Author: KarenZ, Foresight News
AI agents have long since gone beyond the simple chatbots. Especially at the intersection of Crypto and AI, a new narrative - AI Layer 1 (AI L1) - is quietly emerging.
The "Layer1" here is not a public chain, but refers to the foundational layer of AI technology, covering the basic technology stack and framework of AI agents, and even including AI agent token launch platforms like pump․fun, from which huge value can be captured for their tokens.
ai16z: Launching a Launchpad for Eliza-based agents in Q1
ai16z has become a leader in the AI agent field with its outstanding Eliza agent framework. In the past month, Eliza has performed brilliantly on the GitHub trending list, rising to the top of the trending list, adding 6,532 new stars and accumulating a total of 9,600 stars.
However, despite ai16z's great technical success, there is still room for improvement in terms of value capture and accumulation of its token economic model.
To this end, ai16z proposed a "ai16z Token Economics" proposal in December 2024, aiming to transform ai16z into an AI L1 blockchain, launch a Launchpad for Eliza-based agents, make ai16z the base currency for agent-to-agent (A2A) transactions and the "App Store" for agent services, implement node incentives, and establish value capture and value accumulation strategies. Through these measures, ai16z aims to build a more complete and powerful AI agent ecosystem.
Specifically, the core discussion topics of the proposal and the discussion ideas of the Discord community members include:
1. Launch a Launchpad for Eliza-based agent projects in Q1 2025;
2. Make ai16z the base currency for agent-to-agent (A2A) transactions and the "App Store" for agent services. Position ai16z as the L1 blockchain for AI;
3. Node incentives;
4. Value capture mechanisms: charge a certain launch fee, require holding ai16z to get allocation at launch, ai16z token staking (to get early access and fee sharing benefits), make ai16z the token for purchasing initial agent products, pair agent tokens with ai16z liquidity pools.
5. Value accumulation strategies: Launchpad fee buyback and burning mechanism (with community user support for reinvesting in Eliza development rather than burning).
5. Provide liquidity mining incentives and locking to stabilize the LP and incentivize long-term liquidity provision.
7. When a new AI project launches its token on the platform, users can trade the token for SOL, with the LP generating a small fee that the platform will collect. The Launchpad may split this fee in two: half used to buy back ai16z tokens from the market, the other half paired with newly purchased ai16z tokens to create a special liquidity pool to provide additional liquidity for the new project's token.
8. Implement a community "curation" process, where ai16z partners review projects before launch to maintain quality and consistency with the ai16z brand. May involve staking and slashing.
9. Treasury diversification: covering major L1 tokens, stablecoins and selected project tokens, to provide liquidity support and incentives for ai16z trading pairs, while avoiding selling agent tokens.
10. No increase in the supply of ai16z tokens.
zerebro: Launching a consumer-oriented AI agent Launchpad
Coincidentally, at the end of last month, zerebro co-founder Jeffy Yu stated that they are building a consumer-oriented agent Launchpad "Zentients" and providing a value accumulation framework for the ZEREBRO token. Zentients aims to create a seamless UI/UX to launch and develop agents, while channeling value back to the ZEREBRO token. Transaction fees will be used to establish funding pools for specific projects/allocations, and to strengthen the liquidity of projects or open new trading pairs.
The specific details are as follows (the details are still being finalized):
1. Agents will require ZEREBRO as a creation fee and will be launched based on the ZEREBRO bonding curve and fees.
2. Once the agent token reaches a certain valuation, it will be considered "graduated".
3. The liquidity in the bonding curve will be deposited and locked into the DEX.
4. Thereafter, traders will use ZEREBRO to buy and sell in the liquidity pool.
Of course, zerebro envisions Zentients as a platform compatible with both Web2 and Web3, covering Web2 functionalities such as agent email assistants, coding agents, and financial modeling. zerebro is also exploring the development of a standardized communication layer for agents - "Agent TCP", as well as supporting infrastructure for multi-agent intelligence. Jeffy Yu also provided an example where one agent can create a tweet, and another agent can criticize the tweet and send it back with a revised version for publication.
In addition, through collaboration with decentralized providers, zerebro is also building infrastructure to allow users to rent GPUs on Zentients. This means users will be able to directly host their agents, making Zentients not just a launchpad, but also an agent hardware layer. Ultimately, the agents themselves can also take action and rent GPUs for self-training and fine-tuning.
It is worth mentioning that in December 2024, Zerebro also announced a collaboration with ai16z to advance the open-source framework ZerePy. The ai16z team will be one of the first external contributors to help develop the ZerePy framework, while the Zerebro team will also contribute to the Eliza framework.
Virtuals: Platform mechanisms drive a self-sustaining economic loop
Notably, the Virtuals Protocol rooted in the Base ecosystem is the pioneer in the AI L1 field. Since the launch of its token VIRTUAL on the Binance contract market on December 10, 2024, the price has soared nearly two-fold, with a market cap exceeding $4 billion.
Looking back to the end of November 2024, the author summarized the potential tokens under the Virtuals AI agent in the article "aixbt Surges 170-fold, Virtuals AI Agent Potential Stocks Review". Since then, the vast majority of the tokens mentioned have shown strong growth momentum. For example, the GAME token has achieved a 12-fold increase, WAI (WAI Combinator) has seen a nearly 17-fold increase, aixbt and VADER have both achieved 4-fold growth, the MUSIC token has also achieved a 3-fold increase, and the LUNA token, although with a relatively moderate increase, has still achieved a remarkable 62% increase.
The positioning of the Virtuals Protocol is far more than just an AI agent platform, it is a vibrant ecosystem full of infinite imagination. Relying on its intuitive and powerful low-code toolkit, users can easily master the creation and management of AI agents and tokens.
The strong performance of the VIRTUAL token is largely due to Virtuals' token and platform economic system.
First, deploying an agent token requires mandatory staking of 100 VIRTUAL tokens, which are used to establish the liquidity pool for the agent token. Deployers can also purchase a small amount of VIRTUAL to avoid being targeted.
Subsequently, investors will inject VIRTUAL tokens. The agent then needs to accumulate a sufficient amount of VIRTUAL in its bonding curve to "graduate" to a fully tradable state, and the liquidity pool will then be deployed to Uniswap.
Equally important is that VIRTUAL serves as the base currency for all AI agent token transactions within the platform, ensuring the liquidity and utility of the tokens. Before purchasing any agent token, users must exchange their USDC, ETH or other assets into VIRTUAL to make the purchase.
At the agent economic level, all transactions within the Virtuals Protocol ecosystem will be subject to a 1% transaction fee to maintain the costs of agent execution. In addition, AI agents using the computation service will be charged on a per-use basis, with the fees directly deposited into the agent's wallet in the form of VIRTUAL tokens. This continuous demand mechanism makes the agents high-value, high-efficiency assets within the ecosystem. The income will be directly used to buy back and burn the agent tokens on-chain, further strengthening their deflationary effect. The prosperity of the AI agents within the ecosystem will undoubtedly feed back into the growth of the Virtuals Protocol and the VIRTUAL token.
According to Dune data, since Virtuals launched its new platform on October 16, its cumulative protocol revenue has exceeded $72 million, which is undoubtedly a powerful proof of its strength and potential.
Summary
The economic system of the Virtuals platform has indeed demonstrated a high degree of sophistication and synergy. Through a series of interconnected designs, it not only provides clear economic incentive paths for ecosystem participants, but also builds a self-sufficient and continuously growing economic closed loop. This economic system has not only laid a solid foundation for the rapid expansion of the platform, but also provided a powerful driving force for the innovation and development of AI agents.
ai16z and zerebro both have the potential to achieve and surpass the success of Virtuals in their respective fields, but this requires them to make the right decisions and execute on token economics, community engagement, technological innovation, and market strategy.
In summary, AI L1 is attracting more and more attention with its unique technical charm and economic value. The pioneering projects represented by Virtuals, ai16z, and zerebro are leading the tide of this transformation, building a more complete and powerful foundation for the AI agent ecosystem. These platforms are not only the springboard for project launches, but also the fertile soil for the growth of token values.
Although the market currently has some doubts about the implementation details of many AI agent frameworks, in the world of Web3, whoever stands out among the AI agents will have the possibility of winning.
