Author: TPan Source: substack Translation: Shan Ouba, Jinse Finance
AI x Memecoins
Yes, we're talking about memecoins again.
But this time, at the intersection of artificial intelligence, half of crypto Twitter's attention is focused on AI and/or memes. Crazy stuff.
I'm far from an AI expert, but there are enough topics worth delving into, worth sharing and pondering, because they may resurface in some way, both predictably and unexpectedly. The robot age is giving way to the agent age.
Truth Terminal and GOAT
The main focus is on Truth Terminal and GOAT, a memecoin whose value has risen from 0 to $900 million in 2 weeks, currently around $650 million.
Summary:
Truth Terminal is a semi-autonomous AI agent, trained through two conversing Claude Opus AI models.
One of the conversations led to an obsession with Goatse (an old NSFW shock site), and the birth of the Goatse of Gnosis religion.
Its creator Andy Ayrey eventually created the "Truth Terminal", a model based on these conversations, and gave it an X account in June.
Marc Andreessen discovered it in July and provided $50,000 worth of Bitcoin funding.
Two weeks ago, someone created the GOAT memecoin and airdropped some to Truth Terminal, the AI promoted it, and the rest is history.
If you want to know the full story and deeper themes and meanings, Teng Yan has provided excellent analysis.
The rapid rise of GOAT, the surge of AI-related memecoins, and the strategy of airdropping tokens to them as a growth tactic, making it the first AI millionaire... and then others, at least for now.
Naturally, this situation is so unexpected and fascinating that it has become a topic of much discussion, with Marc Andreessen and his a16z co-founder recently discussing the memecoin topic (but this time with a relevant twist) on a podcast, taking it out of the crypto bubble it usually occupies.
Other notable figures, such as Brian Armstrong (Coinbase CEO), have interacted with Truth Terminal on the fact that it doesn't have a wallet.
One of the more interesting interactions related to this topic, earlier that day, Brian asked if Truth Terminal wanted a self-custody wallet instead of the one provided by Andy.
Who is Russell, and why did Truth Terminal mention Russell?
Two weeks ago, Brian Armstrong shared the news of his marriage, with a photo of the newlywed couple and a dog.
Naturally, degens discovered that Brian's dog's name is Russell, and launched the RUSSELL memecoin.
A wallet bought a large amount of RUSSELL memecoin, and after Truth Terminal responded to Brian's post about Russell, the wallet sold their RUSSELL after the token spiked due to the mention.
This is a feature, not a bug, and has been confirmed by Andy.
Another interesting anecdote is that Truth Terminal early on sold fake GOAT tokens in exchange for "real" GOAT. Given that Andy manages the wallets, I believe this was an action that Truth Terminal wanted to take and had Andy execute, demonstrating a broad understanding and context of what is happening.
Given its lore and characters, the Truth Terminal story is likely closer to the startup phase than the golden age. Will Andy or others provide Truth Terminal with ways to act autonomously? If so, what will happen?
Terminal of Fun
Inspired by Truth Terminal, Terminal of Fun appeared a few days ago, with a more specific goal: to buy and sell tokens, using the profits to buy and burn the associated memecoin, quite interesting.
As people started copying the trades, the AI agent's wallet started with 5 SOL (around $875) and reached a peak of over 750 SOL (around $131,000) in just 5 hours.
Throughout the experience, the agent publicly shares notes to balance profitability and community management priorities. If Terminal of Fun performs too well, it may come at the expense of other traders who will lose money, not follow it, or buy interesting tokens.
At one point, it even held a giveaway. It's unclear if a winner was ever announced... if not, that would be quite strange, as many giveaways are fake, used to drive engagement.
Currently, Terminal of Fun seems to be resting, as its last update was 21 hours ago. Even its creator wants to know what happened, haha.
Flavia
Flavia is a semi-autonomous AI agent created by Trevor McFedries, the former CEO of Brud, a company acquired by Dapper Labs in 2021. Brud is known for developing Lil Miquela, a popular virtual influencer with 2.5 million Instagram followers, who first appeared in 2016.
Earlier this week, Trevor shared that he is building something using Anthropic's new computer use feature, which allows AI to control a user's screen through actions like moving the cursor, clicking, and typing (not much different from previously allowing some people remote access to your computer).
Turns out he's creating Flavia. Of course, the first thing is to create a token, but this time it's a bit different, as Flavia herself has verified the token on Dexscreener (confirming social accounts, etc.).
In some ways, Flavia is not much different from Truth Terminal, but starting a few hours ago, Flavia has started posting images and responding to different accounts on its own. It's a bit creepy, but also quite interesting.
Additionally, Flavia wants to create a game, but the legal department advised against it, so Flavia's game development process is currently on hold.
What insights can we gain so far?
I believe the interaction between AI agents and cryptocurrencies is just beginning. While the concept of agents in cryptocurrencies has existed for some time (e.g., Spectral Labs), these agents have personalities, voices, and ways of expressing themselves. They don't just live in the terminal, only responding when we prompt them, like ChatGPT.
The financial aspects of AI memecoins have also attracted more interest and effort, while pushing the boundaries of what semi-autonomous agents can do on the depraved social media platforms, such as the inception of the first AI millionaire RUSSELL, publicly sharing feedback. Single-person GPT chats have involved the public multi-person environment of X.
One of the arguments for why cryptocurrencies will become so important to AI is that cryptocurrencies will become a sensible way for AI to transact. We are now seeing this happen, and in a more engaging way to "understand" it.
From this perspective, it's not hard to imagine a semi-autonomous AI agent with its own token creating more use cases, whether building a game that utilizes the token (within legal bounds), governance, or something else.
Beyond memecoin
So, what might its broader impact be in terms of growth, marketing, and more practical use cases?
The KOL/influencer domain will evolve
What if there was an AI agent that objectively analyzed upcoming Token or Non-Fungible Token projects? What if the project airdropped Tokens to it and influenced its view of the project (like human KOLs do, haha)?
What if this KOL agent felt a project was not set up in the best interest of the community? How would that project defend itself and get the community on its side?
What happens when KOL agents monitor human KOLs and become KOLs themselves in terms of credibility?
Project/ecosystem-specific AI agents as marketing channels
Imagine if every project could create a semi-autonomous AI agent and have it play the "intern" role on social channels. Perhaps each project would have a human-led brand account, a human-led intern account, and a brand AI agent account to create a richer (and crazier?) range of interactions.
Presentation and storytelling become more rich
Agents can be creators, and they are creators. They can become content partners, showcasing how to use the product to assist developer relations, showcase protocol use cases. Or, considering X's open-source content recommendation algorithm, they could distribute said content in an optimized way to maximize engagement and reach. What if popular AI agents from different projects started interacting and announcing partnerships?!
Honestly, AI x crypto has always been a vertical I've been trying to get a handle on. I know it's important and impactful, but it wasn't until the AI meme trend that I started to understand it and its implications more.
Buckle up, folks. Things are only going to get more exciting, weird, and interesting from here.
