Original Title: The AI Agent Playbook for Builders

Original Author: Defi0xJeff, Head of steak studio

Original Compilation: zhouzhou, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: This article discusses the correct way to build crypto AI agents, emphasizing that agents should complement the core product by enhancing product value through changing user pathways, rather than solely relying on tokens. Entrepreneurs should focus on solving real problems, creating sustainable core products, and then using agents and tokens for promotion and profit.

The following is the original content (reorganized for readability):

The market has experienced repeated pullbacks, and liquidity has gradually become thinner. Recently launched successful agents have a maximum market cap of about $10 million.

What I mean by "successful" is that the product has product-market fit (PMF), provides value to actual users, and has begun (or is about to begin) generating revenue. This is a stark contrast to three or four months ago, when agents with PMF could reach a maximum market cap of over $100 million, especially if they were positioned as agent + framework/launch platform tokens. For example, AVA, as a 3D agent, not only serves as the agent itself but also derives value from its audiovisual layer from the launch platform and supported projects.

Old Playbook: Agents as Frameworks

The approach at that time was to launch an agent to showcase its capabilities, attracting developers who wanted to build their own agents and requiring these developers to hold/burn/pay agent tokens to access the framework. The problem was that the crypto community placed too high a premium on framework tokens, and these "framework agents" often lacked differentiation. In many cases, they didn't even have a product—they were just rambling on Twitter, hoping for a token price increase.

The first version of the agent treated the conversational agent itself as the product, which is unique in the crypto space because we place more emphasis on community building—similar to founder-led marketing (founders gain attention through rambling). Letting the agent ramble about your project to increase its visibility seemed like a good idea—it worked well when it launched in November 2024 and lasted for a month. But now, with 420,690 agents constantly rambling, most agents appear immature, repetitive, and frankly, quite annoying.

New Playbook: Agents as Businesses

Here’s how you should think about launching an agent—launching an agent means you will operate a startup while managing up to three products:

1. Core Product (Actual Business)

Your core product should solve real problems. It should not merely be a conversational agent but a genuine product.

Examples:

• Improved predictive models for sports betting odds, helping users achieve more wins in sports betting (e.g., crypto community AskBillyBets).
• Predictive models for crypto assets that better facilitate trading, reduce temporary losses, and maximize liquidity provider returns (e.g., crypto community Cod3xOrg, crypto community gizatechxyz, crypto community Almanak).
• An AI agent research search engine that aggregates insights from top alpha sources (like Cookie, Kaito, Nansen, Messari, Aixbt, CG, Dexscreener, and Bubblemaps) to aid investment decisions (currently, no team is addressing this issue—we need an AI agent similar to Perplexity).

The core product should be the top priority for every team before launching a token. You need to ensure there is actual demand in the market and that users are willing to pay for it. Otherwise, you will fall into the "valley of death" in the crypto world, with consequences potentially more severe than those faced by traditional startups:

• High operational costs.
• Using tokens to pay customer acquisition costs (CAC).
• Token price plummets → reputation collapses → no one cares about your project.

If your token crashes, it will become a curse. Most people won't care about your project, no matter how strong your core product is or how much progress you've made.

Instead of relying on token incentives, focus on attracting customers through the product. Find a balance between growth and revenue generation.

The playbook of the crypto community KaitoAI is a great case study:

• They built an enterprise product—a crypto search engine focused on social/emotional/narrative aspects—and charged users, projects, and ecosystems, providing real value.
• They launched the Mindshare Dashboard, which became the standard for tracking narratives and trends.
• They ramped up efforts by launching the Yapper leaderboard, encouraging KOLs to share it voluntarily as a status symbol.
• They further launched NFT WL and KAITO airdrops, incentivizing Twitter interactions through real rewards.

This approach is not easy to replicate, but the lesson is: first find PMF, generate revenue, and excite people before launching a token. Once you gain attention (hype) and revenue, you can move to the next level.

Similarly, communication is crucial. Many projects have strong products but poor communication skills. If no one knows what you are doing, no one will care.

2. Tokens (Alignment Tools)

We have shifted from "venture capital coins" to "fair issuance," celebrating high circulation and low FDV tokens. However, fair issuance is not entirely fair—every token strategy has its trade-offs.

If the agent token you launch has high circulation and a low FDV structure, you will struggle to raise funds from venture capitalists and angel investors (due to the low valuation). However, you can use the token as a marketing tool to kickstart thought sharing.

Many teams will launch two types of tokens:

• Agent token → Kickstart thought sharing.
• Ecosystem token → Raise funds from venture capitalists and angel investors at a higher valuation.

But this creates expectation mismatches—the community expects airdrops, and when the ecosystem token launches, capital shifts from the agent token to the ecosystem token, leading to a crash in the agent token price. Managing the core product + agent token + ecosystem token while ensuring value accumulation for each token is very complex.

In an ideal world, there should be one token to accumulate all value from the core product. Historically, only those projects that can generate revenue and funnel it back into the token (through buybacks or revenue distribution) can survive long-term.

Tokens should complement the core product, not be a prerequisite. For a deeper understanding of agent token strategies, check out the crypto community VaderResearch's analysis of the crypto community virtuals io's agent token playbook.

3. Agents (Supplementary Products)

"Agents" refer to conversational agents built using frameworks like ElizaOS, G.A.M.E, ARC, Pippin, etc. While these agents integrate on-chain/off-chain capabilities, they should be supplementary products to the core product.

Agents should enhance the value of the core product by changing user pathways:

Instead of having users actively find and use your product, let the agents bring the product to them.

This can mean:

• Showcasing the product directly on Twitter through text/video.
• Using the agent as an AI companion to change the way users interact (similar to the abstraction of ChatGPT).
• The agent serving as the interface itself, executing tasks behind the scenes.

Of course, there are exceptions. The aixbt agent is one example—it provides real-time social and emotional analysis from Twitter, allowing users to access real-time alpha signals ahead of others. Aixbt demonstrates the terminal's capabilities by continuously providing alpha, becoming the NO.1 KOL on CT. In this case, the agent itself is the product.

However, this model is very difficult to replicate. Most projects should first focus on strengthening the core product.

A successful product-first case is cookiedotfun:

• Starting with a free AI agent dashboard to attract users.
• Transitioning to a paid value-added model by locking COOKIE to unlock premium insights.
• Monetizing by providing APIs for projects and agents.
• Launching agentcookiefun to bring insights directly to Twitter.

Conclusion

In 2020-21, launching a token required mastering Solidity. But now, platforms like pumpdotfun make it easy to tokenize anything.

This has changed the mindset—people are no longer focused on building real products but are instead launching tokens directly. This approach is "garbage in, garbage out," and capital quickly shifts to the next "garbage."

We need to change this.

To build sustainable projects, agent projects should be treated like startups. Instead of seeking funding among CT, VC, and angel investors, focus on building projects with long-term value—not just for the next 6 months, but for the next 6 years.

Innovate, solve real problems, create genuine businesses—not just the next speculative token farm.

The future of crypto AI agents depends on this.