Author: Tomb
Compiled by: TechFlow
Key Points of This Post
Review the recent developments in Agents and AI;
Review some obvious investment opportunities in the market;
Take a break during the New Year period, observe many things from the perspective of a bystander, and deeply reflect on past successes and mistakes;
Next, I will try to share all my thoughts as clearly as possible;
Review the Recent Developments in Agents and AI
Review of AI Agents
I am very satisfied with the performance at the end of last year.
From September to early October, we entered many narratives about AI, Agents, and Infrastructure very early.
I did not over-complicate the analysis of these trends, but clearly saw that they are the next stage of the AI super-cycle (there will be more important catalysts in the future).
This mature judgment comes from the long-term experience of capturing narratives in the market. When you can identify these trends, you can quickly invest funds without too much hesitation.
Even now, I still see some people arguing about irrelevant issues such as the packaged applications of ChatGPT, the specific functions of a certain Agent, or a protocol not responding in a timely manner.
But are these really important? We are here to make money, not to prove ourselves right.
The key is to be clear about the stage of the market cycle you are in. Each cycle has its unique rules and strategies.
This is also why many people hold old projects for too long and miss some "simple pattern" hot trends. When I say "old", I don't mean truly old, but relatively outdated compared to the rapid development of the industry.
Remember, new hot spots appear every day, and the speed of capital flow will become faster and faster - if the team cannot clearly convey their ideas or show a clear roadmap, the capital will flow to the protocols that have stronger communication skills and can be implemented quickly.
When I first encountered Goat, I recognized its potential and focused on it very early - I was surprised that it took others so long to migrate to Base through cross-chain bridges or start exploring Agents on Sol.
This phenomenon is largely due to the "Mid Curve Effect" and market panic. If you only realized these issues until now, you need to seriously reflect on the reasons.
I am very grateful for the past few months, as I have not experienced too many serious losses.
I seized the opportunity when a16z was at a $30 million market cap, and also entered when aixbt was at a $30 million market cap, as well as some layout opportunities for gaming and dialogue projects under $10 million market cap.
Of course, there were also some missed opportunities, such as Zerebro, Fartcoin, Snai, and Swarm Node. But it's okay, you can't catch all the opportunities, the important thing is to reflect on why they were missed and why they succeeded.
Quality
As always, quality is the key to success:
High-level developers;
Excellent brand building;
Innovative ideas or unique technologies with competitive advantages;
A cohesive, high-quality community;
Clear and valuable information and communication;
These are the core elements we have always been focusing on. If two or more of the above are missing, there is a risk. Why? Because there will always be other teams that can do better.
For example, in the current Virtuals environment, as long as there is a high-quality team launching AI Agents or related infrastructure, I will quickly invest in the early stage (i.e. "All In"). As long as the developer's identity is publicly transparent (doxxed), they have been deeply involved in this field for more than 5 years and have participated in multiple protocols - as long as I discover such a team in the early stage, I will decisively enter.
In fact, you don't even need to invest a lot of capital to get a considerable return. For example, I discovered the GEKKO project when it just started, with a market cap of only $4 million. Since it was developed by the Axal team and received investment from a16z, that was enough for me, so I decisively invested. As a result, it grew from a $4 million market cap to $40 million, with a very good return. I believe it will continue to grow further. Turning $4,000 into $40,000 is a year's salary for some people. Sometimes, you don't need to invest a huge amount of capital, $2,000 or $4,000 can bring a considerable return. Don't underestimate the potential of these funds.
Another project I have been laying out is Acolyt, whose team is very strong, with a narrative similar to GEKKO. As I mentioned before, if there are 100 different AI Agents that can all provide high-quality market intelligence (alpha), the only thing that can distinguish them is identity, user interface (UI), brand, developer level, etc. - just like in other areas of life.
This is what I have been looking for: those teams that have been focused on building for a long time - those top developers who are passionate, keep tweeting, and constantly launching new products. They are the only destination for my capital, I won't consider anywhere else.
Things to Avoid
Avoid single-person development teams without public identities, especially when building speculative Agent projects, as the risk is high.
Another thing to be wary of is Agent projects initiated by individual "internet celebrities". These projects are often abandoned shortly after being announced, as the developers realize that the responsibility exceeds their expectations.
Struggling Narratives
I have to admit that there are some narratives that I was personally very optimistic about, but they have indeed encountered some difficulties in their development. This does not mean these projects are bad, but their progress has been relatively slow.
It can be frustrating to invest in a seemingly promising project, only to find that its performance is not as good as expected, while other projects around it have achieved 2-3 times growth in a short period of time.
These projects are often "slow-burning" or eventually become "auxiliary experiments" for other projects.
For example, $GRIFT+$REALIS+$OMEGA. I still hold some of them, but from a practical perspective, I should have cut losses earlier and moved the funds to stronger AI infrastructure projects like REI and ARC, whose potential is more obvious and performance more stable.
At the time, I invested around $100,000 to $120,000 in these "experimental" projects, hoping they would occupy a larger market share. But in retrospect, projects like Griffain with Solana support are clearly stronger, while projects like Realis need more time to mature, perhaps because their ideas are too advanced or their team size is relatively small.
Reflecting on this, when you get 20-30 times returns on projects like $GAME, you may feel you have enough capital to "experiment" or take risks, so you don't care too much about putting funds into a slowly progressing project. But as a trader or investor, we should not treat our capital this way.
In the next few weeks, I will continue to share my observations on Agents and market operations, while also keeping an eye on the next potential market rotation opportunity. We all know that no narrative can last forever. This does not necessarily mean the Agent narrative is over, but it may be entering a new stage of development.
Here is the English translation of the text, with the specified translations applied:Remember that the market is changing very rapidly, with an almost comprehensive acceleration. If you become complacent, you may be eliminated. You need to pay attention to market dynamics every day, because the "hot potato" is getting hotter and hotter.
Review some obvious investment opportunities in the market
Some market opportunities are very obvious to some people, but not necessarily to others. I won't list all the examples, but I'll share some major cases and how I've grasped the narratives of these.
VIRTUALS
When I first saw the GOAT project take off, I was deeply attracted to it. After realizing its potential, I immediately made an investment. But later, I completely missed the $ZEREBRO and $BULLY projects, which have been performing very well until now. This made me start to look for the next potential opportunity more urgently.
Right then, I discovered aixbt. When I understood its functionality and positioning, I immediately realized this was the next project worth paying attention to, especially after seeing the discussions about $GOAT, $ZEREBRO, and $BULLY in the community. I noticed that the market was gradually shifting from entertainment-oriented projects to utility-oriented projects. This shift is why I started to focus on projects like Base, TechFlow, $GAME, and $CONVO.
In fact, it was Jeff's article on how TechFlow could become a billion-dollar protocol that made me decide. The token economics, branding, and the ecosystem advantages of the Base chain mentioned in the article further convinced me of TechFlow's huge potential.
By researching $GAME, I was finally able to correctly understand the concept of "frameworks". This knowledge allowed me to seize many excellent investment opportunities in the following weeks. Although I'm not a technical geek and can't fully understand all the details, I'm very interested in this field and willing to learn as much as possible about it.
Interestingly, I didn't invest in TechFlow when its market cap reached $500-600 million.
I believe that when you confirm the potential of an ecosystem, such as it potentially growing to a $5 billion, $10 billion, or even $20 billion scale, you need to focus on two key points: one is the "first movers", and the other is the persistent user-mind-occupyingAgents.
For example, $LUNA is a typical first mover, while $VADER is the first DAO/ALPHA project.
In this ecosystem, there are many projects worth paying attention to. For me, the team is the most critical factor, followed by the concept and utility, and finally the brand and identity. These three constitute the "Holy Trinity".
Here are some excellent projects worth researching:
>$WAI;
>$ACOLYT;
>$SEKOIA;
>$GEKKO;
These projects are all worth paying attention to, especially those in the Agentstarter ecosystem.
a16z
It may sound a bit casual, but when I first encountered and promoted daos.fun, I almost directly invested in a16z just because of the name. After delving into Marc-backed projects like Truth Terminal, I was convinced that this is a project worth paying attention to.
When I learned that the a16z DAO is attracting top developers from around the world and is committed to accelerating the development of its ecosystem and frameworks, I became even more confident in its potential. The increasing activity on GitHub and the rapid accumulation of momentum across the project cannot be explained by "middle curve thinking".
Although there have been some FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) during this period, their agent ecosystem's test projects $ELIZA and $DEGENAI have great potential. For example, Eliza's market cap has already reached $160 million, and @degenspartanai has reached $100 million. As a16z continues to expand, these two projects are expected to grow further - these are very obvious investment opportunities.
Other Ecosystems
In Agentic Outlook One, I analyzed each major Launchpad/protocol and its Alpha Agents or Beta projects in detail:
Creator.Bid|$BID (potential dark horse)
Algo| Grew from $2-3 million market cap to $25 million (obvious opportunity)
AVA| Grew from around $25 million to $150 million
@dasha| Grew from $15 million to $150 million
The following ecosystems are also worth paying attention to:
$UOS
$AIMONICA
$STOIC
Other ecosystems worth paying attention to:
griffain| $GRIFFAIN
Many of these projects have already achieved multiple-fold growth.
The full analysis can be found here: link
This list can go on, and the potential of these projects will be even higher - they are all very obvious investment opportunities.
However, I still hold some other projects that I believe have potential, such as $GRIFT and $REALIS. I believe they just need more time and some adjustments to perform well.
Here are some projects I haven't had a chance to analyze in depth, but they are also worth paying attention to:
- Among these projects, $REI in particular is worth extra attention. Outside of the on-chain ecosystem, I am very optimistic about the combination of decentralized finance (DEFI) and agents:
$MODE|Mode, which I believe is a project with great potential.
Another project worth looking forward to is the further development of Uomi.
Persistently choose projects with excellent teams, strong infrastructure (Infra) and high attention/heat/mindshare, and you won't go wrong.
For me, the lifecycle of agents is usually relatively short, as most projects struggle to maintain market attention for a long time. But in my view, AIXBT and GOAT are successful models and benchmarks in the agent domain.
Why reflect on these?
Because it can help you discover the next investment opportunity.
Notes:
It's worth paying attention to some early-stage projects, such as $GNON, $PROJECT89, $AVB, etc.
The market cap of $OPUS has already dropped by 85%, and many early AI projects may have hit bottom.
We need to focus on whether these projects are still actively developing, while also remembering that the potential of AI infrastructure (Infra) and agents is immense.
New ideas and concepts emerge every week, and these new projects often have stronger teams and better branding, so we need to continuously scan the entire market.
I'm not saying these projects are bad, but rather emphasizing the rapid pace of market change - many traders who have experienced 80-100x returns will quickly take profits and move on to the next more attractive opportunity, whether it's Swarms, DeSci, or DEFI agents.
Excellent teams will always find ways to maintain long-term market relevance.
Finally, there are some trends worth noting:
There are currently many ongoing hackathon activities, which are giving rise to some very interesting ideas and projects. Participating in these events not only helps expand your horizons, but also allows you to better understand future technology trends.
Data sources for AI agents:
Decentralised.Co, in collaboration with Sentient Market;
In the coming days, we can discuss the future development direction of the agent field together, so that we can seize the opportunity when the market narrative changes.
