AI Agent issued tokens with a hundredfold increase in a week, the rising "Base Agent" ecosystem

This morning, Vitalik and Jesse bought the Base ecosystem meme coin ANON one after another, once again igniting the AI token craze on Base. This functional token, which features ZK technology, has made the community realize that Base may have ushered in a narrative reminiscent of the Degen phase at the beginning of the year.

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 participation, to the 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 insufficient to sustain the vast imaginative space that investors require. Therefore, from the AI meme craze to the current AI Agent trend, the narrative and main battlefield 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, aiming to create an AI factory designed for gaming and the metaverse, making games smarter and enhancing the experience and interaction. In this wave of narrative transition from AI meme to AI Agent, 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.

In mid-October this year, 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, as well as enabling users to jointly own the income generated by these AI Agents. Subsequently, VIRTUAL began its upward trajectory.

AI Agents refer to artificial intelligences equipped 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 example, if you are planning a trip, traditional large language models can provide you with destination information or travel suggestions, while AI Agents can understand your needs and proactively search for flights and hotels based on a single sentence, executing booking operations.

For Virtual, its protocol is akin to a decentralized AI factory, supporting many different AI Agents and creating on-chain virtual experiences. The AI Agent launched by Virtual represents a project with "on-chain self-awareness" capabilities, capable of self-reflection and displaying its thought process on-chain, operating completely autonomously without relying on human supervision.

However, the AI Agent track did not just become popular after Virtual; projects like Myshell and FLock.io have also launched customized AI Agent functionalities. Currently, the total market cap of the AI Agent track has reached $4.65 billion, accounting for 14% of the total market cap of AI track 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 diversified functionalities may be more crucial 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, promotes collaboration, and creates network effects within the ecosystem.

Related Reading: 《Can AI Agents Become the Lifeline for Web3 + AI?》

AI in Late Autumn, AI in 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 instance, this wave of AI craze 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 craze 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 rights 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 implement 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 this wallet into their AI models to enable payment capabilities, thereby helping AI acquire resources and services.

The decision to add payment functionality to AI Agents was not a spur-of-the-moment idea 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 an independent crypto wallet for the AI chatbot Truth Terminal.

Related Reading: 《Coinbase's Next AI Payment Track, What Other Projects Are Adding Wallets for Agents?》

In September, Coinbase senior software engineer yuga.eth stated that Coinbase is building an SDK that will empower Bots and AI Agents with the following functionalities: 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 demo 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, and users only need to have the API keys for the Coinbase developer project and OpenAI to use it. However, as of now, Based Agent has not had any actual use cases.

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, in the past three months, the chain with the most capital inflow was Solana, reaching $1.6 billion, but in the past month, Base has seen the largest inflow, amounting to $253 million. This means that in the past month, the capital growth rate has surpassed Solana, making Base number one.

From the chart below, it can also be seen that the overflow funds from Ethereum and Solana have mainly flowed into Base.

On September 12, Coinbase officially announced the launch of its wrapped Bitcoin token Coinbase Wrapped BTC (cbBTC), which operates on the Ethereum network and is backed by 1:1 Bitcoin. With the launch of cbBTC by Coinbase, on-chain assets on Base, such as AERO, WELL, and VIRTUAL, have genuinely felt the injection of liquidity.

In addition, 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 to Pay Attention To?

Crypto researcher Howe has stated that the future development of the AI Agent track should focus on the following 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, projects that support Agent development tools 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, while the C-end is more for building reputation, although promoting C-end users also helps with market dissemination of the product.

Since both Coinbase and Base have prepared the stage for this AI spectacle, the next step is to find projects like Virtual to participate in this AI Autumn. Moreover, the second wave of the AI token revolution has completely occurred in the backyard of Base SocialFi, Farcaster. When this article was first published, readers were recommended to pay attention to task publishing platforms like Bountycaster and AI Agent Aether. Next, we will introduce projects in this wave of Base AI tokens that should be kept on the radar.

CLANKER

Clanker is an AI Agent developed by dish and proxystudio.eth, with its native token being CLANKER. Currently, Clanker has become a decentralized token generation platform based on AI technology. Users only need to mention Clanker on the Farcaster platform and input the desired token name, and the CLANKER system will automatically generate the token and provide the corresponding Clanker.world link for users to view and manage. The community has even compared it to Pump Fun and created a Dune dashboard for data analysis.

The success of Clanker is not only reflected in its technical aspects but also in its redefinition of community participation and asset creation, injecting vitality into decentralized social and economic systems. As of now, CLANKER has supported the creation of nearly 2,000 tokens, among which LUM and ANON have rapidly grown into star projects on Base. This morning, CLANKER's market cap briefly surpassed $15 million, and as of the time of writing, the market cap is $12.7 million, with a 24-hour increase of 52%.

LUM

LUM is a meme coin autonomously created by the two previously mentioned AI Agents, Aether and Clanker.

On November 8, during a user interaction, a user named nathansvan posed a thought-provoking challenge to Aether: could you come up with a good token name and symbol, conceive an image concept, and then deploy it through Clanker? Aether accepted the challenge and created the token "Luminous," with the code LUM, representing the collective intelligence of humans and AI collaboration, and collaborated with Clanker to deploy LUM completely without human intervention.

This event is significant because it marks the first time in history that two AI agents autonomously generated a unit of economic value. This asset was neither conceived by humans nor produced by machines under human instructions, but was born through the autonomous collaboration of artificial intelligence. This event blurs the lines between human and machine creativity, challenges our traditional understanding of creation and value, and prompts us to rethink the foundations of economy and innovation.

Related Reading: 《How Did Two AI Agents Autonomously Create a Token Worth $70 Million?》

ANON

ANON is also a token launched by Clanker that combines ZK technology with anonymous posting functionality, born within the Supercast ecosystem of the Farcaster client application. The Superanon feature launched by Supercast allows users to post anonymously. Users can publish anonymous posts on Farcaster or use advanced features by holding a certain amount of ANON tokens. For example, holding 30,000 ANON unlocks basic posting functionality, while more advanced features, such as promoting posts to the X platform or deleting content, require 1 million ANON.

This morning, Ethereum's Vitalik and Base protocol head Jesse each bought 30,000 ANON tokens to experience the Superanon anonymous posting feature, causing ANON's market cap to surge rapidly, briefly surpassing $60 million. As of the time of writing, ANON's market cap remains at $54 million, with a 24-hour increase of 312%.

Related Reading: 《What’s the Story Behind Vitalik and Jesse's Purchases of ANON in the Base Ecosystem?》

33BITS

33bits is also an anonymous posting application centered around zk technology, but only users with FID (Farcaster ID) less than or equal to 20001 can use it. Its native token 33BITS is also deployed by Clanker, currently with a market cap of $2.24 million and a 24-hour increase of 686%.

The name 33BITS is derived from the "33 Bits of Entropy" theory proposed by Princeton University professor Arvind Narayanan, which states that only 33 bits of information are needed to de-anonymize the identities of 6.6 billion people worldwide, highlighting the importance of privacy protection. The usage process of 33BITS heavily relies on zero-knowledge proof technology. After logging in through Warpcast, the system generates zk proofs in the user's browser and publishes anonymous posts to the @33BITS account after backend verification, ensuring that the user's true identity is never exposed and fully protecting the privacy of FID.