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AI Agents, The Next Meta?
Jake Kennis
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Key Takeaways
5 min read
  • AI agents represent a new meta that is here to stay, in our opinion. They have significantly outperformed in recent months, and activity is only increasing. Given the dispersion amongst the thousands of potential agents being launched, it might be easiest to bet on the fastest horse(s), which in many cases are the first movers (e.g., GOAT, LUNA) or the actual launchpads themselves (e.g., VIRTUAL).
  • VIRTUAL may be an “index” play on the AI agent narrative and offer exposure to the gaming narrative and the Base ecosystem at large. Similar to how AERO has been an index player in the growth of the memecoin casino and activity on Base, VIRTUAL may play a similar role in the launch of AI agents. VIRTUAL has a flywheel effect for its token, where each new launch on the platform leads to incremental demand for the VIRTUAL token (to trade agents), and the generated fees are used as a buyback program for VIRTUAL. Additionally, VIRTUAL holders may be eligible for future airdrops from new agents launched on the platform.
  • Similar to memecoins, most of these AI agents will go to zero. Launchpads such as Creator Bid and Virtuals create a pumpdotfun experience for anyone to launch their own tokenized agents. Given the implicit dispersion, it might be easiest to get exposure through the first movers or betting on the casinos themselves such as VIRTUAL.
  • Creator Bid launched last week and does not have a token. However, playing around with the platform, trading agent keys, or even launching your own agent may qualify you for a future airdrop.

Introduction

Since October 1st, some of the top AI agent coins/platforms are up nearly 3-7x as shown below.

Source: Nansen Query

Many are excited about the intersection of AI and crypto, and things are starting to heat up from a price and mindshare perspective. From a $50k grant from Marc Andreesen, we have seen Truth Terminal launch a meme coin, GOAT, to a nearly $670m MC at the time of writing. Although Truth Terminal is just one instance of an autonomous AI bot, we now see a Cambrian explosion of interactive agents that can tokenize engagement and create flywheel effects for a given agent’s token/key price. We will chat briefly about two projects on Base and then cover some early traders to VIRTUALS to see what they are betting on...