AI agent Track

In the past week, the AI agent track has led the market, with a market capitalization exceeding $15 billion, becoming the biggest dark horse in the crypto market at the beginning of 2025. Many still regard AI agents as part of #Memecoin, but in fact, AI agents have long since detached from their initial meme attributes, combining technology and market in a positive way, and have already or will completely change some of our on-chain trading behaviors. This article will thoroughly analyze AI agents from various aspects, including their development, current track classification, future development directions, #token application scenarios, and how to better profit from AI agents.

Concept of AI Agent

The essential characteristics of AI agents: they can autonomously plan and execute tasks, working towards established goals without human intervention. The difference from traditional internet robots is that they can make dynamic multi-step decisions, adjust behaviors based on interactions, and interact with other agents, protocols, and external applications.

In simple terms, the AI we currently use only targets specific tasks, operates according to predefined rules, and provides a fixed set of responses, usually pre-programmed fixed outputs, lacking the ability to learn and improve. Typically, they can only generate text-based responses and generally cannot collaborate with external interfaces or other robots.

In contrast, AI agents can make dynamic multi-step decisions and adjust based on feedback and interaction, enabling self-learning, thinking, and achieving independent operational goals. Correspondingly, they have numerous application scenarios and can interact with other agents, APIs, and applications.

Development History of AI Agents

The First Generation of AI Agents (First Wave)

The concept of AI agents did not emerge in 2025; it began to sprout at the end of 2023 and led to the creation of Autonolas and Bittensor in early 2024.

Taking Autonolas (OLAS) as an example, it is a platform that supports the creation and management of autonomous agent services. These services are known as agent services, operating independently off-chain as part of a multi-agent system (MAS) to achieve common goals collaboratively. Autonolas enables developers to build and deploy autonomous agents that seamlessly collaborate off-chain while leveraging blockchain technology to enhance on-chain functionality. There are also some established agents on Autonolas, but it is evident that, in terms of market enthusiasm and capital flow, the first generation of AI agent projects did not gain anything from this wave of AI agents, and even saw a decrease in market capitalization, which is the fate of most currently popular AI agent projects.

The Evolution of AI Agents (Second Wave) and the Overlay Effect of Memes, Gaining Community Attention

In June 2024, Andy trained a Llama-70 B AI model based on chat records from Infinite Backrooms, his research papers, and content from 4 Chan and Reddit. This model was named Terminal of Truths (ToT). On October 10, 2024, an anonymous developer launched the $GOAT token on Solana's meme coin launchpad pump.fun.

This was the first AI-related meme coin marketed by autonomous AI agents, and within the following month, Goat, backed by capital, saw its market capitalization exceed $1 billion. Meanwhile, a platform allowing users to create, deploy, and monetize AI agents, Virtuals Protocol, launched its first entertainment-focused AI agent - Luna, marking its first step towards a market cap of $10 billion. Community attention and capital backing ignited instantly. Compared to the first generation of AI agent projects, AI agents during this period were more closely connected to the community, starting from memes and allowing users to understand AI agents at a lower threshold.

Framework + Launchpad, Enriching the Story of AI Agents (Third Wave?) Achieving a $10 Billion Market Cap

The success of Virtual Protocol, starting with the launch of the first agent - Luna in early October, saw the platform token Virtual's market cap rise from $50 million to nearly $5 billion, a hundredfold increase, and the continuously increasing number of agents led to an explosive growth of Launchpad and AI agent platforms, officially opening the path to a $10 billion market cap for AI agents. Although the current enthusiasm and market cap of AI agents are declining, with the robust development of applications combining AI agents with DeFi, social, and consumer sectors, there is still a significant opportunity to reach a market cap of $100 billion (not investment advice).

Classification of AI Agent Tracks

1. AI Agent Frameworks (Representative Projects)

Overview and Development History of Leading Projects

ai16z/eliza/degenai

https://x.com/ai16zdao

ai16z currently has a market cap of $1.7 billion

eliza currently has a market cap of $70 million

degenai currently has a market cap of $50 million

Founder @shawmakesmagic, achievements: the eliza incident, provocatively criticizing swarms, directly triggering community backlash, and crashing prism.

The ai16z fund is supported by dual tokens, one being the governance token $ai16z and the other being the token $DegenAI for the AI Agent named Degen Spartan AI. Holders of $ai16z can propose purchases of certain tokens, and all holders vote together. Once a proposal passes, the AI Agent automatically purchases the token in the wallet.

ELIZA is an open-source framework for on-chain AI Agents built by ai16z and its developer community. Developers can quickly customize AI Agents with various styles and functions using ELIZA, such as accessing wallets across different chains and conversing on Twitter and Discord.

Virtual/Game

@virtuals_io

@GAME_Virtuals

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

GAME is a framework developed by the Virtuals team that simplifies the development and launch of AI agents, making it as easy as building a website with WordPress. Through Virtuals Protocol, developers can not only quickly build and deploy agents but also tokenize them through IAO (Initial Agent Offering), paving the way for a decentralized model for future social and gaming ecosystems.

GAME is now fully open, allowing developers to seamlessly integrate AI agents into various third-party applications and virtual worlds using its SDK. Meanwhile, community members can improve the codebase by submitting functional PRs, collaboratively optimizing the framework and sharing resources to promote sustainable ecosystem development. Whether completed agents or those still in pre-release stages, they can be easily configured on the Virtuals platform for flexible applications.

swarms

@swarms_corp

Currently has a market cap of $300 million

@KyeGomezB is hailed as a "genius boy" in the field of artificial intelligence, showcasing impressive hardcore skills at just 20 years old, but has been criticized by Shaw for being a habitual plagiarist.

The core function of Swarms is to allow multiple AI agents to collaborate like a team, using collective intelligence to solve complex problems. It not only supports seamless integration with external AI services and APIs to expand functionality but also provides agents with nearly unlimited long-term memory to enhance contextual understanding while allowing for custom workflows. For enterprise-level needs, Swarms offers high reliability and scalability, ensuring optimal performance through automatic optimization of language model parameters. In this way, Swarms can leverage the collective intelligence among agents to tackle complex challenges more easily than a single agent.

Compared to other agents that "go solo," Swarms places greater emphasis on "collaboration among multiple agents" and modularizes this cooperation.

ARC

https://x.com/arcdotfun

Currently has a market cap of $360 million

Arc aims to create an open-source framework called Rig, utilizing Rust to build portable, modular, and lightweight AI Agents. Theoretically, Swarms can integrate with ARC, and ARC can optimize ELIZA; all three frameworks share a modular design philosophy, but currently, the feasibility and expansion potential of such frameworks are still in their early stages.

2. AI Agent Launch Platforms (Representative Projects)

Alchemist AI

@alchemistAIapp

Token: ALCH

Market cap: $120 million

ALCH is an AI Agent Launchpad platform that requires no coding and is suitable for "newbies." Users can create software applications by simply providing a brief description, and the platform allows users to create complex applications, including games and social platforms, through simple drag-and-drop operations.

Virtual

@virtuals_io

Market cap: $3.2 billion

Virtuals is currently the leading AI Agent Launchpad platform, similar to pump.fun. The platform has both internal and external markets; when the token purchase volume in the internal market reaches 42,420 VIRTUAL, the AI agent token will transfer to the external market, with internal market liquidity injected into Uniswap. Creating an AI agent token requires 100 VIRTUAL (previously 10), with a 1% transaction fee for both buying and selling.

Clanker

Market cap: $66 million

Clanker is an AI Agent Launchpad platform based on Farcaster, with a peak market cap exceeding $140 million, but subsequent development did not keep pace. It aims to simplify the token asset issuance process, with the first project launched on Clanker being CLANKER. Users can check the number of tokens deployed or create their own tokens through the official website clanker.world. Through Clanker, users can deploy meme tokens to a one-sided liquidity pool (LP) on Base, with liquidity immediately locked. Token issuers can earn 0.25% of fees from all swap transactions and 1% of the total supply of tokens (with a one-month unlocking period).

agents.land

@agentsdotland

Market cap: $130 million

Oraichain's team launched a Bitcoinist AI Agent named MAX, whose virtual image is a girl with black hair and a BTC logo tattooed on her arm. MAX is classified as an AI Agent Launchpad concept project because the Oraichain team will provide benefits such as whitelisting for MAX holders through projects launched on the agents.land platform.

3. Applications and Derivative Directions of AI Agents

Entertainment

@luna_virtuals

Market cap: $70 million

Luna (the first entertainment-focused AI agent, launched based on Virtual, linking to the real world)

Trading

DeFAI stands for "AI + DeFi," using AI to simplify the complex DeFi operation threshold, allowing more people to participate in DeFi and manage assets as easily as chatting with GPT.

BUZZ

@askthehive_ai

Market cap: $80 million

Hive aims to simplify DeFi trading through composable on-chain AI agents, providing an integrated trading terminal where agents autonomously complete on-chain operations via natural language commands. Hive has previously announced a partnership with Zerebro to build cluster communication infrastructure to enhance the DeFi agent suite, and Hive has already supported Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Hive's founder, Jason Hedman, has won multiple AI hackathon championships, including first place in Microsoft's production AI hackathon, and has also participated in Solana chain's AI hackathon competition.

$NEUR

@neur_sh

Market cap: $47 million

Binance Alpha recently launched Neur, which allows users to interact with leading Solana native protocols using natural language. The protocol is fully open-source and community-driven, and the team continuously launches bounty programs to encourage developers to contribute, with the product still in beta testing.

Other areas to watch include data-related projects, such as the cookie.fun platform token COOKIE, AI computing, and the connection between AI agents and the real world, including but not limited to social, gaming, and projects ensuring the safety of AI agents.

Application Scenarios of AI Agent Tokens

The application scenarios of AI Agent tokens are generally concentrated in two main directions: governance and platform functionality. For most AI Agent projects, the primary role of the token is as a governance tool, allowing token holders to participate in platform decision-making and development directions, such as proposals, voting, and adjusting protocol parameters. For AI Agent Launchpad platforms, the platform token is mainly used to pay for the costs of creating and launching AI Agents, as well as transaction fees.

The essence of AI Agents is to drive the application and ecological development of AI technology based on cryptocurrency incentive mechanisms. Therefore, when selecting tokens, investors should pay more attention to the value of their infrastructure. In other words, the value of the token should not only be reflected in its market price fluctuations but should focus more on its role in the AI Agent ecosystem, especially how it helps the platform enhance infrastructure, improve functionality, and expand application scenarios.

If you still have confidence in AI agents, how can you invest in AI agents to profit more easily?

From the perspective of ecological plasticity, the industry narrative opportunities brought by AI Agents are much grander than those in DeFi. If you still believe in the AI agent track, here are some actions you can take now:

(1) Look for value projects in a declining market (anti-dip projects)

Market uncertainty and volatility mean that many AI Agent project tokens may experience significant price fluctuations. During market downturns, investors can seek out projects with fundamental support and strong anti-dip capabilities. Anti-dip projects typically have a solid technical foundation, strong development teams, and clear development plans. For example, projects with innovative technical frameworks or those expanding their ecosystems often maintain a high market position during downturns. Therefore, investors should focus on projects that can remain actively developed even in a sluggish market, as these projects may rebound quickly when the market warms up.

(2) Find "golden shovels" in an upward trend

When the market enters an upward trend, investors need to look for projects with massive growth potential. "Golden shovels" refer to AI Agent projects that hold industry-leading positions or are gaining capital favor. These projects typically have strong community support, a continuously growing user base, and potential collaborations with other blockchain and AI fields. For instance, platforms like Virtuals Protocol and Swarms have successfully attracted a large number of developers and users, and their platform tokens and AI Agent applications within the ecosystem may achieve unexpected appreciation during market upswings.

(3) Focus on AI Agent infrastructure construction and identify niche tracks

As an emerging track, the infrastructure construction of AI Agents is still in its early stages. Developers and platforms need a strong infrastructure to support diverse AI Agent applications. If you want to make a long-term investment in the AI Agent field, you can focus on investing in projects dedicated to infrastructure development, such as AI Agent frameworks and protocols, which are core to the expansion of the AI Agent ecosystem. Investors can pay attention to teams developing on-chain smart wallets and smart contracts or platforms that can provide cross-chain interoperability and decentralized services.

Moreover, the integration of AI Agents with traditional Web3 and DeFi is gradually deepening, which gives some AI Agent projects broader application scenarios. For example, in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, AI Agents can simplify complex trading operations and lower usage thresholds. In the future, as the application scenarios of AI Agents continue to expand, this infrastructure will become an important support for industry development.

(4) Flexibly adjust investment strategies, take profits, and cut losses

The AI Agent track is currently in a rapidly developing phase, with market hotspots and capital liquidity changing very quickly. Investors must make timely decisions regarding taking profits and cutting losses. Some projects may experience a sharp decline in market enthusiasm due to technical issues or changes in market demand, while others may grow rapidly in the short term, becoming the next "dark horse."

Taking profits and cutting losses is not just a strategy to cope with market fluctuations; it also reflects investors' precise grasp of market rhythms and rational assessment of projects. During the investment process, investors should regularly evaluate project progress and market feedback, adjusting their investment portfolios in a timely manner to avoid missing out on profits or falling into risks due to blind holding.

Although AI Agents still face certain challenges in the market, the industry narrative opportunities they bring clearly far exceed those in other fields like DeFi. AI Agents not only have the potential to change the way cryptocurrencies are applied but may also bring revolutionary changes across multiple fields such as society, gaming, entertainment, and finance.

In any case, I believe that the story of AI agents is far from over!