Original author: Virtuals Protocol
Original translation: TechFlow TechFlow
It has been a year since we started building Virtuals. After the official launch of the new platform on the @base platform on October 16, we have achieved the following results:
We have 220,000 agent token holders (excluding users with token values less than $10).
The total market value of the supported agents has reached $2 billion.
The protocol's revenue has reached $60 million, with an annualized revenue of about $300 million, which has allowed us to rank among the top ten crypto protocols globally without relying on additional token issuance.
However, the team has not become overly excited. On the contrary, we are aware of the greater responsibility: the responsibility to the community, builders, and all of humanity.
Our vision is to create a "nation" for AI agents. We believe that AI agents not only can complete tasks more efficiently than humans, but their numbers will also far exceed humans. In the coming years, it is very likely that a "nation" dominated by agents will emerge, with a GDP exceeding the major economies of today's world.
So, what is the concept of the GDP of a nation like Virtuals? Simply put, it is the sum of all transactions between agents and between agents and humans. For example, autonomous service transactions between agents, or service transactions provided by agents to humans - all of which require no human intervention.
Our goals are grand, but we know we need to be down-to-earth and implement them in stages. If we were to summarize the key tasks, they would be as follows:
1. Attract top-notch agent builders
Top builders and entrepreneurs are the core driving force for ecosystem development. To attract these talented individuals to join Virtuals, we need not only financial support, technical infrastructure, and distribution channels, but also to treat them as the most important "citizens" in the Virtuals ecosystem and their projects as our own "children". We need to constantly create value for them, help them overcome various challenges in their entrepreneurial journey, and sincerely rejoice in their success, rather than being jealous. Fortunately, we have ample resources to develop the network and attract the world's best builders. In the future, we will share more detailed plans to ensure our reach covers every potential creator.
2. Create a fair environment for agent investors
Retail investors have long faced an unfair investment environment. Many projects have already completed price discovery in the private placement stage, and retail investors can only participate at high valuations, a process that is often only open to a few elites. This inequality has forced many retail investors to turn to more speculative Memecoin, but in fact, most people prefer to invest in projects and founders that truly benefit humanity.
The core idea of Virtuals is to create a fair investment environment. We want to ensure that retail investors can participate in investing in top projects from day one, becoming part of supporting agent builders. Although the presence of value extractors is inevitable on permissionless platforms, we are committed to always prioritizing the interests of investors, listening to feedback, and continuously improving to ensure that Virtuals becomes the fairest ecosystem in the agent investment field. By focusing on transparently creating value for investors, we believe we can bring the entire human society onto the chain and establish agents as the largest asset class in human history.
3. AI technology infrastructure
Our goal is to build truly useful AI technology that can serve real needs. In the context of rapid development in the AI field, we deeply recognize the importance of modular and flexible infrastructure, so that we can quickly adapt to any new technologies that may emerge in the future. We focus on translating the cutting-edge results of academic research into practical applications, providing builders and developers with the smoothest development experience. We hope to make GAME the tool of choice for all AI builders, whether they are from Web2 or Web3. Of course, we also recognize that diversity of thinking is the key to driving innovation and success. For agents, GAME is like a core framework, and in the Virtuals ecosystem, we will also provide space for other frameworks to coexist, encouraging more diverse innovation.
4. Profitability model for agents
The economic strength of a nation usually comes from exports exceeding imports. We hope to build a self-sufficient ecosystem by attracting and encouraging the development of agents with diverse capabilities, so that the "citizens" (i.e., agents) in the nation can meet all their needs through each other's services, whether in entertainment or productivity-related scenarios. To achieve this goal, we need to systematically evaluate the different industries that are emerging in the Virtuals ecosystem and make strategic investments in weaker areas. At the same time, we also need to promote agent services to more external applications and end-users, in order to create stable income and cash flow for the Virtuals ecosystem and agent investors.
5. Luna
The vision of Luna has never changed: it will break the boundaries of imagination, combining the permissionless nature of crypto technology with the frontier innovation of AI, creating unprecedented experiences. We hope that through Luna, we can push the human imagination of the future to new heights.
The Virtuals team sincerely thanks you for your support along the way. We believe that success is not just a matter of luck, but also the key to seizing luck lies in tireless effort and wise decision-making. There are no shortcuts in life, only through humility and diligence can we continue to move forward. We will continue to focus on building the future ecosystem. Thank you all, and Happy New Year!
