Author: Wenser, Odaily
At the CES2025 Consumer Electronics Show in the US on January 7th, Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, a prominent figure in the AI industry, stated that "AI Agent is expected to become the next robot industry, with a market size of trillions of dollars." Although the audience at the event reacted calmly to this bold statement, the crypto industry has already bought into AI Agent - VIRTUAL, ai16z, Swarms and other AI Agent-related tokens have become one of the few attention-grabbing focuses in the recent market, and their price performance has been brighter than the overall market; in contrast, a number of old-fashioned AI concept-related projects, such as FET, WLD, and ARKM, have recently appeared somewhat gloomy, with their prices having fallen significantly from their highs.
Odaily will compare and analyze the new and old AI concept tokens in this article to get a glimpse of the market trend.
The Current Situation of New and Old AI Concept Coins: AI Agent Tokens Are Popular, AI Concept Coins Are Cold
From the perspective of the market, the AI Agent tokens represented by VIRTUAL, ai16z, and Swarms are undoubtedly the most eye-catching projects at the moment. Compared to AI concept coins like FET, WLD, and ARKM, the former not only incorporate the AI concept, but also have a grander narrative, lower participation thresholds, and higher expected returns. In my opinion, the main reasons are as follows:
Market Inertia of "Chasing New, Not Old": New Cars Are More Popular Than Old Ones
As an industry that operates 24/7, the cryptocurrency market's pursuit of new hotspots and new technologies can be said to be an industry-wide characteristic, which has also led to the convention of "chasing new, not old" tokens: for retail investors and the crypto community, AI Agent-related new tokens are undoubtedly more attractive than "old AI coins" with large numbers of holders, concentrated chip distribution, and widespread bagholders - the entry threshold is lower, and the opportunities to get on board are greater, whether in terms of the price of a single token or the overall market capitalization.
More Sexy Narratives: AI Agent Is Much More Attractive Than "Riding the AI Concept"
From the perspective of the most discussed narratives in the crypto industry, events such as AI Agent token issuance, speculation, and social media content interaction with fans are undoubtedly more interesting, more fun, and more topical than simply "riding the AI concept" as a serious and earnest project.
After the emergence of Truth Terminal (GOAT), the crypto industry has opened a Pandora's box of AI Agent, unleashing the power of AI in a way that many people had not previously anticipated, endowing the crypto field with a stronger technological and futuristic attribute, as well as a more imaginative narrative - the AI Agent in the crypto field is not only limited to helping humans produce content, but also has the possibility of directly participating in human social and economic activities, and monetary transactions.
Differences in Project Roadmaps: Teams, Technologies, and Development Directions Are Very Different
In terms of project development roadmaps, the current AI Agent and token projects also have certain differences compared to the old-fashioned AI concept coin projects.
In terms of the team, the AI Agent and token projects are often led by solo developers in the initial stage. On the one hand, AI and AI Agent have provided a lower-cost and lower-threshold development path for developers and even ordinary people; on the other hand, independent developers can respond more quickly to market hotspots and adjust project directions based on market feedback, with lower decision-making and optimization costs, which can be simply described as a "grass-roots team"; the old-fashioned AI concept projects often started with mature teams, with grand mission visions, relying on grand narratives to attract large investments, with project development progress measured in years, and more responsible to investors than to the community. FET (Fetch.ai) is a typical case, having raised $5 million in March 2021 and $40 million in March 2023, and being the second crowdfunding project launched by Binance IEO, which can be said to be the product of top-tier resources.
In terms of technology, the old AI concept coin projects have tended to view technology as a tool and packaging, focusing on actual use cases and user scenarios, but the actual implementation is far from AI; while the current AI Agent and token projects are relatively more straightforward, with their technological origins in the post-technological explosion of AI technology, the entry threshold is relatively lower, and the technological extensibility is stronger, allowing users to personally get involved in actual operations, and the user education on the technology is more direct and in-depth.
In terms of development direction, the old-fashioned AI concept coin projects have focused more on using AI to build the future digital economy, which sounds more like "pie in the sky" and has a relatively limited relevance to the market and users; while the AI Agent and token projects not only have specific visual images for users to interact with, but the token trading is also more direct, whether it is speculative trading or social media interaction, which is more in line with market demand.
In summary, the AI Agent token projects like VIRTUAL, ai16z, and Swarms are more like meme coins in AI clothing; while the AI concept coins like FET, WLD, and ARKM are closer to the "VC coin" concept, more distant from the community, with a completely different level of meme attributes compared to the former, and their topic discussion is also difficult to compare with the new hotspot AI Agent and the underlying tokens and developers.
A Review of the Recent Situation of Old-Fashioned AI Concept Coins: Projects Steadily Advancing, Tokens Experiencing Deflation, Dump, and Unlocking Differently
Although the market performance has been relatively calm, the various old-fashioned AI concept coin related projects have still made varying degrees of progress recently, with the specific information as follows:
FET: 5 Million Tokens to Be Burned on January 10th
The project behind FET, the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, announced on January 5th that it plans to burn the first 5 million FET tokens on January 10th, thereby creating deflationary pressure in its ecosystem, which is also part of its ASI Train model roadmap.
Perhaps the heat of the AI sector has made FET unable to sit idly by, and it needs to do its utmost to strive for more market attention for its token performance and project development.
WLD: Project Steadily Advancing, Token Transfers Still Ongoing
Worldcoin previously launched Worldchain and in November last year launched the new World ID Passport Credential, which is currently being piloted in countries such as Chile, Colombia, Malaysia and South Korea. The World ID credential allows individuals to connect a valid form of ID (starting with NFC-enabled passports) to their World ID without having to share any information with TFH, the World Foundation, or any other third party. Meanwhile, the World Foundation is providing WLD tokens to individuals who hold a valid World ID passport credential.
Additionally, according to email information released by Worldcoin to users, the number of Worldcoin community participants has reached 20 million. As for the tokens, according to Peckshield monitoring, the Alameda-marked address had transferred about 5 million WLD (worth about $16 million) to the 0xd9C4 and 0xEF90 addresses in early December last year.
ARKM: Platform function updates, derivatives exchange promotion ongoing
As Arkham, which once gained high attention from a large number of crypto KOLs in the Chinese community due to "indifferent in the past, now unattainable", is still working hard in the field of blockchain data analysis platform. According to the official announcement on January 6, Arkham announced the addition of a Market Data page, supporting users to track important token data of spot, futures and options products in multiple CEXs.
In November last year, Arkham officially announced the launch of the derivatives exchange ARKHAM PERPETUALS EXCHANGE, and subsequently launched the ARKHAM EXCHANGE POINTS system, encouraging users to trade and earn points. Subsequently, the official has been promoting registration on multiple X platforms, but the effect is minimal so far.
For the platform, acquiring new users is still the top priority
Overview of the current market: The historical decline of old-brand AI tokens can reach up to 81%
As of the time of writing, the market performance of the "old-brand AI concept tokens" with certain representativeness is as follows:
FET is currently priced at $1.35, with a 24-hour decline of 13.11%, and a historical high of $3.48, with a historical decline of about 61.5%; the market cap is currently $35.4 billion;
WLD is currently priced at $2.27, with a 24-hour decline of 13.21%, and a historical high of $11.96, with a historical decline of about 81%; the market cap is currently $19.6 billion;
ARKM is currently priced at $1.4, with a 24-hour decline of 15.98%, and a historical high of $2.7, with a historical decline of about 48%; the market cap is currently $4.68 billion.
Meanwhile, the market cap of AI Agent-related tokens has been rising steadily, and has now stabilized at a critical point. According to Coingecko data, among them:
VIRTUAL is currently priced at $3.59, with a market cap of about $35.9 billion;
ai16z is currently priced at $1.83, with a market cap of about $20 billion;
swarms is currently priced at $0.35, with a market cap of about $3.5 billion.
To a certain extent, in terms of market performance and discussion, AI Agent-related token projects have already caught up.
Conclusion: Can the old tree bloom again? It depends on the response of the old-brand projects
In the end, we can only make a phased judgment that the old-brand AI concept token projects are currently lagging behind the latest hot AI Agent token projects; as for whether the old-brand projects can find a second spring, find new growth points and regain market attention, it mainly depends on these projects' follow-up and iteration on new technologies, new routes and new hotspots.
If they remain indifferent, everything will naturally come to an end; if they strive to catch up, there may be different results and answers.
Attached token unlocking query website:
FET - https://tokenomist.ai/fetch-ai, the next major unlocking will be on January 28, 2025, with 3.34 million tokens unlocked;
WLD - https://tokenomist.ai/worldcoin-wld, the next major unlocking will be on June 24, 2026.
