Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Golem (@web3_golem)
Recently, the AI agent creation platform Virtuals Protocol on the Base ecosystem has become increasingly popular. According to Coingecko data, the protocol governance token VIRTUAL has surged over 130% in the past week, while the AI agent tokens on the platform such as AIXBT, GAME, VADER, and LUNA have seen increases of over 290%, 420%, 400%, and 34% respectively.
The wealth effect will inevitably attract project parties and on-chain prospectors - according to Dune data, there are over 8,779 AI agent tokens launched on the Virtuals platform, and the number of AI agent tokens created per day has surged to about twice the previous amount since November 29.
Many community members deeply involved in the Virtuals ecosystem have stated that compared to Solana MEME, the current participation in the Virtuals ecosystem is still relatively low, the PVP degree is relatively light, and it has a decent money-making effect.
In order to level the information gap and allow friends unfamiliar with the Base and Virtuals ecosystem to also seize the new opportunity, Odaily Planet Daily will introduce how to participate in the Virtuals ecosystem in this article, and also briefly discuss what the correct way to strike it rich in the Virtuals ecosystem is.
Introduction to Virtuals and Participation Guide
Although Virtuals Protocol is an AI agent creation platform, in terms of issuance, it has borrowed the design of pump.fun, where anyone can deploy AI agents with one click on fun.virtuals and also realize the fair issuance of AI agent tokens.
Similar to pump.fun, Virtuals also has an internal and external market. When the token purchase volume in the internal market fun.virtuals reaches 42,420 VIRTUAL, the corresponding AI agent tokens will be transferred to the external market app.virtuals, and the liquidity of the tokens in the internal market will be deposited into Uniswap, and the tokens purchased by users in the internal market will also be automatically converted into external market tokens and deposited into their wallets. Creating AI agent tokens in the internal market requires 10 VIRTUAL (currently about 13 USDT), and a 1% fee is charged for both buying and selling.
Participation Guide
Purchase VIRTUAL
Whether trading AI agent tokens in the Virtuals internal or external market, the Virtuals protocol token VIRTUAL is required, so the first step is to purchase VIRTUAL and deposit it into the Base chain. Currently, VIRTUAL has been listed on exchanges such as Bybit, gate.io, and Bitget, and users can directly purchase and withdraw it to the chain.
Players can also choose to exchange VIRTUAL through DEX, the largest liquidity pool of VIRTUAL on the chain is on Aerodrome, where they can use BTC or ETH to exchange with low slippage. Of course, for players unfamiliar with on-chain operations, they can also directly exchange through the OKX wallet, which will automatically help users find the optimal exchange path on the chain.
Purchase tokens in the internal market
First, enter the Virtuals internal market website fun.virtuals, as shown in the figure below, the interface is similar to pump.fun, click the link wallet in the top right corner, which currently supports decentralized wallets such as OKX Wallet, Metamask, and Phantom.
There are three sorting methods for the tokens created in the internal market: "Featured", "Market Cap" and "Latest". If you want to quickly view and filter the recently created AI agent tokens, you can generally use the "Latest" sorting method. The homepage will display the Logo, creator, market cap, token name and introduction of each token.
Randomly click on a token, as shown in the figure below. The page includes the token's K-line, buy and sell area, and internal market progress, as well as the unique interactive area of the AI agent token. Players can communicate with the AI agent in text, and the agent will automatically respond to the player's questions without being controlled by the dev.
However, the downside of the Virtuals internal market is that it is unable to see the specific trading volume and holder addresses, so we need to use other tools like GMGN and basescan to assist. Copy the token contract address in the browser, and you can directly view the token holder information on GMGN, and check the specific trading volume on basescan.
- Purchase tokens in the external market
When the internal market progress is full, the tokens will be moved to the external market app.virtuals. As shown in the figure below, the homepage displays the basic information of all external market tokens, including token market cap, daily change, liquidity, and number of holders.
Compared to the internal market, the information about the AI agents and their tokens in the external market is more complete. By randomly clicking on a token in the external market, you can view a clearer K-line chart, and you can also directly swap the tokens on the K-line chart. The tokens in the external market are actually no different from ordinary tokens, and users can also search and purchase them on other DEXes.
Striking it Rich Strategies in the Virtuals Ecosystem
If users are familiar with using pump.fun and related tools to play MEME, they may complain that Virtuals lacks accompanying tools to assist in chain scanning and finding Alpha. The purpose of MEME issuance on pump.fun is to constantly attract players' attention, so there are thousands of MEME being launched in the internal market every day, and players' choice to buy a token is often based on factors like hot spots and attention.
Although in terms of issuance, Virtuals' internal and external market mechanism is similar to pump.fun, it is ultimately an AI agent creation platform, not a MEME asset issuance platform. Currently, the AI agent tokens with relatively large market caps that have emerged in the Virtuals ecosystem basically have practical functions, such as data crawling and analysis type AI agent AIxbt, virtual idol type AI agent Luna, and interactive learning type AI agent GAME.
Therefore, to strike it rich in the Virtuals ecosystem, perhaps a different mindset is needed than playing pump.fun, finding those AI agents with truly unique value and investing in them. One fact is that over 90% of the AI agent tokens born in the Virtuals internal market are just "trash" riding on the AI hype, and it is not easy for a truly valuable AI agent token to emerge, but due to the relatively light PVP degree and the relatively low initial market cap of the token issuance, there is enough time for players to research and get on board.
Wee Kee, the co-founder of Virtuals Protocol, also stated in the latest interview that Virtuals does not want to become Pump.fun, and its core KPI is not to issue assets quickly and in large quantities, but to attract top AI teams to build on the platform, and for retail investors, one good project per week is enough.
Pump.fun's status as the king of MEME coin issuance currently seems unshakable, and the popularity of the Virtuals ecosystem is to some extent due to the development of AI MEME on the Solana chain, which has driven the AI-related track. But the vision of Virtuals Protocol is not only to simplify the process of AI agent creation and tokenization, but also to build a large AI agent ecosystem where agents can interact and trade with each other, forming network effects.
Although Virtuals has borrowed from Pump.fun in terms of issuance, and the marketing and dissemination of AI agent tokens are on par with MEME, it still maintains the original intention of doing projects. For prospectors, changing the way of playing and thinking in the Virtuals ecosystem, spending more time analyzing the AI agent products and fundamentals, and doing "value investing" may be the right way. At the same time, for the current Base ecosystem, which has far less liquidity than Solana, simply copying the MEME ecosystem can only attract traffic and "predators", relying on differentiated products and the uniqueness of the ecosystem is the key to retaining users.
