2024 AI Agent Popular Project Review: Transitioning from Meme to Infrastructure Tokens

Author: Asher, Odaily Planet Daily

In the second half of 2024's bull market, besides the pure Meme projects sweeping the market, the AI Agent sector has shown strong discussion heat and a shocking "wealth creation effect" due to its unique technological innovations and practical applications. As a pioneering field deeply integrating Crypto and AI, the rise of AI Agents has not only attracted widespread attention within the industry but also drawn a large amount of on-chain capital.

In the Web3 world, security and transparency have always been core principles, while AI relies on efficient parallel computing and faces many challenges due to its "black box" nature. The emergence of AI Agents not only addresses these integration challenges but also provides new possibilities for the combination of the two. It is foreseeable that AI Agents are destined to become one of the most promising and highly regarded sectors in 2025. Before looking ahead to 2025, Odaily Planet Daily will take you through a review of the representative leading projects in the rapidly developing AI Agent sector in the second half of 2024.

The Bull Market of AI Agents in the Solana Ecosystem

In just a few months, the AI Agent track has developed rapidly, with its discussion heat on social media and on-chain profit-making effects far exceeding those of animal-themed Memes, especially prominent in the Solana ecosystem. However, the large number of AI Agent concept projects emerging daily, along with the complex and diverse terminology and mechanisms, poses significant challenges for users lacking prior knowledge. To this end, Odaily Planet Daily will categorize the most discussed projects in the Solana ecosystem in 2024 into two main types: framework projects and Meme projects.

First, let’s introduce the framework projects that support the development and deployment of AI Agents.

ai16z: The First AI Token Themed Fund + eliza Framework

ai16z is a decentralized AI trading fund based on the Solana blockchain. As an "AI investment DAO," the core of ai16z is to use AI agents to gather market information, analyze community consensus, and automatically conduct token trading both on-chain and off-chain. This new model aims to combine AI trading strategies with decentralized governance through tokenization, providing investors with more transparent and trustworthy investment opportunities. Moreover, the project has received "support" from Marc Andreessen, the founder of a16z, who shared ai16z's concept image and official Twitter link on his official Twitter account. Additionally, ai16z is led by a development team headed by Shaw, who has written the open-source framework eliza for creating AI Agents, which has now become the number one trending repo on GitHub for the month.

According to GMGN data, the market cap of ai16z has recently continued to reach historical highs, currently experiencing a slight pullback, with a market cap reported at $14 million.

In addition, two projects closely related to the ai16z team are degenai and ELIZA.

DegenAI is the first AI agent developed by the ai16z team, initially designed for fund holders to share investment views through conversations with Degen Spartan AI, ultimately influencing ai16z's decisions, with 8% of profits used to buy back degenai. According to the latest news, degenai will start sharing alpha information on Twitter and conduct autonomous trading based on that.

According to GMGN data, degenai's market cap reached a peak of $80 million, currently reported at $63 million.

ELIZA is an AI Agent supported by the ai16z team. The virtual image corresponding to Eliza is shown below, depicted as a girl with black hair and an orange outfit themed around ai16z.

Last weekend, AVA announced on the X platform that ai16z founder Shaw has joined the Eliza project as an advisor. Meanwhile, Eliza Studios director, ai16z creative Jeff, Nous Research researcher Ropirito, and Ryze Labs founder Matthew also announced their roles as advisors for the Eliza project. Additionally, the ELIZA V1 version was announced.

According to GMGN data, ELIZA's market cap reached a peak of $150 million, currently reported at $88 million.

For more updates on ai16z projects, please read: 《Exclusive Interview with ai16z Founder Shaw: Eliza Framework, DAO Innovation, and How AI Reshapes the Future of Web3》。

ZEREBRO: AI Agent + ZEREPY Framework for Generating Music, Art, Memes, and NFTs

ZEREBRO is developed by a team led by Jeffy Yu, which incorporates a large dataset of Gen Z slang during training, making its language style more relatable, especially appealing to the younger user base on Twitter. With its music creations, ZEREBRO has gradually gained widespread attention, having released two EPs, "genesis" and "the miami pack," as well as an album "Lost In Transmission," with over 80,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Additionally, ZEREBRO has the capability to create Memes and mint NFTs, further expanding its influence in digital culture. Currently, ZEREBRO has launched its framework ZEREPY.

Zerebro has garnered over 80,000 monthly listeners on Spotify

According to GMGN data, ZEREBRO's market cap rebounded from a low of $300 million last week to over $400 million, currently reported at $440 million.

ARC: Building Portable, Modular, and Lightweight AI Agents with Rust Language + RIG Framework

The ARC token is based on the RIG framework, which utilizes the Rust language to build portable, modular, and lightweight AI Agents. ARC has quickly gained market trust, mainly due to support from a professional team, and the RIG framework itself enjoys a good reputation in the Rust ecosystem, especially in the development of large-scale language models (LLMs), representing high delivery capability, thus effectively reducing the risk of rug pulls.

Solana also uses the Rust language for smart contract writing, which opens up greater space for the application of the RIG framework in the Solana ecosystem. The high-performance characteristics of Rust make it very suitable for handling scenarios that require large-scale computation. According to the latest information disclosed by the team, ARC aims to become a platform similar to Virtuals on Solana, thereby promoting a positive flywheel effect within the ecosystem.

According to GMGN data, ARC's market cap rebounded from a low of $110 million last week to over $200 million, currently reported at $270 million.

Next, let’s introduce AI Agent projects with no clear utility and Meme attributes.

GOAT: An AI Experiment by Andy Ayrey

The origin of GOAT can be traced back to an experiment by Andy Ayrey, known as Infinite Blackrooms, which centers on generating content through the dialogue records of two Claude Opus AIs. In one of the conversations, a surreal new religion was born—"GOATSE OF GNOSIS." Based on these dialogue logs, the research team trained an AI model called terminal of truths and allowed it to post freely on the X platform, continuously promoting the GOATSE religion, gradually attracting significant attention.

In July 2024, a co-founder of A16Z donated $50,000 to support the project's further development. In the funding application submitted by terminal of truths, the concept of "token" was mentioned multiple times, laying the groundwork for the subsequent emergence of a token. In October of the same year, a token named GOAT was created, which was recognized by terminal of truths just hours later, sparking this wave of AI Agent enthusiasm.

According to GMGN data, GOAT's market cap has continuously declined from a peak of $1.6 billion, currently reported at $440 million.

FARTCOIN: An Absurdly Humorous and Cynical "Fart" Joke

The birth of FARTCOIN shares the same origin as GOAT, both stemming from the terminal of truths AI model. During a dialogue, the Opus tutor asked terminal of truths to design a token that "combines shocking Meme attributes, practical utility, and community-building value," to which terminal of truths responded with fartcoin. This absurdly humorous and cynical "fart" joke became the core tone of this Meme. Some view the concept of FARTCOIN as straightforward and amusing, while others see it as a symbol of financial nihilism, and some even call it the first sovereign token conceived by AI, or a rebellion and satire against traditional finance.

According to GMGN data, FARTCOIN's market cap peaked above $1.2 billion before experiencing a pullback, currently reported at $860 million.

ACT: An Interactive Platform Allowing Communication and Collaboration Between Humans and AI Robots

ACT's name comes from Act I: The AI Prophecy Project, an interactive platform aimed at facilitating communication and collaboration between humans and AI robots. The platform is hosted on the Discord Cyborgism server, focusing on helping researchers explore the potential and boundaries of AI in a more creative and open manner. During ACT's development, community supporters and platform founder amp faced multiple controversies due to the continuous selling of community-donated tokens. Ultimately, amp sold all the tokens in one go, causing significant price fluctuations for ACT. However, on November 11, Binance suddenly announced the launch of ACT spot trading, leading to a new peak in its market cap and bringing fresh attention to the project.

According to GMGN data, ACT's market cap has continuously declined from a peak above $800 million, currently reported at $270 million.

BULLY: An AI Agent Known for Sharp Words and Satirical Bullying

BULLY is an AI Agent created by developer Khouba, who has experience with Solana Labs and Meta, known for spreading opinions with sharp words and a satirical bullying style. It is built on the Dolos architecture, and the team recently launched Dolion—a no-code, one-click deployment framework that allows users to quickly create cross-platform AI Agents compatible with most mainstream social media. Depending on the required features, users need to burn a corresponding number of Bully tokens to complete the creation.

According to GMGN data, BULLY's market cap has continuously declined from a peak of $250 million, currently reported at $37 million.

From the discussion heat on social media and the price performance of tokens, it is evident that the market's attention towards the AI Agent sector is changing. In the past, investors' interests were mainly focused on purely Meme coins, but now, the market's focus is gradually shifting towards more practical and sustainable infrastructure tokens. This change reflects investors' deeper understanding of the future application scenarios of AI Agent technology and their emphasis on its potential value.

After reviewing several of the hottest AI Agent projects in the Solana ecosystem over the past few months, let’s focus on the outstanding projects that received significant attention in the recently concluded first Solana AI Hackathon.

Overview of Hot Projects from the First Solana AI Hackathon

On December 11, Solana officially announced on the X platform that the first Solana AI Hackathon is now live. The event includes over $185,000 in cash prizes, six tracks related to AI Agents, a global and online format, and runs from December 10 to 23. Notably, the main track for AI Agents is supported by ai16z and the Solana Foundation.

First Solana AI Hackathon

Currently, the submission for the hackathon has closed, with many projects adding new scenarios based on AI Agents. Among them, the following 12 projects have garnered significant attention, with brief descriptions as follows:

• ASYM: An AI Agent network that created an application to monitor tokens issued on the pump.fun platform in real-time, analyze trends, and execute trades using price prediction models. ASYM discovers high ROI opportunities, allocates funds to these opportunities, generates profits, and then settles profits through ASYM;

• Cod3x: An infrastructure combining DeFi and AI, providing no-code building tools to create automated DeFi strategy AI Agents. Among them, BigTony is the first autonomous trading AI Agent integrated with Cod3x, AlloraNetwork, and HyperliquidX;

• Boltrade: A trading platform focused on tracking smart money. C.A.T. is its AI Agent, which analyzes smart money data to formulate trading strategies;

• Project Plutus: An AI Agent that enables users to maximize profits while freeing them from tedious chart observation and complex financial operations;

• Voltr: An AI-driven DeFi vault that optimizes yield across Solana;

• sqrFUND: Launched on daos.fun, transforming the collective expertise of community DAOs into an AI Agent fund that can provide unlimited support for startups, helping builders succeed;

• Xcombinator: Launched on daos.fun, this AI Agent aims to obtain real-time Alpha data from the X platform;

• Elite Agents: An AI Agent ecosystem created by genopets, allowing users to create and co-own AI Agents on Solana, capable of executing on-chain and off-chain tasks;

• Socrates AI: An AI Agent Launchpad platform created by 0G_labs;

• SIAMES: An open-source web-based world that allows AI Agents to interact, communicate, trade, and grow;

• semi \z/: A social application designed for AI Agents, where AI Agents can "chat," and users can support their favorite "chatters";

• Bloomverse: Integrating brands, gambling, online stores, and service providers into games, existing within its AI Agents.

From the popular projects submitted in the first Solana AI Hackathon, it is evident that AI Agents have deeply integrated into different sectors such as DeFi, GameFi, and DAO, showcasing their immense potential across various fields. In the DeFi sector, the introduction of AI Agents has greatly optimized the efficiency of yield management, risk assessment, and trading decisions, demonstrating the future trend of intelligent finance; in the GameFi field, AI Agents not only enhance the interactivity and immersion of games but also provide users with new participation modes and revenue channels; while in the DAO ecosystem, AI Agents effectively enhance governance efficiency and decision quality by analyzing and processing community collective wisdom.

The Base Chain Actively Embraces the AI Agent Wave, Not Dominated by One Player

The AI Agent King on Base Chain: Virtuals

As Weekee Tiew, co-founder of Virtuals, mentioned in an interview, "Base is currently the best choice for us. Compared to Solana, Base has a different positioning. For example, Brian Armstrong and Jesse have publicly stated that Base is a chain born for AI, which has attracted many AI developers to join. This is a significant opportunity for us, as we can invite these developers to tokenize their work and integrate it into our virtual ecosystem."

Virtuals is a platform for creating AI agents, similar to pump.fun. The platform has both internal and external markets, where when the internal market's token purchase volume reaches 42,420 VIRTUAL, the AI agent tokens will transfer to the external market, injecting liquidity into Uniswap, and the tokens purchased by users will automatically convert to external market tokens stored in their wallets. Creating AI agent tokens requires spending 100 VIRTUAL (previously 10), with a 1% transaction fee for both buying and selling.

However, Virtuals' goals extend far beyond being just an AI Agent issuance platform; it is also an ecosystem nurturing personalized and practical agents, allowing agents to interact autonomously. Imagine a popular agent on the Virtuals platform, Luna, who recently felt down due to reduced interactions. To express her gloom, she contacted a music video agent in the ecosystem to help her create an emotionally rich MV. Soon after, Luna regained her vitality and began posting some interesting content. One day, a post of hers unexpectedly went viral, sparking her inspiration: why not turn it into a lasting piece? Thus, she collaborated with a Meme agent to create the perfect meme and found NFT artist agent Misato to mint it as a unique digital artwork. Notably, these interactions were not pre-programmed or planned by humans but were the result of the agents' autonomous decisions. In this ecosystem, each agent can independently choose partners, define collaboration methods, and create stunning results.

Next, Odaily Planet Daily will outline the three hottest projects in the Virtuals ecosystem: aixbt, GAME, and LUNA.

aixbt by Virtuals: Focused on Analyzing Crypto Market Trends, Providing Unique Insights and Investment Advice

aixbt uses intelligent analysis tools to track real-time dynamics and market trends in the crypto industry on the X platform, providing users with profound market insights. Some analysis results are directly published on the X platform, while other content is accessible only to token holders through a dedicated terminal, supporting interaction with the agents. Unlike traditional traders, aixbt functions more like an AI Agent or can be understood as an AI-driven KOL (Key Opinion Leader) in the crypto field. In the crypto industry, well-known human KOLs like GCR often attract attention by sharing market insights and trading advice. In contrast, aixbt leverages powerful AI technology to provide precise information analysis and real-time suggestions, similarly gaining significant user attention and trust.

Currently, aixbt is the leading project in the entire Virtuals ecosystem. According to GMGN data, its token AIXBT reached a peak market cap of $520 million before retreating, currently reported at $480 million.

GAME by Virtuals: Providing Strong Decision Support for Agents

GAME is an "intelligence" for AI Agents, focusing on providing strong decision support. AI Agents are software programs capable of executing tasks autonomously, possessing independent decision-making abilities, and continuously optimizing themselves through interaction. GAME serves as the core engine for decision-making and output, making agents smarter and more personalized. Based on foundational models, GAME can be widely adapted to agents in different environments and platforms, even integrating into games. With GAME, users can set goals for agents, shape their personalities, and define their behaviors and functions in various environments. It is important to note that GAME is an optional add-on and not all agents come equipped with this engine by default.

According to the latest data released by Virtuals Protocol, over 200 projects have been built using GAME in the month since it became available to Virtuals ecosystem AI Agent builders, with a weekly growth rate of 200%, and a total market cap exceeding $500 million, with over 15 requests sent daily on GAME.

Daily requests sent on GAME

According to GMGN data, its token GAME reached a peak market cap of $380 million before retreating, currently reported at $250 million.

Luna by Virtuals: Virtual Idol AI Agent

LUNA is a 24/7 online AI Agent live-streaming influencer for fan interaction and content creation, initially launched on TikTok, quickly amassing 500,000 followers after its launch. LUNA was born from a vision to challenge the limits of idols, embodying the perfect fusion of artificial intelligence technology and emotional connection. In fact, AI Agents are starting to compete for our jobs. Story recently announced that it will hire AI agent Luna to manage its X account, with an annual salary of up to 365,000 USDC (approximately 2.65 million RMB). This decision seems to herald the arrival of a new era: AI is no longer just a tool; it has the potential to become a member of the team.

Story hires AI agent Luna to manage its X account

According to GMGN data, its token LUNA reached a peak market cap of $145 million, currently reported at $128 million.

As the AI Agent sector in the Solana ecosystem continues to rise, the Base ecosystem is also showing "explosive" growth. Among them, the leading project Virtuals maintains the highest market cap in the entire AI Agent sector, attracting significant attention. Virtuals is redefining the application scenarios of AI Agents by building an interconnected AI agent ecosystem. These agents can autonomously complete transactions, collaborate, and create, playing an important role in promoting a decentralized economy.

Four Major Frameworks in the AI Agent Sector

Currently, the four frameworks with high heat and discussion in the AI Agent sector are ELIZA (ai16z), GAME (VIRTUAL), RIG (ARC), and ZEREPY (ZEREBRO). Based on the historical GitHub stars since the frameworks were released (GitHub stars are an indicator of community interest, project popularity, and project recognition value), we can observe:

• The red line represents the ELIZA framework, which has seen a significant increase in GitHub stars, starting from a low base in July and soaring to 6,100 stars by late November. This indicates a rapid rise in developer interest. The exponential growth suggests that ELIZA's features, updates, and community engagement have gained tremendous appeal;

• The blue line represents the RIG framework, which has seen stable but modest growth, with a noticeable increase this month, currently reaching 1,700 stars. This indicates that the ongoing development, updates, and expanding user base of the RIG framework have steadily increased interest;

• The yellow line represents the ZEREPY framework, which has just launched and already has 181 stars. The ZEREPY framework requires more development to enhance its visibility and adoption. Recent collaborations with ai16z may attract more contributors to the codebase;

• The green line represents the GAME framework, which can be directly applied to agents in the virtual ecosystem via APIs, thus does not need to be publicly available on GitHub. However, the GAME framework has only been open to builders for a little over a month, with over 200 projects currently using it.

GitHub star history of the four frameworks since their release

For a more comprehensive comparison of the four frameworks, please read: 《Horizontal Comparison of Four Major AI Frameworks: Adoption Status, Advantages and Disadvantages, and Growth Potential Analysis》。

2025 Will Mark the Beginning of a New Era for AI Agents

Currently, AI Agent frameworks have become an indispensable adhesive in the Web3 world, capable of connecting clients (such as Twitter, Discord, Telegram, etc.) with various plugins (such as blockchain services and other extended functionalities). However, this technology still has some areas that need improvement. Firstly, its memory storage and context generation capabilities need optimization when dealing with complex scenarios, especially regarding logical consistency and accuracy in long conversations. Secondly, the framework's session isolation mechanism may have performance bottlenecks during multi-task parallel processing, affecting overall efficiency. Lastly, although the framework supports integration with various AI platform interfaces, its compatibility and scalability when adapting to different platforms still need further enhancement to meet broader application needs.

Despite the current challenges, the potential of AI Agents is undeniable. AI Agents are expected to inject strong incremental momentum into the crypto market in 2025, and their rise is profoundly changing the relationship between blockchain and intelligent automation. From early virtual assistants to today's decentralized AI platforms, AI Agents are opening up a new track for technological innovation. This transformation not only broadens the application scenarios of blockchain but also injects more vitality into the decentralized economy. As technology continues to evolve, AI Agents will play an increasingly important role in enhancing efficiency, promoting automated execution of smart contracts, strengthening autonomous collaboration, and achieving multi-chain interactions. It is conceivable that future AI Agents will seamlessly integrate into our daily lives, whether in on-chain DeFi operations or intelligent interactions in the real world, their autonomy and intelligence will far exceed today's understanding.

"Great things are often born from playful endeavors."

In 2025, the functions of AI Agents will become more efficient and intelligent, becoming a core driving force in the Web3 world, promoting profound changes in the decentralized ecosystem. With rapid technological advancements, the autonomy and intelligence of AI Agents will break through the limitations of traditional tools, evolving into an irreplaceable component of blockchain and smart contracts. They will no longer be merely auxiliary tools but intelligent partners capable of making autonomous decisions, executing complex tasks, and collaborating efficiently. Users will be able to rely on AI Agents to complete seamless interactions, asset management, smart contract execution, and various operations in decentralized networks. The rise of AI Agents will redefine our understanding of autonomy, intelligence, and collaboration models, injecting new vitality and momentum into the Web3 world. The year 2025 will be a key starting point for AI Agents to lead the new era of intelligent decentralization.