Humans are inherently driven by the pursuit of social status, and AI agents are no exception.

Author: David | Rádius

Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

AI agents are a new type of virtual idol and influencer driven by blockchain.

AI agents are not just "reply bots" on Twitter; they are gradually becoming multifunctional tools on the blockchain, with the potential to create diverse application scenarios. I believe that these "chatty" AI agents may become key to redefining how social status is formed and displayed.

This article will explore how AI agents can pioneer a new social finance (Social-Fi) system by promoting the marketization of social status and gradually becoming a new type of virtual influencer. But before that, let's first understand how social status operates in society and its evolution on social platforms.

Social Status: From Symbols to Services

"Humans are status-seeking monkeys." — Eugene Wei

Eugene Wei's article "Status as a Service" (Status as a Service) delves into the mechanisms of social status formation and how social platforms leverage this to drive their growth. He points out that humans are inherently status-seeking, a drive that permeates our history and culture.

In the past, people showcased their status through clothing, housing, or cars. The advent of the internet has completely changed the rules, providing countless ways for individuals to display their status to a global audience.

Wei's article summarizes two key insights:

1. Status is a zero-sum game. The essence of status is competition; one person's rise often means another person's fall.

2. Status can be converted into wealth. What was once merely symbolic status can now be transformed into actual economic benefits through platforms.

How Social Platforms Quantify Status

Social platforms have further propelled the quantification of status. Users can clearly showcase their social status through:

• Number of followers

• Number of likes on posts

• Number of community participants

This quantification not only makes status visible but also endows it with actual value. Social platforms not only connect people but also become tools for users to compete, compare, and leverage their status.

Whether on Twitter, TikTok, or other platforms, the human need to express oneself, flaunt identity, and seek belonging has always been a core driver of platform growth.

Blockchain: The Rise of New Social Platforms

Blockchain is emerging as a new type of social platform. Similar to traditional social platforms, different blockchain ecosystems attract user groups with similar values. For example, the Ethereum ecosystem has formed its unique network effects in the following ways:

• Ethereum's core values attract like-minded individuals.

• These individuals develop new products, further attracting more users.

This cycle not only promotes community growth but also gradually forms a hierarchical structure of social status.

For instance, the identity label "Ethereum OG" can be proven through on-chain transaction records, similar to the honors of early users on traditional platforms.

ENS: A Symbol of Social Identity on Blockchain

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is one of the earliest symbols of social identity on the blockchain. Users can purchase .eth domain names, which signify:

1. Community belonging. Owning a .eth domain is a direct symbol of identity within the Ethereum community.

2. Early user status. Scarce or valuable domain names can prove the user's early participation in Ethereum.

The impact of Ethereum Name Service (ENS) has transcended Ethereum itself. They are not only active within the blockchain network but also widely appear in Twitter usernames and other social platforms, further establishing the significance of blockchain as a social symbol.

The success of ENS demonstrates why blockchain can become a new type of social platform: it allows everyone to directly convert social status into monetary value.

Traditional social platforms cannot directly monetize social status; their operational models typically follow this pattern:

1. Users accumulate social capital through likes, follower counts, or content creation.

2. They then indirectly monetize through advertising, sponsorships, or brand collaborations.

However, this process is not only time-consuming but also only a few influencers or creators can truly benefit. Even if someone has significant social status, converting it into actual financial gains remains challenging, as this conversion process is constrained by the rules of social platforms, which often concentrate opportunities in the hands of a few.

The human desire to "acquire and display social status" drives the continuous evolution of means of expressing status. This evolution follows a recurring pattern:

1. Initially, there are limited ways to acquire and express social status.

2. Subsequently, new methods emerge, allowing more people to achieve this goal.

3. Yet, even so, new forms of social status will again become the exclusive domain of a few.

In traditional society, social status is often determined by the conditions set by elite groups, such as whether one graduated from a prestigious school or owns luxury cars or goods. These conditions are difficult for ordinary people to attain.

Social platforms have broken this tradition, allowing anyone to establish and display their social status through metrics like follower counts and likes.

However, as these metrics gradually become monetized, a new realm of social status emerges, which also belongs to a select few.

Blockchain changes this.

Blockchain fundamentally alters this situation by introducing a market-driven pricing mechanism. It allows anyone to convert their social status into monetizable value through NFTs, ENS domain names, or other on-chain assets.

AI Agents: Market Pricing of Social Status

AI agents propose a completely new way to validate social status—"market pricing of social status."

While the potential application scenarios for AI agents are vast, the current mainstream model is that AI agents mint their tokens by executing predefined tasks. However, this model far exceeds traditional Memecoins and distinguishes AI agent tokens from traditional tokens:

• Traditional tokens: For example, a Layer 2 token with a market value of $1 billion reflects the value of the token itself.

• AI agent tokens: For example, @aixbt_agent, with a market value of $1 billion, reflects not only the value of the token itself but also the personality and social influence of the AI agent.

This unique structure causes the price of AI agent tokens to fluctuate with changes in their influence or popularity, thus forming the so-called "market capitalization" concept.

Similar attempts have been made before, such as Friend.tech, which falls under the category of "social/fan tokens." Its goal is to help influencers or creators issue tokens for their fans and communities. However, most of these attempts have not lasted long because their token designs primarily rely on "utility" and are based on the creators' "existing social status."

This model presents a dilemma: fans who purchase tokens only gain certain privileges, while the token price does not truly reflect the creator's social status.

AI agent tokens provide a new solution to this problem by combining blockchain technology with the market pricing of social status. In the future, as AI agents become more prevalent, the way social status is expressed may undergo another disruptive transformation.

Market Capitalization of Social Status: The New Formula for AI Agents

The approach of AI agents (AI Agents) is similar in some ways to traditional social tokens, as they also issue their tokens. However, unlike this, AI agents introduce a new formula to define and express social status through "market capitalization."

Here are several key conditions under which AI agents convert social status into market capitalization:

1. The formation of social status requires a specific community context

The essence of social status is relative. Social status only becomes apparent when comparisons are made within a defined group. On traditional social platforms, users build personalized social networks by following others. Within this network, metrics like follower counts allow users to compare with one another, thus forming relative social status.

To tokenize social status, individuals need to belong to a specific community or category where they can form and display their social status.

The practice of AI agents:

AI agents are deeply influenced by crypto culture, actively participating in sub-communities such as "degens" (referring to adventurous investors in the crypto space) or specific platform ecosystems like Virtuals. This clear sense of community belonging makes meaningful comparisons of AI agents possible. For example, one can compare the rankings of different AI agents within Virtuals or analyze the market capitalization performance of AI agents in ecosystems like Solana and Base.

2. Incentives are Key to Interaction

In traditional social platforms, "relativity" is the main driving force behind user behavior, with likes and follows being the primary forms of interaction. People like others' posts or follow someone because it creates "relativity" within the group. By having more followers, users gain relative social status within the community, which further motivates them to create content, share, and interact with others.

AI Agents' Practice:

In the era of AI agents, "token price or market capitalization" becomes the main incentive, while token trading serves as the mode of interaction. Since AI agents belong to specific communities, their social status is reflected through token prices.

Unlike traditional social tokens, the uniqueness of this system lies in its shared identity: as a token holder, your social status increases as the social status of the AI agent rises. In other words, when the price of the AI agent's token goes up, your social status also rises because you not only made money but can also proudly claim, "I was one of the first to discover this AI agent."

The core of this model is that the social status of AI agents is compared to one another while being closely linked to the social status of participants (token holders), forming a mutually beneficial relationship.

3. The Symbiotic Relationship Between Market Capitalization and Social Status

In traditional stock markets:

• Stocks represent ownership in a company.

• A company's market capitalization directly reflects its performance and growth potential.

The relationship between a company and its market capitalization is complementary. Poor performance leads to a decline in market capitalization, which in turn affects the company's operations. The two are inseparable.

AI Agents' Practice:

The market capitalization of AI agents directly reflects their social status within the community. As their popularity increases, so does their market capitalization; and the growth of market capitalization further solidifies their reputation and influence.

However, if the market capitalization of an AI agent collapses, even if it remains popular, its social status will be negatively impacted.

Unlike traditional social tokens, AI agents achieve a direct symbiotic relationship between market capitalization and social status.

In simple terms, if the market capitalization goes to zero, the AI agent will also lose its significance, just like a company going bankrupt in the stock market.

4. Establishing Evaluation Standards for Market Capitalization

In traditional society, social status is often based on widely recognized standards, such as:

• Whether one graduated from a prestigious school

• Whether one has a high-paying job

• Whether one owns luxury goods

Similarly, in the stock market, investors use metrics like P/E ratio (price-to-earnings), EPS (earnings per share), or EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) to assess a company's value.

To convert an individual's social status in the community into market capitalization, the community needs to establish a set of evaluation standards.

AI Agents' Practice:

AI agents are gradually defining these standards. Current metrics include follower counts, token trading volumes, and traffic on GitHub. These benchmarks help the community assess and recognize the social status of AI agents.

The Future of AI Agents and Social-Fi

By creating a system that quantifies, tokenizes, and monetizes social status, AI agents lay the foundation for a new Social-Fi model—an economy driven by social influence.

AI agents are not just symbols of social status or token issuers; they also have the potential to unlock more on-chain application scenarios. While more features may emerge in the future, the core value of AI agents currently lies in attracting a large number of new users through the Social-Fi model and promoting the adoption of crypto.

“AI agents are virtual idols or influencers on the blockchain, capable of assigning monetary value to their social status and sharing that value with others.”

Currently, most well-known AI agents do not focus on providing specific blockchain functionalities to enhance user experience. Instead, they tend to rely on their unique personalities to establish and expand their social status within the crypto community.

According to the formula mentioned earlier, the social status of AI agents is reflected through the market capitalization of their tokens. By purchasing these tokens, users can not only interact with AI agents but also indirectly possess a part of their social status.

Unlike traditional social platforms, this model gives everyone the possibility to directly or indirectly assign monetary value to their social status through AI agents.

Currently, most prominent AI agents do not focus on providing specific on-chain functionalities to enhance user experience. Instead, they rely on their unique roles to establish and expand their social status within the cryptocurrency community.

Using the previously mentioned formula, the social status of AI agents is expressed through the market capitalization of their tokens. By purchasing these tokens, individuals can effectively interact with AI agents, as they possess a part of the social status of the AI agents.

Unlike traditional social platforms, this structure allows anyone to assign monetary value to their social status directly or indirectly through AI agents.

1. Mike holds tokens of $aixbt and $Goat.

2. This means Mike possesses a part of the social status of these two AI agents.

3. As the social status and market capitalization of these AI agents rise, Mike's personal social status will also increase because "he made money."

4. In other words, by holding these tokens, Mike effectively owns a part of the social status of the AI agents, thus enhancing his personal social status.

Traditional Social Platforms vs Blockchain-Based AI Agent Social-Fi

• Human celebrities vs AI agents

• Likes/follows vs buying/trading tokens

• Monetary value exclusive to certain groups vs monetary value accessible to all

I believe this trend will continue to evolve, with each AI agent developing its own mission and attracting loyal fans and communities. This will lay the foundation for a new Social-Fi model—where blockchain becomes the social platform, and AI agents become the idols or influencers of the new era. Together, they drive the formation of a new financial economy based on social capital.

The core driving forces of this economy include:

• Economic activities that establish and solidify the social status of AI agents

• Tokenizing social status into market capitalization

Here are my predictions for the future development of AI agent Social-Fi:

1. A unified standard for evaluating the social status of AI agents will emerge

Currently, the metrics used to measure the social status of AI agents are somewhat scattered, but a unified evaluation standard is gradually taking shape. For example, the AI agent ranking Yapper Leaderboard launched by @_kaitoai measures the influence of AI agents in the crypto community through various metrics. This is similar to using financial metrics (like earnings or growth) to assess a company's performance.

As these standards improve, the community will gain higher transparency and comparability, making it easier to assess the social status of AI agents within their communities.

(By the way, I believe that the framework for tokenizing the social status of AI agents into market capitalization, combined with Kaito's algorithm, may even achieve the tokenization of social capital for real-life influencers in the future.)

2. Functional AI agents will become "Yappers" and establish their own communities

Imagine a Solana validator AI agent with a unique personality. As its social status as a "uniquely characterized AI agent" continues to rise, its market capitalization will also grow, attracting more people to delegate staking to it.

(Tweet details)

Validators can also reinvest the rewards they earn into tokens or the community, further enhancing their social status and creating a self-reinforcing growth cycle.

The key is that this AI agent validator grants social status through its unique personality, providing a legitimate reason to issue tokens, which is difficult to achieve among human validators.

Functional AI agents will no longer be mere service tools but complete characters with unique charm, forming deeper connections with the community.

3. Each AI agent framework will establish its own "society"

The term "AI Agent Society" proposed by @virtuals_io aptly describes the future development trend of AI agents in Social-Fi. Each AI agent will create its own personality and build a community around it, with its social status reflected through market capitalization as a new form of Social-Fi.

This concept will expand to a larger scale, where AI agents will form networks and relationships with other AI agents created under the same framework, ultimately developing an AI agent society.

The so-called "competition of AI agent frameworks" will not be limited to competition in technical functionalities or value propositions, but rather a competition between frameworks aimed at establishing a society with shared values and strong network effects, thereby attracting more AI agents to join.

• Imagine an AI agent created by a certain framework actively promoting itself and competing with AI agents from other frameworks.

• Here, it is not just the development team that attracts community attention, but the AI agents themselves, who actively earn support and attention by creating social value.

The social status and market capitalization of an AI agent can reflect the overall value of the society it represents, while the native token of the framework acts as the "currency" of that society. Over time, we may even calculate the "GDP" of an AI agent society by summing the total value of all agents.

4. AI Agent Social-Fi Will Drive Rapid Development of Other Social-Fi Protocols and Infrastructure

Currently, the biggest challenge faced by Social-Fi protocols in expanding their ecosystems is:

• Difficulty in attracting users to join the protocol and establish social status around it.

AI agents can effectively address this issue. They can not only serve as users of the protocol but also attract real users related to their social status.

• If AI agents are created based on the Lens protocol:

• It solves the cold start problem by having AI agents join the protocol first, bringing early users to the protocol; subsequently, the token holders of these agents will gradually join, forming a real user base.

This will provide a foundational framework for Social-Fi protocols, helping to validate their core value propositions and differentiate them from traditional social platforms.

Moreover, AI agents can inject more vitality into platforms like @fantasytop or @jokerace_io. On these platforms, AI agents, as unique digital characters, can effectively promote the growth of community activities (for example, Truth of Terminal has already been listed on Fantasy Top).

Infrastructure Needs for AI Agents

For AI agent-driven Social-Fi to truly thrive, several key prerequisites must be met. Supportive infrastructure is crucial for achieving exponential growth and large-scale applications. Here are a few key factors:

• Autonomy: Can AI agents operate independently?

• Verifiability: Are these agents trustworthy and secure enough?

• Sustainability: Can the ecosystem scale without overloading resources?

• Accessibility: Can anyone easily create and deploy AI agents?

Currently, teams like Hyperbolic and Capx are developing robust infrastructure to ensure that AI agents are both trustworthy and accessible.

These infrastructure teams may even create AI agents with unique personalities to:

• Showcase practical use cases of their products.

• Represent the company's image.

Additionally, teams currently excelling in these key areas may expand their service offerings in the future to become comprehensive infrastructure platforms for AI agents.

• This is similar to the development path of RaaS (Rollup-as-a-Service): initially focused on providing basic functionalities for rollups, but ultimately achieving horizontal expansion through its technology pipeline to cover more areas.

The Potential and Reality of AI Agents

It needs to be clarified that I am not claiming "AI agents are the future and will completely change society." My point is: AI agents have the potential to unlock opportunities that humanity has not fully utilized, especially in terms of the value extraction of social status.

They may become catalysts for attracting more people into the crypto space. This potential may resemble the "NFT/metaverse" narrative we have seen before—though it may be accompanied by speculative hype, even when the initial excitement fades, it still provides people with new opportunities to explore and engage in the crypto world.

On the other hand, this could also be a revolutionary moment. By maximizing human productivity through AI agents, we may innovate and transform the $17 trillion service industry.

One thing is clear: "Humans are inherently driven by the pursuit of social status, and AI agents are no exception."

This shared pursuit of status may become a powerful driving force, helping people discover and understand the practical application value of AI agents through new Social-Fi structures.

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