Original Title: What's next for AI agents: The Third Wave
Original Author: 0xkyle, Crypto Kol
Original Compilation: zhouzhou, BlockBeats
Editor's Note: This article discusses the future development of AI agents in the crypto market. The author believes that the current AI agents are mainly doing simple reply work, and in the future they will turn to more interactive and practical applications and embodiments. The author is optimistic about the AI projects on Solana, and recommends two investment strategies: buying large-cap AI projects like AI16Z and buying small-cap AI projects that are developing interactivity and applications, which he believes will bring higher returns.
The following is the original content (edited for easier reading):
I'll briefly say that if you follow me, you'll see me posting a lot of abstruse nonsense, like "the place where skating is done is where the hockey puck will be" or "buy low, sell high attention", which are some pretentious statements.
But I keep repeating these things for a reason - I believe the crypto market, even after all these years, is still very inefficient. People are constantly chasing short-term gains, wanting to feel the thrill of FOMO, seeing the instant dopamine hit from the numbers going up, and often end up becoming the signal at the top and quickly getting stuck in their positions.
So the investment trick to make money is - buy low, sell high. Buy when no one is talking about it, sell when everyone is talking about it. Buy when you feel everything is over, sell when you want to take a screenshot. Buy cheap, sell expensive.
So the purpose of this article is to talk about this - AI agents on Solana are currently in a major correction. While alt coins on centralized exchanges are rising, Base has sucked up all the liquidity. There is also a lot of discussion about whether SOLETH and SOLBTC have already peaked, and the overall sentiment is rather pessimistic. So I'm betting on two things:
1. Solana will rebound, and we will see the second wave on-chain.
2. AI agents will rebound.
Now that the background is set, let me monologue and talk about how I see the future trend if the AI agents on Solana rebound. Here's my framework:
Macro: Hype -> Fundamentals -> Utility
Micro: Responders -> Fundamentals-ish -> Applications/Embodiments
Macro = the defining narrative of each cycle; the first wave was Render, Akash, Tao, etc., and a lot of general garbage projects also popped up. Render and Akash are almost unusable, I don't know what FET and OCEAN are (or their evolution, like AGI, etc., I really don't understand), let alone NEAR (the first meme coin launched on it was completely crushed, I was there at the time).
The second wave was Goat, Zerebro, AI16Z - more basic applications.
Next is the micro cycle = the types of applications that will emerge, Goat brought all kinds of crazy projects - memeAI, Shoggoth, Project89, etc. And the wave of applications after Goat are more in-depth - Zerebro is now releasing music tracks, Lola can do on-chain transactions, AVB has group behavior, etc.
Now, the macro and micro are colliding in the third wave - I think we'll see the utility of applications and embodiment forms. You're already starting to see the embryonic forms of it, Alch now lets users build their own applications using AI.
Griffain allows you to control your wallet with an AI agent, AIXBT is everyone's favorite analyst, helping researchers boost their analytical capabilities tenfold.
"Responders" will become a thing of the past, if your AI agent can only reply on Twitter, it's not even worthy of being a top player. We've gotten used to this, people always want more.
So the next wave will no longer just be "responders", but actual interactivity. Embodiments are great because they allow you to converse and interact with them. Applications let you build things, actually use AI, not just a bot replying in the comments.
So there are a few ways to participate in this trend. Over the past few weeks, the AI space on Solana has seen massive downside, but there are also a lot of people working hard.
Undoubtedly, if you follow my tweets, you'll know I've been bullish on AI16Z since the 180mm FUD days. I think AI16Z is the easiest way to get exposure to the entire AI ecosystem, as Eliza has been widely forked, just like last cycle when people didn't want to pick individual games to invest in, but bet on the game chain - I think AI16Z is the "L1" of AI agents.
Strategy 1: Buy the top-performing large-cap AI projects; for example, AI16Z, and maybe TAO.
Strategy 2: Buy the small-cap AIs that are doing the projects I just mentioned.
I'm going with Strategy 2 because it can bring asymmetric returns in this space. There are many AI agents that haven't yet gained market favor, as I mentioned earlier - low attention, rotation games, etc.
These AI projects are actually building the applications, interactivity, embodiments, etc. that I talked about. These are the projects I'm bullish on in the upcoming wave.
