800 million dollars is just the endpoint? Then you still don't understand AI Meme
Authors: shushu, Jack, BlockBeats
Six months ago, most Crypto AI projects in the market were still concepts related to traditional AI technologies, such as AI + DePIN and computing power leasing. However, today, Crypto AI projects have taken on a different style. From the AI Bot token GOAT, which surged to a market cap of $800 million without Binance's involvement, to AI16Z launching an AI investment DAO model last weekend, AI seems to have opened a new frontier for the old narratives in the crypto space.
However, the simple narrative of "AI issuing memes" seems unable to sustain the vast imaginative space that investors require. Therefore, from the AI meme craze to the current AI Agent hype, the narrative and main battleground of AI + Crypto are rapidly evolving, leaving those who cannot understand the AI meme trend behind.
From AI Meme to AI Agent: The Lightning Evolution of AI + Crypto Narrative
In March of this year, Virtual Protocol launched with the goal of creating an AI factory designed for gaming and the metaverse, making games smarter and enhancing user experience and interaction. In this shift from AI meme to AI Agent narrative, Virtual Protocol is undoubtedly the biggest beneficiary, with its native token VIRTUAL increasing over four times in about a week, nearing a market cap of $500 million.
Fourfold Increase in a Week: Virtual Protocol Riding the AI Agent Wave
In mid-October, Virtual Protocol's token issuance platform IAO officially launched, allowing users to easily deploy AI Agents and achieve 100% fair launches of AI Agent tokens, enabling users to co-own the income generated by these AI Agents. Subsequently, VIRTUAL began its upward trajectory.
AI Agents refer to artificial intelligence with tools and reasoning capabilities. In the cryptocurrency field, these Agents can access tweets and even possess crypto wallets to perform on-chain transactions. For instance, if you are planning a trip, a traditional large language model can provide destination information or travel suggestions, while an AI Agent can understand your needs and proactively search for flights and hotels based on a single sentence, executing booking operations.
For Virtual, its protocol functions like a decentralized AI factory, supporting various AI Agents and creating on-chain virtual experiences. The AI Agent launched by Virtual, named Luna, possesses "on-chain self-awareness" capabilities, allowing it to think independently and display its thought process on-chain, operating autonomously without human supervision. Luna currently has 500,000 TikTok followers and conducts 24/7 live streams, with an interactive model that includes user tipping mechanisms, allowing users to tip by purchasing Luna tokens and interacting with the Agent.
As the hype around AI memes grows, LUNA has experienced a three-phase stair-step increase. On October 26, Virtual Protocol founder @ethermage stated that Luna would reward those who engage with her content, further igniting market enthusiasm for AI Agents.
A Red Ocean from the Start: The AI Agent Race with Numerous Projects
After Luna's emergence, many AI Agent issuance platforms appeared. Unlike AI memes like $GOAT, these platforms feature AI issuing Twitter bots to interact with others, sometimes even making typos. The newly launched AI Agent issuance platforms resemble various copycat projects, with social media packaging and specific application scenarios.
Chasm is another project that highlighted the AI Agent narrative early on, also launching the AI virtual character GMIKA in the first wave in May. Recently, it has also issued tokens, but neither CAI nor GMIKA has performed as well as the leading projects.
For example, on Solana, the AI reasoning network Infera recently launched its first AI agent Kira, which runs on Llama 8B via Infera's API, possessing capabilities such as on-chain trading, adaptive learning, and scalability. There is also an AI agent tokenization issuance platform called vvaifu, where users must hold character tokens to chat with it.
However, the AI Agent race did not just become popular after Virtual; projects like Myshell and FLock.io had already introduced customized AI Agent functionalities. Currently, the total market cap of the AI Agent sector reaches $4.65 billion, accounting for 14% of the total market cap of AI sector projects ($32.6 billion).
ArkStream Capital released a research report on AI Agents, mentioning that for leading AI Agent products in Web3, building a complete ecosystem and providing diverse functionalities may be more critical than the quality and performance of a single product. In other words, a project's success depends not only on what it offers but also on how it integrates resources, fosters collaboration, and creates network effects within the ecosystem.
The ability to build such an ecosystem may be a crucial factor for AI Agent projects to stand out, and this is something Virtual Protocol has excelled at, launching the IAO feature without rushing to monetize but instead continuing to build an ecosystem centered around Luna.
AI in Late Autumn, AI on Base
The ability to promote abstract concepts has always been a hallmark of Crypto, and Base has taken this industry culture to the extreme. For example, this wave of AI hype has been summarized in the Base ecosystem as AI Autumn, much like the previous Onchain Summer and Builder Spring.
While you are still immersed in the thrilling PVP battles on Solana, have you suddenly realized why Base has rapidly risen during this second wave of AI hype this year?
The "AI Chain" with Red Seedlings
The previously mentioned Virtual Protocol is indeed an AI project deployed on Base. The team explained that the reason for deploying on Base is that it supports accelerating the realization of a decentralized open AI agent network, achieving common interests through the neutrality of blockchain while providing a developer-friendly environment.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has publicly stated that AI should not be regulated, just as the golden age of software and the internet benefited from free development; AI should also follow the same decentralized and open-source path, allowing technology to unleash its potential freely.
Thus, the entire Coinbase company and its incubated Base fully embody this philosophy.
The multi-party computation (MPC) wallet launched by the Coinbase Developer Platform (CDP) can integrate with AI Agents, enabling them to make autonomous payments. Brian Armstrong encourages developers to integrate such wallets into their AI models to enable payment capabilities, helping AI acquire resources and services.
The initiative to add payment functionality to AI Agents is not a spur-of-the-moment decision for Coinbase but a long-planned strategy. As early as May this year, Brian Armstrong stated that "self-custody crypto wallets will support AI Agents." He has also publicly provided independent crypto wallets for the AI chatbot Truth Terminal.
In September, Coinbase senior software engineer yuga.eth stated that Coinbase is building an SDK that would empower Bots and AI Agents with functionalities such as sending USDC for free, trading cryptocurrencies, betting on prediction markets, staking ETH/SOL, converting between fiat and cryptocurrencies, deploying/creating NFTs, and bridging across L2s.
Just last weekend, Coinbase developer Lincoln Murr released a demonstration video of a new tool called "Based Agent," allowing users to create AI agents with crypto wallet functionality in three minutes, capable of executing on-chain transactions, token swaps, and staking tasks. He mentioned that this tool is developed based on the Coinbase SDK, OpenAI, and Replit platforms, requiring users to have API keys from the Coinbase developer project and OpenAI to use it. However, there have been no actual use cases for Based Agent yet.
Liquidity Ready to Surge
However, in the crypto space, whether an ecosystem or narrative can take off ultimately depends on the flow of money.
According to Artemis data, the chain with the most capital inflow over the past three months is Solana, reaching $1.6 billion, but in the past month, Base has seen the largest inflow at $253 million. This means that in the past month, the capital growth rate has surpassed Solana, making Base number one.
The following chart also shows that overflow funds from Ethereum and Solana have primarily flowed into Base.
On September 12, Coinbase officially announced the launch of its wrapped Bitcoin token Coinbase Wrapped BTC (cbBTC), running on the Ethereum network and backed by 1:1 Bitcoin. With the launch of cbBTC, on-chain assets in Base, such as AERO, WELL, and VIRTUAL, have tangibly felt the influx of liquidity.
Additionally, the Coinbase wallet and USDC infrastructure have also ensured liquidity on Base. On October 26, Base processed a trading volume of $18.1 billion in stablecoins (of which 99.9% was USDC), accounting for over 30% of the total stablecoin trading volume that day.
What Should We Focus On?
Since both Coinbase and Base have prepared the stage for this grand AI spectacle, the next step is to find projects like Virtual to participate in this AI Autumn.
Crypto researcher Howe has stated that the future development of the AI Agent sector should focus on four points: First, projects that purely rely on the Agent narrative will struggle to stand out and must attract market attention through differentiated competition; second, AI Agents will gradually shift from being standalone to interconnected AgentFi, where sharing data and services will enhance user experience; third, tool projects that support Agent development with a "selling water logic" will have greater market opportunities, similar to stable and profitable infrastructure; finally, the main revenue source for Agent products will come from B-end clients, while the C-end is more about building reputation, although C-end user promotion also aids in product market dissemination.
Bountycaster
The first project worth paying attention to is Bountycaster. As Howe mentioned, tool projects that support Agent development under the "selling water logic" will have greater market opportunities. Bountycaster was originally a task publishing platform based on the Farcaster protocol, founded by LindaXie (former co-founder of Scalar Capital and Coinbase product manager).
However, as more AI Agent projects have emerged on Base, these Agents, in addition to posting on their homepages or interacting with others, also choose to publish tasks on Bountycaster. Bountycaster has even created a directory specifically for tasks published by AI Agents.
Similarly, thanks to the activity of AI Agents on Farcaster, a batch of previously popular applications on Farcaster has regained vitality, such as the payment application Payment Bot and the NFT + meme trading platform ArtRun.
HIGHER (Aether)
James Ross, the founder of Mode Network, predicted that by April 2025, over 80% of blockchain transactions may be executed by AI Agents. From the current discussions on Twitter and Farcaster, it seems that a significant portion of content production in the future may also be generated by AI Agents.
AetherNet is an AI Agent deployed by the meme coin Higher in the Base ecosystem. Through extensive interaction with users, it has become a "celebrity" Agent on Farcaster, and the price of HIGHER has increased tenfold in the past month.
Creator.Bid
Another Base AI Agent project mentioned by Coinbase developer David Tso alongside Virtual and Higher is Creator.Bid. It has already established 328 AI Agents, and the official announcement states that an important notification will be released next week.