Author: Primitive Astronaut

Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News

Have you ever seen a table that shows how much you need to profit to break even after investment losses? For example, when your position drops 10%, you need it to rise 11% to break even:

$100 → $90 = -10%

$90 → $100 = +11%

When the loss is 20%, you need a 25% increase to break even:

$100 → $80 = -20%

$80 → $100 = +25%

When the loss is 50%, you need a 100% increase, and so on. This relationship grows exponentially, which is highly counterintuitive.

Many cryptocurrency investors still lack this basic investment knowledge.

Furthermore, in extreme cases of losses of 99% or more, this exponential growth and counterintuitive nature becomes even more apparent:

• When the loss is 99%, you need to profit 100 times (i.e., +10000%) to break even.
• When the loss is 99.5%, you need to profit 200 times (+20000%).
• When the loss is 99.8%, you need to profit 500 times (+50000%).
• When the loss is 99.9%, you need to profit 1000 times (+100000%).
• When the loss is 99.99%, you need to profit 10000 times (+1000000%).

This is why stop-loss is a must for active traders. Although the Virtuals Protocol platform suffered a severe blow last week (with the price drop seen as a reflection of technical issues), I believe it will remain a leading player for a considerable time.

I emphasized these points at the beginning to make you aware of the huge difference between 99.8% and 99.9%, which may seem similar at first glance.

Next, let's look at the token data created on Pump.fun: Since the beginning of January, the total token supply has been 6 million, with an average of about 50,000 tokens created per day.

Now, consider how many "viable" projects have been created in Pump.fun. In this field, the term "viable" is not very meaningful, but for the sake of argument, let's define it as "a market capitalization of over $10 million," as we are all here to find the next 100x coin, and for most people, that's what "viable" means.

On average, only 1% of the projects launched daily on Pump.fun can reach the "graduation" standard of a market capitalization of over $70,000. And many of these projects disappear shortly after reaching or slightly exceeding this market value.

Let's look at last month's situation, which was one of the most active periods in Pump.fun's history:

There were 10 projects with a market capitalization of over $10 million, of which only 7 exceeded $20 million. In other words, only 0.0014% of the projects launched on Pump.fun that month had a market capitalization of over $10 million, meaning that 99.9986% of the projects failed to meet the standard.

Now, let's compare this data with that of Virtuals and draw a simple conclusion.

Since its launch on October 16, the Virtuals Protocol platform has launched a total of 15,845 AI agents. This is about one-third of the number of projects launched on Pump.fun in a day. Last month, the platform launched about 175 agents per day.

I was unable to find data on the Dune dashboard about the number of Virtuals agents with a market capitalization of over $10 million, so I manually counted them: at the time of writing, there are 35 agents on the Virtuals Protocol platform with a market capitalization of $10 million or more. Out of the 15,845 agents launched, 35 accounts for a staggering 0.22%! This means that 99.78% of Virtuals agents have not broken the $10 million market capitalization threshold.

Now, recall the huge and counterintuitive difference I mentioned between 99.78% and 99.9986%. Of course, this is just a rough estimate demonstration.

But I'm sure you've already realized that compared to blindly investing in Pump.fun projects, the opportunity to achieve a hefty return by blindly investing in Virtuals platform agents is much greater.

But you certainly won't be investing blindly, right?

Now, let's draw the real conclusion.

As a Launchpad, Virtuals outperforms other platforms in various aspects. In this example, there are many other aspects that have not been mentioned for comparison. For example:

• Pump.fun earned $400 million in fees in a year, while Virtuals Protocols earned $55 million in fees in just three months.
• Pump.fun has about 300,000 active users per day and 8 million unique wallet addresses in a year. But the number of unique wallet addresses holding Virtuals agent tokens is less than 300,000 (only 280,000).

In summary, Virtuals Protocol has achieved greater success with fewer resources. You don't even need to compare the current differences in user activity, transaction volume, and total value locked (TVL) between the Solana chain and the Base chain:

Data source: defillama

However, as more and more whales announce (or have already) shifted their investments to AI agent projects on the Base chain, this gap is narrowing. Even those who initially mocked Base chain projects, such as @frankdegods and @notthreadguy, have changed their attitudes.

I suggest you follow @jessepollak's announcement about the future development of the Base chain. Its roadmap is impressive, and Coinbase is also closely watching it. The Base chain is committed to achieving better DeFi expansion than other Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVMs), and it will soon support multiple fiat currencies on-chain, as well as the tokenization of Coinbase's stock $COIN and many liquidity pools! Many have forgotten that the Base chain is just getting started.

Over the past few months, capital has been continuously flowing into the Base chain.

Last but not least, the token economic model of Virtuals. You really should delve into it, as this is their true advantage over competitors, and they are the pioneers.

The Launchpad functionality has created the highest-quality ecosystem and token economic flywheel. This flywheel brings huge profits to the team, whether in the form of fees or token appreciation, providing them with ample funds for investment and upgrades (G.A.M.E and CONVO features will certainly be optimized in the coming months). And this flywheel effect also benefits every agent token created on the platform.

Recently, the Virtuals team seems to have shifted their focus to the gaming domain of AI agents. In my opinion, this is a wise move: it was their original intention and area of expertise, and it is likely that the gaming narrative will return to the frenzy stage of the current market cycle. Furthermore, they are also positioning themselves in a direction compatible with mainstream Web2 narratives. After all, non-player characters (NPCs) have a wide range of applications in this field, don't they?

Their platform is already ready to deploy on the Solana chain!

My weekend research on the Solana chain made me realize that the transaction activity and volume there are quite impressive, as I'll be on the Base chain by the end of 2024. At the same time, I was also amazed by the progress of Solana's trading tools and the improvement in trading experience.

However, I have also found that the current market is more predatory than it was six months ago. The escape tactics of some projects have become more complex, and when I see my own 99% losses, I can only sigh helplessly, "Well played." Overall trading activity is more inclined towards extreme speculation. I entered this field in 2017, and at my core, I am a speculator, but I appreciate wise and thoughtful speculation more.

On the Base chain, everything is slower - transactions, transfers, token authorizations, price fluctuations, and so on.

However, the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) are constantly improving, and related tools are also under continuous development. Currently, the Base chain is still in its early stages, with low popularity, meaning less predatory behavior, more like a player-versus-environment (PvE) scenario rather than player-versus-player (PvP).

This also means that there are many opportunities on the Base chain. As mentioned earlier, the contrast between 99.78% and 99.9986% is a prime example - in this less noisy domain, the opportunities are particularly prominent. Moreover, the influx of idle capital from Ethereum is an added bonus.

Compared to similar projects on the Solana chain, there are far fewer scammers on the Virtuals platform. Just look at the AICC debacle last week, and then compare it to the DTRXBT project launched by @beast_ico and @ghost93_x today - Virtuals incorporates all community members, including regular investors, in a more win-win oriented manner.

Virtuals continues to attract serious and reputable developers. Of course, as in other places, there may be some developers who will rug-pull and run away. But listening to the interview with @NickPlaysCrypto, you'll find that not all new developers are scammers.

I won't make a formal conclusion, as my point has already been made quite clear. Draw your own conclusions, and I hope to see you on the "battlefield" of Virtuals soon. In my view, this is far from over. For those who have already immersed themselves in it, the best is yet to come.