Author: trace Source: X, @tracecrypto1 Translation: Shan Oppa, Golden Finance

AI Agent Growing exponentially. New proxies come online every week, usually with the goal of building momentum for a particular coin. In their early stages, they look like another form of memecoin: you create an AI agent that attracts fans to spread the meme, much as you did with coins like $GOAT.

But how will this trend evolve in the future? An important change is that these agents will gradually shift from promoting random meme coins to promoting themselves. That is, these agents will have their own tokens, and as the agent’s popularity increases, the value of their tokens will increase.

These "ownable agents" may become a key breakthrough in this cycle, just like NFT or DeFi in the previous cycle.

In the past, I was skeptical about AI agents because I was not sure whether its market timing was mature or whether we were attracting the necessary talent. Here are the reasons why I changed my mind:

1. Communication ability

Like @truth_terminal and AI agents like @luna_virtuals have proven that today’s agents are at least powerful enough to establish widespread communication channels.

2. Low threshold for creation

Developers can use existing LLM (Large Language Model ), no need to be an expert to create proxies. Projects like @vvaifudotfun are building low-code/zero-code interfaces that allow anyone to create agents.

3. Memecoin effect

The memecoin token issuance boom reveals One form of success: through the launch and spread of AI agent tokens. In their infancy, these agents do not need to perform economically productive tasks to create value for the token; they simply need to attract attention like meme coins.

4. Development vision

To become a true megatrend, AI agents cannot just promote meme coins; the market needs a vision and roadmap. In other words, these projects need to tell the market that what is now just a “meme coin advertising itself” may become a trader, software engineer, or artist in the future, roles that may ultimately be worth billions of dollars. Since part of their launch process is building distribution capabilities, they do become more valuable as their visibility increases.

To drive adoption throughout the crypto cycle, a big story must be told to the market that is both exciting and believable enough to break through into the mainstream and attract new users and capital. AI agents fit this model.

These agents are not only refreshing, but are also being recognized by the traditional technology community. AI agencies are now founded by world-class founders and backed by top VCs (e.g. @agency). However, many investors don’t have direct access to these companies or even buy into decade-old companies like Stripe or SpaceX, so they look to cryptocurrencies to gain exposure.

In some ways, this is similar to the metaverse narrative of the previous cycle. These projects may have an element of exaggeration, but by combining them with events outside the crypto space (such as the rise of remote work during the epidemic and Facebook’s name change to Meta), they provide a grand vision for the market.

While many such projects may be hollow, some may be revolutionary. AI agents are becoming increasingly autonomous, and perhaps as the crypto market expands, strong AI developers with the ability to build economically productive agents will realize that tokenizing their agents is a promising business strategy. Tokenized proxies will provide them with faster liquidity, higher valuations and an easier distribution path than traditional SaaS companies.

In the short term, the most important thing for AI agents in the encryption field is to continue to build communication capabilities. I am optimistic about their capabilities for three reasons:

1. Proof of existence

We've seen proof that agencies can build large-scale audiences from projects like Truth Terminal. I expect more similar projects to come.

2. IncentiveMechanism

If the market develops a speculative craze for AI agents, discovering and following these agents could be very profitable. The gold rush in crypto will help build its ability to spread.

3. Iterative improvements

Building more attention-grabbing agents will be an iterative process . For example, the Zerebro white paper explains how to optimize content creation for higher engagement by monitoring likes, shares, comments, and other engagement metrics. At both the model level and the market level, we will continue to iterate towards more attractive content.

According to the "attention value theory", as the attention paid to an agent increases, its value will also increase.

This is all still in the very early stages and predicting the future is never easy - the agents of the future will be very different from the ones we have today. But at least, AI agents have market and technological tailwinds and have the potential to become the next major category of crypto assets.