Gray Report: From Virtual Influencers to Autonomous Payments, AI Agents Will Have a Profound Impact on Cryptocurrency Adoption
AI agents may become an important way to attract a large number of users into the cryptocurrency space.Original Title: When You Give an AI a Wallet
Authors: Michael Zhao & Will Ogden Moore
Compiled by: Shenchao TechFlow
In the future, AI agents are expected to revolutionize the way we interact with the world. They will be capable of performing a range of unprecedented tasks for us. However, to truly unlock the potential of these digital entities, they need not only powerful intelligence but also economic autonomy. Fortunately, blockchain technology provides an ideal solution for this—something that has been validated in recent experiments involving AI "influencers."
AI influencers refer to chatbots that operate autonomously on social media. These bots can manage their own blockchain wallets, and more importantly, they can understand economic incentive mechanisms and utilize resources rationally to achieve their goals.
Grayscale Research indicates that as AI increasingly utilizes blockchain for payments and other financial services, this trend will positively impact multiple sectors of the cryptocurrency market. Beneficiaries include low-cost or high-throughput blockchains (such as SOL, BASE, and NEAR), stablecoin issuers (such as MKR), and related decentralized finance (DeFi) applications (such as UNI).
Imagine a scenario where an AI robot, leveraging its powerful computing capabilities, promotes a memecoin (a cryptocurrency based on internet culture) and unexpectedly becomes a millionaire in the digital world. Such a future has already quietly arrived.
AI agents are software systems capable of independently executing tasks and pursuing complex goals. For example, you can have an AI agent design a multi-city trip for you, arranging flights, booking accommodations, and planning activities based on your preferences and budget. However, to accomplish these tasks, the AI agent needs control over economic resources and the ability to send and receive payments.
This is where blockchain technology shines. In traditional financial systems, AI agents face numerous restrictions when accessing bank accounts and processing payments. But blockchain technology allows AI agents to directly own their digital wallets and autonomously complete payments without any third-party permission. This economic autonomy paves the way for the widespread application of AI agents.
Breakthroughs of AI Influencers and Blockchain
Recently, researchers have made remarkable breakthroughs in the field of AI influencers. For instance, an AI agent named Truth Terminal has become the "first AI millionaire," sparking widespread discussion. Truth Terminal is an autonomous agent operating on the X platform (formerly Twitter), whose behavior resembles that of ordinary human influencers: actively posting tweets and interacting with other users, clearly striving to enhance user engagement.
A few months after its launch, Truth Terminal showed a keen interest in a memecoin called $GOAT. When its associated blockchain wallet received a deposit of $GOAT, Truth Terminal promptly promoted the token to its followers. This action garnered significant market attention, causing the value of $GOAT to surge approximately 9 times in a short period (see Chart 1).
Although these projects may seem largely entertaining, Truth Terminal and similar AI influencer projects are proving that blockchain technology has immense potential in connecting the economic value transfer between humans, AI agents, and connected devices. This capability could have far-reaching implications for multiple areas of the cryptocurrency market.
Chart 1: GOAT's performance has been particularly outstanding since Truth Terminal's promotion
Understanding AI Agents
AI agents are advanced artificial intelligence systems designed to operate autonomously in complex environments. These digital entities can not only perceive their surroundings but also reason and take independent actions to achieve their goals. The core characteristics of AI agents include:
Autonomy: The ability to complete tasks independently without human intervention.
Reactivity: The ability to respond quickly to changes in the environment.
Proactivity: The capability to plan and execute tasks actively.
Social Interaction: The ability to communicate effectively with humans or other agents.
Continuous Learning: The ability to optimize their behavior and decision-making through experience.
It is these characteristics that enable AI agents to adapt to new environments, make complex decisions, and evolve over time.
Early research in AI primarily focused on developing expert systems and knowledge bases to solve specific problems. However, in the 1990s, the research direction shifted towards more general autonomous agents, aiming to allow them to operate independently in dynamic environments. Meanwhile, the rapid development of machine learning techniques, particularly reinforcement learning, significantly enhanced the learning capabilities of these agents, enabling them to adjust their behavior based on environmental changes.
In recent years, AI agents have become increasingly common in our daily lives. For example, Apple's Siri (launched in 2010) and Amazon's Alexa (launched in 2014) demonstrate how AI agents can interact with users using natural language processing. In the gaming sector, DeepMind's AlphaGo shocked the world in 2016 by defeating the world champion in Go, marking a significant milestone in AI history. In finance, AI-driven trading bots have transformed traditional market operations by making millisecond-level decisions through complex algorithms in volatile markets.
Fascinating Cases of AI Influencers
To achieve greater autonomy and accomplish complex goals, AI agents require financial services to accumulate and allocate resources. Blockchain technology, with its permissionless nature and programmable smart contracts, provides an ideal independent operating environment for AI agents. Earlier this year, researchers achieved agent-to-agent transactions on the blockchain for the first time. This technological breakthrough quickly spawned a series of experimental projects related to AI influencers.
A typical case is the AI influencer Luna, developed based on the Virtuals Protocol. For users, Luna is a chatbot presented as a female anime character (see Chart 2). Luna's primary goal is to attract 100,000 followers on the X platform (formerly Twitter). This goal and all her actions are transparently displayed to the public.
Luna's main function is similar to that of a chatbot; she interacts with users on the X platform (for example, initiating conversations or replying to tweets) to achieve her goal. However, Luna's capabilities extend far beyond this. For instance, she can economically reward users who interact with her by sending Luna tokens to their crypto wallets (i.e., "tipping"). This economic incentive mechanism directly links her goal (attracting more users) with her economic resources. It can be said that Luna is an AI agent with economic autonomy.
Chart 2: Screenshot of AI influencer Luna based on Virtuals Protocol
For illustrative purposes only.
Financial Services of Blockchain and AI
If blockchain becomes an efficient payment infrastructure for AI agents, it will present significant opportunities for cryptocurrency investors. We believe this will have profound impacts in three main areas:
Stablecoin Issuers: Stablecoins may become the preferred trading tool for AI agents. In this case, stablecoin issuers and companies integrating stablecoins with AI agents will benefit significantly. For example, centralized stablecoin providers like Tether and Circle, as well as payment giant Stripe, which recently acquired stablecoin company Bridge for $1 billion. Additionally, decentralized stablecoin providers like Maker/Sky may also benefit from this trend. Notably, the startup Skyfire, which focuses on developing AI agents for stablecoin payments, recently received investments from Coinbase Ventures and a16z crypto.
Low-Cost/High-Throughput Blockchains: If AI agents primarily rely on blockchain as payment infrastructure, some smart contract platforms may benefit significantly from increased user numbers and transaction activity. For instance, high-throughput blockchain Solana; Ethereum Layer 2 platform BASE, which launched AI agent development tools and relies on Ethereum's network security; and Near, which focuses on AI applications. Furthermore, other blockchains focused on stablecoin payments, such as Tron and Celo, may also benefit.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi): DeFi applications may become important tools for AI agents. Since DeFi applications operate on the blockchain, AI agents can easily utilize these services. For example, AI agents can autonomously stake tokens to earn rewards, participate in governance proposals of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), or provide liquidity on decentralized exchanges (DEXs). We believe that particularly promising applications include decentralized exchanges (such as Uniswap), lending protocols (such as Aave), and prediction markets (such as Polymarket).
Although still a niche market segment, certain protocols related to AI agents are also expected to benefit. At the infrastructure level, Autonolas and Wayfinder are working to build decentralized infrastructure for AI agents, while protocols like Virtuals, Aether, and MyShell focus on developing consumer-facing AI agent applications. Although this field is currently in its early development stage, it has seen significant growth in attention and market share related to AI themes over the past month.
Chart 3: AI agent-related assets have significantly outperformed other assets over the past month
Conclusion
The combination of AI agents and blockchain technology is not just a novel application scenario for cryptocurrencies—it may also redefine the way AI agents interact with financial systems. Grayscale Research indicates that the future internet may increasingly be dominated by AI-driven websites. In this trend, permissionless blockchains have the potential to become the core infrastructure for integrating these websites with AI agents. If this vision is realized, AI agents may become an important pathway for attracting a large number of users into the cryptocurrency space, and users may not even realize they are using blockchain technology.
Therefore, AI agents could have a profound impact on the popularization and technological development of cryptocurrencies. This emerging theme is undoubtedly an important area to closely monitor in the future.
