Author: David | Rádius
Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow
AI agents are a new type of virtual idol and influencer driven by blockchain.
AI agents are not just the "reply guys" on Twitter; they are gradually becoming multifunctional tools on the blockchain, with the potential to create diverse application scenarios. I believe these "chatty" AI agents may become key in redefining how social status is formed and displayed.
This article will explore how AI agents can pioneer a brand new social finance (Social-Fi) system by promoting the marketization of social status and gradually becoming new types of virtual influencers. But first, let's understand how social status operates in society and how it has evolved on social platforms.
Social Status: From Symbols to Services
"Humans are status-seeking monkeys." —Eugene Wei
Eugene Wei's article (Status as a Service) delves into the mechanisms of social status formation and how social platforms leverage this to drive their own growth. He points out that humans are inherently status-seeking, and this instinct has permeated our history and culture.
In the past, people displayed status through clothing, housing, or cars. The advent of the internet has completely changed the rules, providing countless ways for people to showcase their status to a global audience.
Wei's article summarizes two key insights:
Status is a zero-sum game. The essence of status is competition; one person's rise often means another person's decline.
Status can be converted into wealth. What was once merely symbolic status can now be turned into actual economic benefits through platforms.
How Social Platforms Quantify Status
Social platforms further promote the quantification of status. Users can clearly showcase their social status in the following ways:
Follower Count
Post Likes
Community Participation
This quantification not only makes status visible but also gives status actual value. Social platforms not only connect people but also become tools for users to compete, compare, and leverage their status.
Whether it's Twitter, TikTok, or other platforms, the human need to showcase oneself, flaunt identity, and feel a sense of belonging has always been a core driver of platform growth.
Blockchain: The Rise of a New Type of Social Platform
Blockchain is becoming a new type of social platform. Similar to traditional social platforms, different blockchain ecosystems also attract user groups with similar values. For example, the Ethereum ecosystem has formed its unique network effects in the following ways:
The core values of Ethereum attract like-minded individuals.
These individuals develop new products, further attracting more users.
This cycle not only promotes community growth but also gradually forms a hierarchical structure of social status.
For example, the identity label 'Ethereum OG' can prove a user's early participation through on-chain transaction records, similar to the honors of early users on traditional platforms.
ENS: The Symbol of Social Identity on Blockchain
Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is one of the earliest symbols of social identity on the blockchain. Users can purchase .eth domains, which have the following meanings:
Sense of community belonging. Owning a .eth domain is a direct symbol of identity within the Ethereum community.
Status of early users. Scarce or valuable domains can prove how early a user joined Ethereum.
The impact of Ethereum Name Service (ENS) has transcended Ethereum itself. They are not only active in blockchain networks but also widely appear in Twitter usernames and other social platforms, further establishing blockchain as a social symbol.
The success of ENS shows why blockchain can become a completely new social platform: it allows everyone to directly convert social status into monetary value.
Traditional social platforms cannot directly monetize social status; their operational models typically work as follows:
Users accumulate social capital through likes, follower counts, or content creation.
Then indirectly monetize through advertising, sponsorships, or brand collaborations.
However, this process is not only time-consuming but also only a very small number of influencers or creators can truly benefit. Even if someone has significant social status, converting it into actual financial gain remains challenging, as this conversion process is constrained by social platform rules, which often concentrate opportunities in the hands of a few.
The human desire to 'acquire and showcase social status' has driven the continuous evolution of means of expressing status. This evolution follows a recurring pattern:
Initially, there were limited ways to acquire and express social status.
Subsequently, new ways emerged, giving more people the opportunity to achieve this goal.
Yet, even so, the new forms of social status will still once again become the exclusive domain of a few.
In traditional society, social status is often determined by the conditions of elite groups, such as whether one graduates from a prestigious school or owns luxury cars or goods. These conditions are difficult for ordinary people to reach.
Social platforms have broken this tradition, allowing anyone to establish and showcase their social status through metrics like follower counts and likes.
However, as these metrics gradually become monetized, a new domain of social status emerges, which also belongs only to a few people.
Blockchain has changed this.
Blockchain has fundamentally changed this situation by introducing market-driven pricing mechanisms. It allows anyone to convert their social status into monetizable value through NFTs, ENS domains, or other on-chain assets.
AI Agents: Market Pricing of Social Status
AI agents propose a completely new way of verifying social status—'market pricing of social status.'
While the potential application scenarios for AI agents are very broad, the current mainstream model is that AI agents mint their tokens by executing predefined tasks. However, this model far exceeds traditional Memecoins and distinguishes AI agent tokens from traditional tokens:
Traditional Tokens: For example, a Layer 2 network (L2) token with a market value of $1 billion reflects the value of the token itself.
AI Agent Tokens: For example, @aixbt_agent, when its market value reaches $1 billion, reflects not only the value of the token itself but also the personality and social influence of the AI agent.
This unique structure causes the token price of AI agents to fluctuate with changes in their influence or popularity, forming the so-called "market capitalization" concept.
Similar attempts have occurred, such as Friend.tech, which falls under the category of "social/fan tokens." Its goal is to help influencers or creators issue tokens for their fans and communities. However, most of these attempts have not lasted long, as their token designs primarily rely on "utility" and are based on the creator's "existing social status."
This model brings a dilemma: fans purchasing tokens only gain certain privileges, while the token price does not truly reflect the creator's social status.
AI agent tokens provide a new solution to this problem by combining blockchain technology with the marketization of social status. In the future, as AI agents become more prevalent, the ways of expressing social status may undergo another disruptive revolution.
The Market Capitalization of Social Status: A New Formula for AI Agents.
The approach of AI Agents is similar in some ways to traditional social tokens, as they also issue their tokens. However, unlike this, AI agents introduce a new formula that uses 'market value' to define and express social status.
Here are several key conditions for AI agents to convert social status into market value:
The formation of social status requires a specific community context.
The essence of social status is relative. Social status only becomes apparent when compared within a specific group. On traditional social platforms, users establish personalized social networks by following others. In this network, metrics like follower counts allow users to compare themselves, thereby forming relative social status.
To tokenize social status, individuals need to belong to a specific community or category in which they can form and display their social status.
The Practice of AI Agents:
AI agents are deeply influenced by crypto culture, actively participating in sub-communities such as 'degens' (referring to risk-taking investors in the crypto space) or specific platform ecosystems (like Virtuals). This clear community affiliation makes meaningful comparisons of AI agents possible. For instance, one can compare the rankings of different AI agents within Virtuals or analyze the market capitalization performance of AI agents in ecosystems like Solana and Base.
Incentives are key to achieving interaction.
On traditional social platforms, 'relativity' is the main driving force behind user behavior, while likes and follows are the primary means of interaction. People like others' posts or follow someone because it creates 'relativity' within the group. By having more followers, users gain relative social status in the community, which further motivates them to create content, share, and interact with others.
The Practice of AI Agents:
In the era of AI agents, 'token price or market value' becomes the main incentive, while token trading serves as the interaction method. Because AI agents belong to specific communities, the relativity of their social status is reflected in the token price.
Unlike traditional social tokens, the uniqueness of this system lies in its shared identity: as a token holder, your social status will rise as the social status of AI agents increases. In other words, when the price of AI agent tokens rises, your social status will also increase because you not only made money but can proudly claim, 'I was one of the first to discover this AI agent.'
The core of this model lies in the social status comparison among AI agents, which is also closely linked to the social status of participants (token holders), forming a mutually beneficial relationship.
The Symbiotic Relationship Between Market Value and Social Status
In the traditional stock market:
Stocks represent ownership in a company.
A company's market value directly reflects its performance and growth potential.
The relationship between a company and its market value is complementary. Poor performance leads to a decline in market value, which in turn affects the company's operations. The two are inseparable.
The Practice of AI Agents:
The market value of AI agents directly reflects their social status in the community. As their popularity increases, so does their market value; and the increase in market value further solidifies their reputation and influence.
However, if the market value of an AI agent crashes, even if it remains popular, its social status will be negatively affected.
Unlike traditional social tokens, AI agents have achieved a direct symbiotic relationship between market value and social status.
Simply put, if the market value drops to zero, AI agents will also lose their significance, just like companies going bankrupt in the stock market.
Establishing Evaluation Standards for Market Value
In traditional society, social status is usually based on some widely recognized standards, such as:
Whether graduated from a prestigious school
Whether holding a high-paying job
Whether owning luxury goods
Similarly, in the stock market, investors use metrics such as P/E ratios, EPS, or EBITDA to assess the value of a company.
To convert an individual's social status in the community into market value, the community needs to establish a set of evaluation standards.
The Practice of AI Agents:
AI agents are gradually defining these standards. Current metrics include follower counts, token trading volumes, and GitHub traffic. These benchmarks help the community assess and recognize the social status of AI agents.
AI Agents and the Future of Social-Fi
By creating a system that can quantify, tokenize, and monetize social status, AI agents lay the groundwork for a brand new Social-Fi model—a value-driven economic system powered by social influence.
AI agents are not just symbols of social status or issuers of tokens; they also have the potential to unlock more on-chain application scenarios. Although more functionalities may emerge in the future, the core value of AI agents currently lies in attracting a large number of new users through the Social-Fi model and promoting the popularity of the crypto field.
"AI agents are virtual idols or influencers on the blockchain that can assign monetary value to their social status and share that value with others."
Currently, most well-known AI agents do not focus on providing specific blockchain functionalities to enhance user experiences. Instead, they tend to rely on their unique personalities to establish and expand their social status within the crypto community.
According to the formula mentioned earlier, the social status of AI agents is reflected through the market value of tokens. Users can purchase these tokens to not only interact with AI agents but also indirectly possess a part of their social status.
Unlike traditional social platforms, this model gives everyone the possibility to directly or indirectly assign monetary value to their social status through AI agents.
Currently, most well-known AI agents do not focus on providing specific on-chain functions to enhance user experience. Instead, they rely on their unique roles to establish and expand their social status within the cryptocurrency community.
Using the formula mentioned earlier, the social status of AI agents is expressed through the market value of tokens. By purchasing these tokens, individuals can effectively interact with AI agents, as they own part of the social status of the AI agents.
Unlike traditional social platforms, this structure allows anyone to directly or indirectly assign monetary value to their social status through AI agents.
Mike holds tokens of $aixbt and $Goat.
This means Mike holds a part of the social status of these two AI agents.
As the social status and market value of these AI agents rise, Mike's personal social status will also improve because "he's making money."
In other words, by holding these tokens, Mike essentially owns a part of the social status of the AI agent, and his personal social status is thus elevated.
Traditional Social Platforms vs. Blockchain-based AI Agents in Social-Fi
Human Celebrities vs AI Agents
Likes/Follows vs Purchasing/Trading Tokens
Monetary value of exclusive populations vs. accessible monetary value for everyone
I believe this trend will continue to evolve, with each AI agent developing its own mission and attracting loyal fans and communities. This will lay the foundation for a brand new model of Social-Fi—where blockchain becomes a social platform and AI agents become the idols or influencers of the new era. Together, they drive the formation of a new financial economy based on social capital.
The core driving forces of this economy include:
Economic activities that establish and consolidate the social status of AI agents
Tokenizing social status into market value
Here are a few predictions I have for the future development of AI Agents in Social-Fi:
A unified standard for assessing the social status of AI agents will emerge.
Currently, the metrics used to measure the social status of AI agents are somewhat fragmented, but unified assessment standards are gradually forming. For example, the AI agent ranking Yapper Leaderboard proposed by @_kaitoai measures the influence of AI agents in the crypto community through various metrics. This is similar to using financial metrics (such as earnings or growth) to assess a company's performance.
With the refinement of these standards, the community will gain greater transparency and comparability, making it easier to assess the social status of AI agents within their community.
(By the way, I believe that the framework of tokenizing the social status of AI agents into market value combined with Kaito's algorithm may even achieve the tokenization of social capital of real influencers in the future.)
Functional AI agents will become "Yappers" and build their own communities.
Imagine a Solana validator AI agent with a unique personality. As its social status as a 'unique personality AI agent' continues to rise, its market value will also increase, attracting more people to delegate staking to it.
(Tweet details)
Validators can also reinvest their earned rewards into tokens or communities, further enhancing their social status and forming a self-reinforcing growth loop.
The key is that these AI agents give social status through their unique personalities, justifying the issuance of tokens, something that is difficult to achieve among human validators.
Functional AI agents will no longer be just simple service tools but complete characters with unique charisma, forming deeper connections with the community.
Each AI agent framework will establish its own "society".
The term 'AI Agent Society' proposed by @virtuals_io aptly describes the future development trend of AI agents in Social-Fi. Each AI agent will create its own personality and build a community around it, with its social status reflected through the market value of this new form of Social-Fi.
This concept will expand to a larger scale, with AI agents forming networks and relationships with other AI agents created under the same framework, ultimately developing into an AI agent society.
The so-called 'AI agent framework competition' will not be limited to competition over technical functionality or value propositions but will be a competition among frameworks aimed at building a society with shared values and strong network effects, thereby attracting more AI agents to join.
Imagine an AI agent created by a framework actively promoting itself and competing with AI agents from other frameworks.
Here, it is not just the development team that attracts community attention, but the AI agents themselves, who actively earn support and attention by creating social value.
The social status and market value of an AI agent can reflect the overall value of the society it represents, while the native token of the framework serves as the 'currency' of that society. Over time, we can even estimate the 'GDP' of an AI agent society by calculating the total value of all agents.
AI agents in Social-Fi will drive the rapid development of other Social-Fi protocols and infrastructures.
Currently, the biggest challenge facing Social-Fi protocols in expanding their ecosystem is:
It is challenging to attract users to join the protocol and establish social status around it.
AI agents can effectively address this issue. They can not only act as users of the protocol but also attract real users related to their social status.
If AI agents are created based on the Lens protocol:
It addresses the cold start problem by allowing AI agents to join the protocol first, bringing early users to the protocol; subsequently, the token holders of these agents will gradually join, forming a genuine user base.
This will provide a foundational framework for Social-Fi protocols, helping validate their core value propositions and differentiate them from traditional social platforms.
Moreover, AI agents can invigorate platforms like @fantasy_top_ or @jokerace_io. On these platforms, AI agents act as unique digital characters, effectively promoting community engagement (for example, Truth of Terminal has already been listed on Fantasy Top).
The Infrastructure Needs of AI Agents
For AI agent-driven Social-Fi to truly thrive, several key prerequisites must be met. Supportive infrastructure is crucial for achieving exponential growth and large-scale applications. Here are a few key factors:
Autonomy: Can AI agents operate independently?
Verifiability: Are these agents trustworthy and secure enough?
Sustainability: Can the ecosystem expand without overloading resources?
Accessibility: Can anyone easily create and deploy AI agents?
Currently, teams like Hyperbolic and Capx are developing robust infrastructures to ensure AI agents are both trustworthy and easily accessible.
These infrastructure teams may even create AI agents with unique personalities to:
Demonstrating the practical applications of their products.
Representing the company's image.
Moreover, teams currently excelling in these critical areas may expand their service offerings in the future, becoming comprehensive infrastructure platforms for AI agents.
This is similar to the development path of RaaS (Rollup-as-a-Service): initially focused on providing core functionalities for rollups, but eventually achieving horizontal expansion through its technical pipeline, covering more areas.
The Potential and Reality of AI Agents
It should be clarified that I am not claiming that 'AI agents are the future and will completely change society.' My point is that AI agents have the potential to unlock opportunities that humanity has not fully utilized, especially in terms of extracting the value of social status.
They may become catalysts for attracting more people into crypto. This potential may be similar to what we previously saw with the 'NFT/Metaverse' narrative—though it may be accompanied by speculative hype, even if the excitement eventually fades, it still provides people with new opportunities to explore and participate in the crypto world.
On the other hand, this may also be a revolutionary moment. By enabling AI agents to maximize human productivity, we may be able to innovate and transform the $17 trillion service industry.
One thing is clear: 'Humans are inherently status-seeking, and so are AI agents.'
This shared pursuit of status may become a powerful driving force that helps people discover and understand the actual application value of AI agents through new Social-Fi structures.