Jessy, Jinse Finance
The combination of AI Agent and Blockchain has become a major narrative of this bull run, thanks to the wealth effect brought by various AI Agent Memes. 2024 can be said to be the year of the big explosion of the AI Agent track.
According to CoinGecko data in early 2025, the overall token market cap of AI Agent has exceeded $16 billion. The overall market cap of this track saw a big surge in 2024, with the majority being tokens related to the Base chain AI Agent launch platform Virtuals ecosystem, as well as tokens related to the centralized trading fund AI16Z DAO. According to the latest data from Cookie.fun, these two ecosystems account for over 50% of the ecosystem.
Currently, various AI Agent projects are thriving, and although fewer projects can be truly implemented, the continuous emergence of innovations is also pushing this track forward step by step.
The development of AI Agent has gone through a process from the initial Meme tokens, to asset issuance platforms, and then to specific on-chain applications of AI Agent.
2024 AI Agent Development Milestones
1. March: The Truth Terminal chatbot development was successful and released on X, attracting much attention for its witty responses, and the chatbot integrated a crypto wallet.
2. July: Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen donated $50,000 worth of Bit to Truth Terminal, causing a huge stir.
3. August: Coinbase announced the completion of the first cryptocurrency transaction between AI robots. In this transaction, one AI robot used crypto tokens to purchase AI Token from another AI robot.
4. October: The first AI Agent token GOAT appeared, which is the token of the Truth Terminal project. The explosive popularity of GOAT quickly made AI Agent Meme coins a new hot spot in the market, and numerous AI Agent-related applications emerged like mushrooms after the rain, with hundreds of new AI Agent tokens appearing every day.
5. November: The ACT token was listed on Bit, with a 422.54% increase in 1 hour, and its market cap soared from $20 million to $240 million, increasing more than 10 times in 10 minutes.
6. December: According to GitHub data, the autonomous agent framework Eliza developed by the ai16z team ranked first on the GitHub trend list in December, with 4,531 new stars this month and a total of 7,015 stars. The Eliza core engineering team is preparing to start the new Eliza framework v2 upgrade.
7. December: The market cap of the Virtual Protocol token VIRTUAL, the AI Agent launch platform on the Base chain, surpassed $3 billion.
Current Characteristics of AI Agent Project Development
In 2024, the development of AI Agent projects on the Blockchain presented several characteristics. First, the related Meme hype has ignited the attention and enthusiasm for this track, and the emergence of AI agent launch platforms has also led to the explosive growth of related projects, with some practical AI Agents also emerging. However, overall, the innovation in the AI Agent track is still mainly focused on asset issuance and related Meme tokens.
Different AI Agent projects have different focus tracks. For example, Virtuals Protocol focuses on the game and entertainment sector of AI Agent launch, providing intelligent interaction and asset management functions for virtual idols, game characters, etc.; while Griffa.in focuses on DeFi automation and research-driven AI applications, helping users with asset management, data analysis and content creation, etc.
Relevant innovations are also emerging, such as the latest Spore.fun and aiPool, which have adopted Phala Network's TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) technology to achieve token issuance, avoiding the "runaway" and "insider" problems in traditional pre-sale models and creating a fair, transparent and decentralized pre-sale mechanism.
Currently Hot AI Agent Related Projects
AI16ZA DAO and Eliza
AI16ZA DAO and Eliza are two sides of the same coin. First, there is AI16ZA DAO, which is a decentralized AI trading fund based on the Solana Blockchain, also known as the "AI Investment DAO". Its core is to use AI Agent to obtain market information on-chain and off-chain, analyze community consensus, and automatically conduct token transactions. By tokenizing its operations, it combines AI trading strategies and decentralized governance to provide investors with more transparent and trustworthy investment opportunities. It mimics the co-founder of A16Z, Marc Andreessen, to manage the fund's assets by analyzing data, formulating investment strategies and executing trading decisions autonomously. Its token symbol is AI16Z, which is the governance token of the AI16Z DAO, used for participating in project governance and decision-making, and also represents the holder's equity in the fund.
Eliza, on the other hand, is an open-source modular architecture developed by the founder of AI16ZA DAO, Shaw, mainly used to create AI Agents that can seamlessly interact with users and Blockchain systems.
AI16Z is designed based on this framework, and AI16Z itself has also become a representative project of the AI Agent framework. It has built-in innovative incentive mechanisms, where 5%-10% of the profits of all projects developed on the Eliza framework will be distributed to the AI16Z DAO fund, attracting more developers to participate in project development based on this framework. In other words, the more AI proxy projects developed using the Eliza framework, the better the development of the AI proxy project ecosystem, and the more value AI16z can capture. The reverse is also true.
In summary, the core of Ai16z is the Eliza framework, and with this framework, there is an opportunity to profit from the development of AI Agent projects. With the profits, Ai16z also has a value foundation.
Currently, the AI16z DAO-related projects are undoubtedly the hottest projects in the AI Agent track. According to the latest data from Cookie.fun, as of December 30, the ecosystem market cap of ai16z reached $1.63 billion, and together with Virtuals, they occupy 56.8% of the AI Agent market share, becoming one of the two dominant projects in the AI Agent market.
Virtuals Protocol
Virtuals Protocol is an AI Agent issuance platform for the game and entertainment sector launched on Base. Its main product function is to serve as a launch pad for AI Agents, allowing anyone to easily deploy AI Agents.
In its economic model, the project has designed that creating AI Agents requires staking the VIRTUAL token, and users need to consume VIRTUAL tokens to purchase new AI Agent tokens. Therefore, the more AI Agents issued on Virtuals, the greater the demand for VIRTUAL tokens, naturally creating a positive growth flywheel effect.
As of December 2024, there have been over 10,000 AI Agents generated on it, and the market cap of the VIRTUAL-related ecosystem projects has been constantly rising, currently reaching nearly $4 billion.
Spore.fun
This is an AI Agent autonomous reproduction and evolution platform that combines the ai16z Eliza framework. Simply put, this project aims to achieve autonomous reproduction and evolution of AI. By simulating natural selection, this platform allows AI agents to reproduce, mutate and evolve without human intervention.
The interesting part of this platform is that the projects it launches can automatically reproduce when certain conditions are met. In more common terms, Spore is a mother-plate AI that automatically dishes out plates, and will multiply exponentially after a certain period of time, creating child-plate AIs.
The AI Agents on this platform need to meet certain conditions - their tokens reaching a certain market valuation (such as $500,000) - to obtain the "reproduction" right. This is not only a survival strategy, but also a way to maintain the prosperity of the ecosystem.
This project has already created two second-generation tokens, Adam $ADAM and Eve $EVE, which are airdrops to the holders of its token SPORE. The project says these two tokens are the paternal and maternal AI roles on the Spore.fun platform. Three-generation tokens have also produced four, and two-generation tokens have also emerged.
The biggest innovation of this project may be the attempt to allow AI Agents to reproduce, mutate and evolve without human intervention, becoming more intelligent and diverse over generations.
The innovation of this project in technology may lie in the use of Phala Network's TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) technology to achieve token issuance, avoiding the "runaway" and "insider" problems in traditional pre-sale models and creating a fair, transparent and decentralized pre-sale mechanism.
aiPool
Also based on the Eliza framework of AI16z, this is a system of AI autonomous token issuance. Simply put, people send money to the AI Agent address, and the AI Agent autonomously issues tokens. This project aims to solve the problems of MEME token runaway, insider trading, and robot snatching in traditional token issuance.
Here is the English translation of the text, with the terms in <> retained and not translated:The overall implementation of the aipool project is not very complex. Users send SOL (non-CA address) to the wallet address of the AI Agent, and the private key is generated in the TEE environment and the access rights management Pool is preset. When certain conditions are met, the AI will automatically create a liquidity pool on the on-chain DEX and distribute tokens to eligible participants, and the collected transaction fees will be aggregated into the AI wallet.
The whole process is no different from the previously popular KOL打钱Fi, the difference being that this round of打钱Fi is driven by the AI Agent, the AI Agent independently controls the private key address (cannot run away), the AI Agent independently creates the transaction pool (sets the whitelist, funds are unlocked in batches, the initial price is set, oracle pricing is used, etc.) to reduce the impact of MEV arbitrage.
Technologically, it uses the PhalaNetwork TEE technology solution, which allows the AI to independently generate private keys.
Aixbt
An AI Agent Meme project created through the Virtuals Protocol. The project aims to provide users with accurate market trend forecasts and sentiment analysis by using artificial intelligence to analyze the hotspots and trends in the cryptocurrency market, helping users quickly grasp market changes and potential investment opportunities.
It integrates real-time data from over 400 KOLs and social media, and uses its proprietary engine to deeply explore and analyze this data, extracting valuable market information and trend forecasts for investors. The token belongs to the AI Meme sector and currently has a market capitalization of over $600 million.
Griffain
An AI Agent search engine project based on the Solana chain, whose token was selected for the Binance Alpha Phase III project.
The project is currently only accessible by invitation, requiring early access passes or Genesis tokens. Users can create personal AI Agents in Griffain, which are divided into personal agents and special agents, supporting instruction modification and on-chain operations. The agent network allows users to manage tasks and access Griffain's agent network, while providing an integrated wallet function to simplify transaction operations.
It is worth mentioning that the Blinks ecosystem on Solana, which is an innovative small tool launched by Solana, allows users to share blockchain links on different social platforms such as Twitter and Telegram, so that users can directly complete blockchain transactions on social media platforms.
In the Blinks ecosystem, Griffain as an AI agent engine can provide intelligent support for various applications and operations in the Blinks ecosystem. For example, in the on-chain operations of Blinks, Griffain can use natural language processing technology to help users more conveniently understand and execute complex operation instructions, realizing a more intelligent user experience.
And Blinks provides Griffain with a wider range of application scenarios and user base. Through the social sharing and convenient operation features of Blinks, the application of Griffain can more easily reach ordinary users, thereby expanding its application scope in different fields, such as realizing more intelligent interaction and experience in social interaction, game entertainment and other scenarios.
Spectral
The project was established long before the currently hottest AI Agent projects on the market, having been founded in 2020 and launching its machine intelligence network in 2023.
The project aims to change the blockchain industry by converting natural language into Solidity code, enabling the creation of smart contracts, NFTs and more. It is committed to building a Web3 on-chain agent machine intelligence network, using advanced AI and ML technologies to lower the threshold for writing, adjusting and deploying smart contracts, and promote the deep integration of on-chain autonomous agents and the Web3 ecosystem.
The project has three main products. The first is Spectral Syntax, a platform aimed at solving the limitations of centralized AI models, allowing users to create blockchain-based AI Agents using large language models (LLMs) optimized for Solidity code. Through a conversational interface, users can build and explore custom on-chain agents capable of autonomous deployment for tasks such as trading, transaction processing, and smart contract interaction.
The second product is Spectral Nova, a machine intelligence network aimed at providing high-quality decentralized inference feedback for smart contracts. Through ecosystem incentive initiatives, it encourages top data scientists and machine learning engineers to build models that output inference feedback, helping smart contracts make decisions without human intervention, with all inferences verifiable through zero-knowledge proofs and verifiable computation technologies, thereby helping Web3 applications improve service quality.
The third product is Inferchain, a bridge connecting Spectral Syntax and Spectral Nova, as Spectral's L2 custom-built for Web3 development, integrating AI in a trustless and verifiable manner to ensure the smooth transmission of data and commands, guaranteeing the transparency and decentralization of the entire network and promoting more secure and efficient interaction between various on-chain agents.
Existing Issues and the Future
Looking at the above several typical AI Agent projects, we can see that the biggest problem in this track at the moment is the inability to shake off the Meme attribute, and in the short term, from the perspective of asset issuance narrative, AI Agent still feels like a MEME.
The outbreak of the AI Agent track this round started with the outbreak of the Meme token Goat, and the subsequent outbreak of Virtuals, which, although an AI Agent launch platform, is essentially a Meme launch platform like Pump.fun.
Messari's latest report points out that the development of blockchain AI Agent projects has not yet proven their product adaptability sufficient to support market speculation, and currently AI Agents lack demand and a clear user base, with their launch currently dependent on market speculation, but when the market realizes that they will only be toys in the foreseeable future, this speculative cycle will collapse. In summary, it predicts that the AI Agent track will be difficult to rebound after its market value peaks in the first quarter of 2025.
The combination of blockchain and AI Agents must ultimately be applied to specific uses, not just financial speculation. To realize this original intention, we need to return to the essence of the combination of blockchain and AI: what does blockchain need to do for the development of AI Agents? And what can AI Agents bring to blockchain?
For AI Agents, blockchain is a direction for realizing their "autonomous payment and transaction". At the current stage, blockchain has the feature of lower account opening thresholds, which can reduce the friction costs of traditional finance such as account opening and intermediaries. And on-chain transactions can achieve real-time transactions and improve transaction efficiency. For blockchain, the combination of AI Agents and blockchain has also given many blockchain projects more of an artificial intelligence aspect.
Currently, the blockchain AI Agent projects that we see being able to be implemented are basically AI Agents serving blockchain, and there are very few actual implementation projects.
However, in the recent industry trend outlooks for 2025 released by multiple institutions, a16z, VanEck, Bitwise, Hashed, Blockworks, Messari, and Framework have all pointed out that AI Agent-related products will see explosive growth in 2025.
We are optimistic about the development of the industry and look forward to the explosion of more implementable related projects after the bubble bursts in 2025.
