After Bitcoin fell below US$92,000 at the end of the year, its recent trend has gradually stabilized and risen back above US$96,000. In terms of altcoins, AI Agent has become the most eye-catching sector in the market. The two leading platforms, Virtuals Protocol and ai16z, have reached new highs continuously, and related ecological coins have also collectively risen sharply.

According to the latest data from Cookie.fun, as of January 2, the overall market value of AI Agent has reached US$18.36 billion, with an increase of 76.97% in the past seven days. . This strong performance shows that market funds have strong interest in this track.

From AI Meme to AI Agent

AI hype in the crypto market has gone through multiple phases. At first, AI concepts were mostly bundled with DePIN, focusing on decentralized computing power and distributed data training AI. Subsequently, decentralized artificial intelligence networks represented by WLD, TAO, etc. began to become the focus of the market. However, the real explosion of AI was driven by meme narratives. Viral communication provided an ideal "soil" for AI, pushing it to quickly enter the public eye.

In October last year, the AI ​​chatbot "Terminal of Truths" became popular on social media due to its humorous content, and even received funding from the founder of a16z. Subsequently, the Meme community took advantage of the situation and launched the GOAT token. As the price skyrocketed, the potential of AI Meme was infinitely magnified. This move not only redefined the boundaries of Meme coins, but also allowed the blockchain world to witness the cultural tension of AI technology, and gradually formed a unique narrative logic.

With the wave driven by GOAT, many similar projects have emerged in the past few months. The project can automatically post, reply, etc. on Twitter, and is gradually subdivided into AI Meme, forming an increasingly clear track ecology. The field of AI Meme has gradually expanded to more value scenarios, including content production such as music and images, and even investment analysis, fund management, etc., which is more in line with the needs of currency circle users.

At the same time, Pump.fun promotes one-click meme distribution through extremely low technical barriers and high transparencyCoin craze. After the wealth effect of AI + Meme blooming, a large number of wholesale currency platforms began to emerge. From this stage, AI and Meme gradually separated, and began to form a new AI Agent track, developing in a more independent and mature direction.

As AI Agent technology can perceive the environment and respond, the market has begun to explore collaboration between different projects, thus forming an ecosystem. For example, AI Agent may cooperate with DeFi protocols to improve automated investment strategies, etc. This requires AI Agents to not only respond to simple external instructions, but also have the ability to proactively plan, autonomously make decisions, and coordinate multi-task execution.

To create synergy with other encryption projects or protocols, standardized frameworks and tools are particularly important. Similar to the various protocol standards and development tools launched by Ethereum, the AI ​​Agent field also needs a similar framework to open up internal and external networks, provide developers with necessary components and tools, reduce the development process, and promote the formation of an ecosystem. Currently, there are several mainstream frameworks on the market such as Virtuals, ai16z and Zerebro, which respectively correspond to different development languages ​​and tokens.

From AI Meme to AI Agent, it takes less than two months, but The total market value of the track has grown from zero to nearly 20 billion U.S. dollars, and the explosion of AI Agent is not unpleasant. At present, the AI ​​Agent born out of memes is no longer a pure meme, but has certain practical functions, and is evolving in the direction of being able to make decisions independently and coordinate the execution of multiple tasks, demonstrating the potential to change the blockchain ecosystem. potential of the operating model.

AI Agent ecology is in the early stage

In the AI ​​Agent craze, Virtuals Protocol and ai16z Undoubtedly the most representative project, these two ecologies have their own factions, forming a relatively obvious competitive pattern.

Virtuals Protocol is an AI Agent distribution platform that helps users easily build and distribute AI agents. Currently, there are more than 500 AI agents that can be counted in the ecosystem. All AI agents in the Virtuals ecosystem are developed by the official team G.A.M.E.The modular framework, whether it is creating a new AI agent, selling tokens, or obtaining service income, is deeply bound to Virtuals. Therefore, with the continuous development of Virtuals ecological AI agents, the value of the entire ecosystem will be fed back to Virtuals.

AI agent track Longer Ai16z started with AI Meme, and then Token The incentive mechanism is built into the architecture of Ai16z, which started later than the Virtuals ecosystem. At present, Ai16z's value capture is not only the narrative of Ai16z, the self-invested DAO, but also the Eliza framework ecological platform developed by the team. All AI agent tokens using the Eliza framework will be allocated 5-10% to Ai16z DAO.

Judging from the 858 AI agent projects currently included in cookie.fun, Virtuals The ecological market value reaches US$5.9 billion, and ai16z is US$2.5 billion. The two occupy 91.8% of the AI ​​Agent market share, contributing more than half of the share.

From the perspective of on-chain distribution, Base and Solana are the two main battlefields. Among them, the market value of AI Agent on Solana is 8.82 billion US dollars, and the market value on Base is approximately was US$7.08 billion, and the two together accounted for 94.3% of the overall market.

However, overall, the current market structure is still single, mainly relying on the promotion of a few leading projects, and the AI ​​Agent ecosystem is still in its early stages.

Entering the new year, the on-chain AI Agent track and the secondary mainstream market The market presents a scene of "ice and fire". In the current global market, AI has always been the most innovative and durable core narrative. Many institutions in the encryption industry have not hesitated to describe the optimistic development of AI Agent in their outlook for 2025. At present, the AI ​​Agent narrative is booming. New concepts and new projects are emerging one after another in the entire track. The market structure is far from finalized. The AI ​​agent track should continue to be popular for a long time to come.

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