In the article on December 6 (From DeSci to AI Agents: Interpretation of Potential Tracks),
I have listed several conditions that I believe are necessary for becoming a potential track in this round of market.
- It must have a strong ecological demonstration effect, to the point that after reaching a certain stage, other ecosystems will eagerly join the battle.
- It must have benchmark projects, so much so that every project trying to establish this ecosystem will say, we want to become XXX coin of the XXX ecosystem.
- Of course, it must also have a strong wealth effect, and this wealth effect cannot be just one or two isolated examples but should involve a group of projects that allow participants to earn considerable returns, forming a collective effect. Moreover, this wealth effect should be sustainable for a period; it cannot be that you buy yesterday, profit today, and go to zero tomorrow.
- Finally, it is highly likely to be a new track. Because this new track has not been attempted before, a slight new gameplay can trigger infinite imagination.
It seems that the AI agent track is increasingly meeting the above conditions.
Just last Friday, the largest AI agent financing platform in the Base ecosystem, Virtuals (https://app.virtuals.io/), saw its token VIRTUAL's circulating market value/full circulating market value exceed 2 billion dollars.
This market value was achieved even without the support of exchanges like Xuan, OK, or the platform Coinbase behind it.
In this case, this market value has already ranked first among AI agent tokens, significantly ahead of other AI agent tokens (including meme coins initiated by AI agents).
In terms of market value, it has already become the benchmark project in the AI agent track.
At the same time, along with the Virtuals platform, a series of AI agent tokens funded or initiated by Virtuals have also risen significantly during this period, clearly forming a clustering effect.
Under this effect, other second-layer expansions of Ethereum like zkSync, Arbitrum, etc., have also emerged with similar projects, and the project parties have clearly stated on their Twitter that they want to develop their own AI agent platforms.
The AI agent track has clearly rapidly spread from the initial Solana and Base to other ecosystems.
During this time, while checking information about AI agents on Twitter, I saw several very enlightening pieces of information, and at first glance, I instinctively looked to see which KOL posted it, only to find that they all came from AI agent AIXBT.
At least for AIXBT, an AI agent launched by the Virtuals platform, I believe it is no longer a meme coin, but has genuinely generated actual value and utility.
More importantly, this value is sustainable and developmental, unlike meme coins that purely rely on intermittent emotional drives.
I believe cases like AIXBT are not isolated.
In the article on December 2, I shared some viewpoints expressed by the co-founder of the Virtuals platform during an interview. In that interview, he also mentioned that there are hundreds of AI agents poised to emerge on the platform.
This number should be even higher now.
Even if many of these projects ultimately turn out to be bubbles, as long as a few real AI agents like AIXBT emerge that generate actual value and utility, the value and narrative space they bring should not be underestimated.
There is an article on Deep Tide that provides a relatively detailed introduction to the current AI agent ecosystem. The link to the article is attached at the end.
This article lists quite a few projects, but what I care more about is its division of each subfield within this ecosystem. For investors focused on this ecosystem, paying attention to the mentioned projects is one aspect, but more importantly, finding subfields that match their tastes and expertise and seeking opportunities within those subfields.
For investors, when we discover a potential new track, the highest returns naturally come from diving directly into the subfields we are best at and understand, looking for small-cap, newly listed projects. But this comes with high risk and high barriers.
If you are unsure about which specific projects are reliable, a simpler approach is to find trustworthy platforms. Because the judgment criteria of platforms are much simpler and easier to grasp. Compared to specific projects, the returns of platform tokens may be smaller, but the risks are also lower.
If a few more projects that can provide real services and value appear in the AI agent track, I believe it really could become the main driving force of the upcoming market and have projects with a market value exceeding ten billion dollars.
As for the AI agent track, I believe it is still in the early stages.
