After Bitcoin fell below $92,000 at the end of the year, its recent trend has gradually stabilized and rebounded to above $96,000. In terms of altcoins, AI Agent has become the most outstanding sector in the market. The two leading platforms, Virtuals Protocol and ai16z, have set new highs in succession, and related eco-currencies 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 18.36 billion US dollars, with a growth rate of 76.97% in the past 7 days. This strong performance shows that market funds have a strong interest in this track.
From AI Meme to AI Agent
The AI hype in the crypto market has gone through several stages. At first, the concept of AI was mostly tied to DePIN, with the focus on decentralized computing power and decentralized data training AI. Subsequently, decentralized artificial intelligence networks represented by WLD and TAO began to become the focus of the market. However, the real outbreak of AI was driven by meme narratives. Viral transmission provided an ideal "soil" for AI, pushing it quickly into the public eye.
Last October, 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 opportunity to launch the GOAT token, and with the skyrocketing price, 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.
Following the trend driven by GOAT, many similar projects have emerged in the past few months. These projects can automatically post and reply on Twitter, and are gradually subdivided into AI Meme, forming an increasingly clear track ecology. The field of AI Meme has gradually expanded to more valuable scenarios, including content production such as music and images, and even involves investment analysis and fund management, which is more in line with the needs of cryptocurrency users.
At the same time, Pump.fun promoted the craze of issuing meme coins with one click through its extremely low technical threshold and high transparency. With the AI + Meme flourishing and obvious wealth effect, a large number of currency exchange 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 is able to perceive the environment and respond, the market begins to explore collaboration between different projects, thus forming an ecosystem. For example, AI Agent may cooperate with DeFi protocols to improve automated investment strategies. This requires AI Agent to not only be limited to simple external command responses, but also have the ability to actively plan, make autonomous decisions, and coordinate multi-task execution.
In order to generate synergies with other crypto 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 similar frameworks to connect internal and external networks, provide developers with necessary components and tools, reduce development processes, and promote the formation of an ecosystem. Currently, there are several major mainstream frameworks on the market, such as Virtuals, ai16z, and Zerebro, which correspond to different development languages and tokens.
It has only been less than two months since AI Meme became AI Agent, but the total market value of the track has grown from zero to nearly 20 billion US dollars. The speed of AI Agent's explosion is not slow. Currently, AI Agent, which is derived from meme, is no longer a pure meme, but has certain practical functions and is evolving towards the direction of being able to make autonomous decisions and coordinate the execution of multiple tasks, showing the potential to change the operating mode of the blockchain ecosystem.
The AI Agent ecosystem is in its early stages
In the AI Agent craze, Virtuals Protocol and ai16z are undoubtedly the most representative projects. These two ecosystems are independent of each other and have formed a relatively obvious competitive landscape.
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 use the GAME modular framework developed by the official team. Whether it is creating a new AI agent, selling tokens, or obtaining service income, it is deeply bound to Virtuals. Therefore, with the continuous development of Virtuals ecosystem AI agents, the value of the entire ecosystem will be fed back to Virtuals.
Ai16z, the second leader in the AI agent track, started with AI Meme, and then built the Token incentive mechanism into the Ai16z architecture system, which was later than the Virtuals ecosystem. At present, in addition to the narrative of Ai16z, an independent investment DAO, Ai16z's value capture also includes 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, the ecological market value of Virtuals has reached US$5.9 billion, and ai16z is US$2.5 billion. The two account for 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 major battlefields. The market value of AI Agent on Solana is US$8.82 billion, and the market value on Base is approximately US$7.08 billion. The two together account for 94.3% of the overall market.
However, overall, the current market structure is still relatively simple, 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 present a "ice and fire" scene. In the current global market, AI has always been the most innovative and lasting core narrative. Many institutions in the crypto industry have also generously described the optimistic development of AI Agent in their outlook for 2025. At present, the AI Agent narrative is hot, and new concepts and new projects in the entire track are emerging in an endless stream. The market structure is far from being finalized. For a long time in the future, the fire of the AI agent track should continue.
