The year 2025 is predicted to be an important milestone marking the explosion of AI agents in the Web3 space, the article was translated from Cointelegraph.
These AIs, also known as "Agentic AI," are artificial intelligence systems capable of automatically performing complex tasks without human intervention. Currently, they have been and are changing the digital economy by building Web3 applications, issuing Tokens, and interacting automatically with humans. According to experts, Cryptocurrency Staking and on-chain trading will be the first and most prominent applications in this process.
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J.D. Seraphine, a Web3 AI developer at Raiinmaker, shares that AI agents will play a crucial role in decentralized communities in 2025. However, Michael Casey, co-founder of the Decentralized AI Society, warns that this development also faces many challenges, including technical limitations, legal regulations, and the risk of centralization. He emphasizes that without decentralization, centralized AI systems could have serious consequences.
Currently, according to a VanEck report, there are about 10,000 AI agents operating in Web3, generating millions of dollars per week from blockchain activities. This number is forecast to exceed 1 million by the end of 2025. Matt Hougan, head of research at Bitwise, believes the potential of AI agents in the cryptocurrency space is limitless. In 2024, AI agent-related projects contributed over $10 billion to the total market capitalization, with a particularly strong increase in Q4, according to data from CoinGecko. Some notable projects include ai16z, using AI to make on-chain investments, and Virtuals, providing a platform for deploying AI agents on networks like Coinbase's Base.
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One of the most promising and visible applications of AI agents is Cryptocurrency Staking. Staking is the activity of protecting the blockchain network by locking Tokens with validators to receive transaction fee rewards. Hougan says that AI agents assisting in Staking for Token holders is a reasonable starting point. A notable example is Eliza, an ai16z AI agent, currently managing an on-chain liquidity pool and achieving an annual yield exceeding 60% according to data from daos.fun.
However, on-chain AIs still face technical limitations compared to centralized systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT, especially in terms of speed and computing power. Developing decentralized solutions to provide high-quality training data and protect user privacy is a critical factor for the success of these AI agents. Additionally, legal issues are also a significant obstacle as large companies like OpenAI are lobbying to establish regulations that favor their centralized model, which could disadvantage decentralized AI projects.
For investors, understanding the full potential of AI agents is not necessary, but they need to be aware of the importance of this trend and position themselves to take advantage of the opportunities. The integration of AI into decentralized systems could completely change the way we perceive and operate Web3 in the near future. 2025 may be the year when AI agents truly become a key factor in the development of the Web3 space.
