees of progress. Below are specific details:
FET: 5 million tokens will be burned on January 10.
The project behind FET, the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, previously announced on January 5 that it plans to burn 5 million FET tokens on January 10, thereby creating deflationary pressure in its ecosystem. This milestone is also part of its roadmap's ASI Train model.
Perhaps the popularity of the AI sector makes it hard for FET to ignore, needing to brainstorm to garner more market attention for token performance and project development.
WLD: The project is progressing steadily, and token transfers are still ongoing.
Worldcoin previously launched Worldchain and introduced the new World ID Passport Credential in November last year, which is currently undergoing trials in countries such as Chile, Colombia, Malaysia, and South Korea. The World ID credential allows individuals to link valid forms of ID (starting from NFC-enabled passports) to their World ID without sharing any information with TFH, the World Foundation, or any other third parties. Meanwhile, the World Foundation is providing WLD tokens to individuals with valid World ID passport credentials.
Additionally, according to an email from Worldcoin to users, the number of participants in the Worldcoin community has reached 20 million. As for tokens, in early December last year, Alameda marked addresses that transferred approximately 5 million WLD (worth about $16 million) to addresses 0xd9C4 and 0xEF90.
ARKM: Platform functionality update, promoting derivatives exchange.
As a project that once gained tremendous attention from various crypto KOLs in the Chinese community due to its previous indifference and current high status, Arkham continues to make strides in the blockchain data analysis field. On January 6, according to an official announcement, Arkham announced the addition of a Market Data page to support users in tracking important token data across multiple exchanges for spot, futures, and options products.
In November last year, Arkham officially announced the launch of the derivatives exchange ARKHAM PERPETUALS EXCHANGE, and subsequently launched the exchange points (ARKHAM EXCHANGE POINTS) system, encouraging users to trade to earn points. However, the effectiveness of these efforts seems to be minimal so far.
Market status overview: Established AI tokens have historical declines of up to 81%.
As of the time of writing, the market performance of representative 'established AI concept coins' is as follows:
FET is currently priced at $1.35, with a 24-hour decline of 13.11%. The historical highest price was $3.48, with a historical decline of about 61.5%. The market cap is currently reported at $3.54 billion.
WLD is currently priced at $2.27, with a 24-hour decline of 13.21%. The historical highest price was $11.96, with a historical decline of about 81%. The market cap is currently reported at $1.96 billion.
ARKM is currently priced at $1.4, with a 24-hour decline of 15.98%. The historical highest price was $2.7, with a historical decline of about 48%. The market cap is currently reported at $468 million.
At the same time, the market cap of AI Agent related tokens has been rising steadily, currently stabilizing at key nodes. According to Coingecko data:
VIRTUAL is currently priced at $3.59, with a market cap of around $3.59 billion.
ai16z is currently priced at $1.83, with a market cap of around $2 billion.
swarms is currently priced at $0.35, with a market cap of around $350 million.
To some extent, in terms of market performance and discussion, AI Agent related token projects are already quite competitive.
Conclusion: Can old trees bloom anew? It depends on the response of established projects.
In conclusion, we can only assess that established AI concept token projects are currently lagging behind the latest hot AI Agent token projects. Whether these established projects can revive and find new growth points to regain market attention mainly depends on their follow-up and iteration on new technologies, new routes, and new hotspots.
If we turn a blind eye, everything will naturally come to an end; if we strive to catch up, perhaps there will be different results and answers.
Attached token unlock query website:
FET - https://tokenomist.ai/fetch-ai, the next large unlock will begin on January 28, 2025, with a quantity of 3.34 million tokens.
WLD - https://tokenomist.ai/worldcoin-wld, the next large unlock will begin on June 24, 2026.
