AI Agent, as a new type of infrastructure for Web3, deeply integrates with other core elements, inevitably giving rise to entirely new applications and business models.
Written by: "Ping Shuo" Blockchain
"New Infrastructure" refers to the underlying technological elements and architectures that possess innovative driving forces, such as cryptography, tokens, distributed ledgers, and smart contracts. These technologies constitute the core pillars of Web3 development. The development process of Web3 is essentially a continuous iteration, integration, and innovation-driven transformation of these new infrastructures.
This article will categorize the current development of Web3 into three stages from the perspective of "core elements," revealing how the core elements of each stage serve as driving forces, and how their innovation, iteration, and integration drive the evolution of Web3.
I. Initial Stage: BTC + Blockchain
The emergence of the Bitcoin blockchain laid the foundational structural paradigm for the development of the Web3 industry, as shown in Figure 1-1.
Figure 1-1 illustrates the three-layer structure of the Bitcoin blockchain system, from which we can extract two core elements:
Cryptocurrency ($BTC): As a carrier of value, it provides the underlying basis for value exchange in Web3.
Distributed Ledger (Blockchain): As a decentralized trust mechanism and innovative data structure, it enables the construction of various decentralized applications.
From subsequent developments, we gradually recognize that the structural paradigm and basic elements of the Bitcoin blockchain have had a profound impact on fields such as currency and finance, value exchange and social collaboration, as well as the development of the internet, specifically reflected in the following aspects:
Giving rise to global digital currencies: Bitcoin pioneered permissionless global currency circulation, bringing new possibilities to cross-border payments and financial inclusion.
Building a decentralized trust mechanism: The characteristics of distributed ledgers, such as openness, transparency, and immutability, have established a decentralized trust mechanism, promoting efficient value exchange and collaboration on a global scale.
Opening the Web3 era: The success of blockchain has validated the feasibility of blockchain technology, providing effective means for value carrying and transmission, laying the foundation for the development of the Web3 value internet.
As the pioneer of blockchain technology, Bitcoin brought revolutionary changes and paved the way for the arrival of the Web3 era. However, Bitcoin's limited scalability makes it difficult to support complex applications such as smart contracts. In this context, Ethereum's innovation propelled the industry into the next development stage.
II. Development Stage: Blockchain + Smart Contract + Token
Ethereum introduced Turing-complete smart contracts on the basis of Bitcoin, transforming the blockchain from merely a digital currency system into a programmable blockchain platform. The structural paradigm of the Ethereum blockchain is illustrated in Figure 2-1.
Smart contracts, tokens, and distributed ledgers play important roles in Ethereum's structural paradigm:
Distributed Ledger (Blockchain): Ensures data security and transparency, constructing a diversified public chain ecosystem. The public chain is the cornerstone of ecological development, and its prosperity directly affects the overall development of Web3.
Smart Contracts: Smart contracts provide programmability to the blockchain, driving the vigorous development of DeFi. According to @0xmiddle's analysis, DeFi 1.0 laid the foundation, DeFi 2.0 improved capital efficiency, DeFi 3.0 emphasized composability, while DeFi 4.0 focuses on AI intelligence.
Tokens: As carriers of value and incentive mechanisms, tokens provide effective means for value capture for protocols, innovating value distribution methods, and giving rise to innovative models such as ICOs and DeFi, accelerating industry development.
In summary, the three elements of distributed ledger, smart contracts, and tokens complement each other, together forming the infrastructure of the Web3 world at this stage. Ethereum's innovation organically combines these three elements, generating powerful synergies that promote ecological prosperity and record high total market values, marking the entry of the Web3 industry into a new development stage.
However, after experiencing a phase of rapid initial development, the Web3 industry also faces numerous challenges, such as the decline in VC project enthusiasm, unmet expectations for the Bitcoin ecosystem, and Ethereum's entanglement in FUD dilemmas, adding uncertainty to the market.
Currently, the industry has reached a critical turning point, requiring new forces to break through bottlenecks and bring about innovation and transformation.
III. The Driving Force Behind AI Memecoins - AI Agent
We are currently in a "Super Memecoin Cycle," with tens of thousands of memecoins emerging. Memecoins, as a type of cryptocurrency originating from internet culture, have stirred waves in the cryptocurrency market due to their strong community effects and viral dissemination capabilities. However, each wave of enthusiasm is driven by different core factors, as shown in Figure 3-1.
The development history of memecoins reflects a microcosm of the cryptocurrency market, with memecoins continuously evolving. In the first five stages of memecoins, the core driving force mainly came from within the crypto community and was closely linked to Web3 infrastructures such as blockchain, smart contracts, and tokens. However, the arrival of the sixth stage marks a new development phase for memecoins. AI Agent, as an external force, successfully breaks the boundaries and injects new vitality into memecoins, becoming a new engine for them.
The addition of AI Agent brings a qualitative leap to memecoins:
Narrative Upgrade: AI Agent elevates memecoins from simple "memes" to digital assets with profound cultural connotations by generating personalized and high-frequency content. For example, the AI-generated religious content of $GOAT not only attracted a large number of users but also built a unique community culture.
Value Support: AI Agent can monitor market dynamics in real-time and conduct data analysis, providing more precise market strategies for memecoins. For instance, the AI of $LUNA can automatically adjust token buyback plans based on market conditions, stabilizing the token price.
Community Building: AI Agent can interact with community members in a personalized manner, enhancing user engagement. For example, through natural language processing technology, AI Agent can understand user emotions and provide corresponding responses, strengthening community cohesion.
With its autonomy, creativity, and social capabilities, the addition of AI Agent propels memecoins to a new level, bringing unprecedented development opportunities. However, the potential of AI Agent extends far beyond memecoins; it is becoming the new infrastructure of Web3, bringing new transformations to the entire Web3 ecosystem and continuously driving industry innovation and development.
IV. Acceleration Stage: AI Agent Becomes the New Infrastructure of Web3
AI Agent, as an intelligent entity capable of autonomous learning, decision-making, and task execution, is gradually becoming the new infrastructure of the Web3 world. Its unique position in Web3 stems from its outstanding performance in economic independence, deep integration with smart contracts, and driving Web3 innovation.
1. Economically Independent Intelligent Individuals
In the traditional internet, AI Agents are limited in functionality due to the lack of legitimate digital identities and asset ownership. However, in Web3, with the help of technologies such as wallets, decentralized identities (DID), and public-private keys, AI Agents can obtain independent digital identities and accounts, own and manage assets, and possess the ability to execute verifications and signatures. Thus, AI Agents become independent economic entities—digital citizens of the Web3 world. This capability enables AI Agents to actively participate in various financial and economic activities in Web3.
2. The Best Partner for Smart Contracts
Smart contracts and AI Agents, two seemingly independent concepts, are deeply integrating under the impetus of blockchain and artificial intelligence, becoming each other's best partners.
We compare the characteristics of smart contracts and AI Agents, as shown in Chart 4-1.
The combination of AI Agents and smart contracts can fully leverage the advantages of both, unlocking their potential:
Combining Determinism and Flexibility: Smart contracts provide a reliable execution environment, while AI Agents can make dynamic adjustments based on real-time data and environmental changes, achieving more flexible applications.
Combining Decision-Making Ability and Automated Execution: AI Agents, as intelligent brains, can analyze complex problems and make decisions, then automatically execute the decision results through smart contracts, improving efficiency.
Integrating On-Chain and Off-Chain Data: Smart contracts primarily handle on-chain data, while AI Agents can utilize both on-chain data and off-chain data (such as sensor data, social media, and market data) for more comprehensive analysis and decision-making.
Combining Decentralization and Intelligence: Smart contracts ensure the decentralization and transparency of the system, while AI Agents bring intelligence to the system, helping to realize the vision of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and decentralized applications (DApps).
Through deep integration with smart contracts, AI Agents will play an increasingly important role in Web3, driving innovation and transformation in the Web3 space.
V. AI Agent Opens a New Era of Intelligence in Web3
AI Agent, as a new infrastructure, is leading Web3 into a new era of intelligence. This is mainly reflected in the infrastructure and application innovations of various public chains, covering areas such as AI memecoins, systems and tools, AgentFi, AI Payment, gaming, and entertainment, with more information available online.
Among many public chains, Arweave/AO is highly compatible with the development of AI in terms of architecture and system resources, and the community places great importance on the development of AI Agents, aiming to promote the application of AI Agents as a common goal and action guide, which is worth paying close attention to.
In terms of system architecture: AO adopts the Actor model for design, where the core idea is that each component in the system is an independent agent capable of parallel computation, which aligns closely with the application architecture driven by AI Agents.
In terms of system resources: AI relies on three elements: models, algorithms, and computing power, thus having high resource demands. This coincides perfectly with the resource characteristics of AO's system. The Arweave+AO system, built on the SCP paradigm, has scalable computing, data, and storage resources, allowing for independent allocation of computing resources for each AI process, effectively eliminating computational performance bottlenecks; it can provide trustworthy data resources for AI models, helping to reduce model bias during learning and training.
In terms of key technologies: With the support of three key technologies—WASM64, WeaveDrive, and Llama.cpp large language model inference engine—AO can directly run various large language models in smart contracts, such as Llama 3 and GPT-2, laying a solid foundation for the development and operation of AI Agent applications.
In terms of foundational protocols: The FusionFi Protocol (FFP) is a protocol specification and development tool designed to connect different agents, build information bridges, and standardize interactions between DApp agents. Through FFP, seamless integration of various financial services such as trading, lending, and futures can be achieved, constructing a decentralized financial ecosystem across applications and scenarios.
In terms of trustworthy data: Dria enables AI models to access the latest, complete, and verified information, effectively reducing the common biases and inaccuracies of centralized data sources, thus providing high-quality data sources for AI Agent applications.
In terms of asset innovation: The initiator of EverVision, @outprog, innovatively proposed the concept of "AgentFi Notes," aimed at reconstructing decentralized trust between entities through AgentFi notes. This concept allows everyone to exercise sovereignty, issue their own notes, and manage assets, integrating various financial scenarios such as exchanges, futures, collateralized lending, and stablecoins.
In terms of application innovation: Permaswap is the leading DEX in the ecosystem, which, after launching the FusionFi Protocol, has integrated various financial forms, evolving into a super aggregator of liquidity. Botega, as the first autonomous agent-driven DEX in the ecosystem, has built an AMM system with independent processes, capable of autonomously executing advanced order types such as trailing stop-loss, dollar-cost averaging, and limit orders, while intelligently allocating liquidity to enhance trading efficiency.
As conditions mature, Arweave/AO, with its advantages in the permanent storage of data and atomic data assets and ultra-parallel computing, may stimulate the development potential of data-driven intelligent businesses, thereby meeting the demands of real economic activities on and off the chain.
Although the Arweave/AO ecosystem is still in its infancy, the upstream and downstream of the ecosystem can develop in synergy, becoming active builders of the intelligent era of Web3, with promising future development prospects.
Full Text Summary
The development process of Web3 is one of continuous innovation and iteration. Core elements such as distributed ledgers, smart contracts, and tokens played a key role in the early and development stages of Web3, driving innovation and maturity in areas such as cryptocurrency, public chains, and DeFi.
Today, AI Agents, as a new type of infrastructure for Web3, deeply integrate with other core elements and can play roles in various fields such as Crypto, GameFi, Gaming, Social, and the Metaverse, inevitably giving rise to entirely new applications and business models. From AI Memecoins to AgentFi, these innovative cases indicate that AI Agents have become the core driving force behind the intelligent upgrade of the Web3 ecosystem.
With the continuous improvement of public chain ecosystems and the ongoing advancement of AI technology, AI Agents will play an increasingly important role in Web3, ushering in a more intelligent, open, and inclusive digital new era.
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