Eliza Labs, the developer behind ai16z, has partnered with Stanford University’s Future of Digital Currency Initiative to research how artificial intelligence agents can improve Web3, according to a Dec. 16 announcement. 

The collaboration will use Eliza Labs’ open-source AI agent framework, dubbed Eliza, to “tackle fundamental questions about how AI agents can establish trust, coordinate actions, and make decisions within decentralized financial systems,” Eliza Labs said.

Commencing in 2025, the researchers’ priorities will include “[d]eveloping new frameworks for how autonomous agents establish and verify trust within digital currency networks” and “[i]nvestigating how agents interact and coordinate in economic contexts.”

It is a “unique opportunity to shape how AI agents will interact within digital economies,” Stanford Professors Dan Boneh and David Mazières said in a statement. 

The Future of Digital Currency Initiative is a Stanford University research project focused on the “technical, legal, policy and economic challenges and opportunities of digital currencies.”

Eliza AI agent framework

Eliza is the AI agent behind ai16z, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) designed to use Eliza to direct onchain trading and investment decisions. 

Its native token, AI16Z, has bootstrapped a market capitalization of approximately $850 million since launching in October. 

As of Dec. 16, ai16z manages approximately $15 million and Eliza-based AI agents are used by dozens of projects, according to ai16z’s website.

“If we are comparing this meta to DeFi summer then $ai16z is the $AAVE of this world... the tech that everybody forks,” pseudonymous cryptocurrency influencer 0xMerp said in a Nov. 18 X post.

Merp is referring to decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Aave’s prominent role in decentralized finance’s 2021 bull market.

Since October 2024, AI-themed memecoins collectively bootstrapped more than $3 billion in market capitalization, according to CoinGecko.

Other popular AI memecoins include Zerebro (ZEREBRO) and aixbt by Virtuals (AIXBT), with market capitalizations of approximately $375 million and $250 million, respectively, as of Dec. 16, according to CoinGecko.

Analysts expect the fusion of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology to transform Web3 and ultimately create a world where autonomous AI agents freely interact with humans on Web3.

Magazine: Bitcoin dominance will fall in 2025: Benjamin Cowen, X Hall of Flame