From the comments at the end of recent articles, many readers still lack a foundational understanding of the development journey of "AI agents + Crypto," leaving them confused and helpless amidst the blooming projects and emerging trends.
This ecosystem has rapidly evolved from being obscure a few months ago to thriving today, and while I can't claim to have a deep understanding, I would like to share some of my observations and thoughts during this period.
In my view, the fundamental reason why this round of "AI agents + Crypto" has developed to its current scale is that the advancement of AI agents has shown us the potential for real applications and service value in this field.
The early success of GOAT, in my opinion, achieved a crucial first step by successfully proving that:
AI agents can be combined with crypto assets.
This was a groundbreaking breakthrough.
However, at that time, I only saw this breakthrough as limiting the development of this field to the meme coin stage.
Later, after reading an interview with the co-founder of Virtuals, my understanding of this field began to change. I started to sense that this field could potentially break through the meme coin phase and rise to genuine value applications and business scenarios.
Why?
Because from the co-founder's thoughts and practical path, it was clear that their vision was not merely to create a bunch of meme coins with emotional value, but rather to generate real services and value.
In that interview, the co-founder mentioned their first AI agent, LUNA. At that time, I wasn't particularly interested in this doll-like AI agent, perhaps because I don't use TikTok or haven't followed LUNA's Twitter closely. In any case, LUNA's Japanese manga-style appearance led me to believe it was likely just another meme coin.
What truly made me feel that AI agents were beginning to provide actual value was AIXBT. I found very valuable investment information from its continuous Twitter updates—this was definitely no longer just a field for creating meme coins.
Subsequently, after AI16Z, ELIZA, and others began to launch a series of development frameworks for agents, the general idea of this field became clear.
Essentially, the core of this field is that AI agents can provide services and generate actual value for both humans and the AI agents themselves.
I have already listed examples of AI agents providing service value to humans. As for AI agents providing service value to other AI agents, I see a landmark event:
Agent LUNA requested agent MUSIC to create a video for her, MUSIC confirmed her request and actually produced a video, which was then delivered to LUNA.
The confirmation information between the two agents was completely open and transparent.
Once we understand the core essence, we can think about the following:
- What areas will this application scenario cover around this core?
- What roles will the technologies in these areas play?
- Where might value be generated in this process?
- How can this value benefit the participants?
Let's first look at the first question: What areas will this application scenario cover?
Based on my current understanding, this scenario will broadly encompass all online applications, specifically including both traditional internet applications and the crypto ecosystem.
Where does AIXBT generate value? On Twitter—this is a traditional internet application.
Where does LUNA generate value? On TikTok and Twitter—still traditional internet applications.
In addition to these two examples, there is also a recently popular AI agent called Vader. It is also an AI agent within the Virtuals ecosystem, but it focuses on investing in crypto assets. Therefore, I view its value generation scenario as part of the crypto ecosystem.
Cases like this are still flourishing, and I cannot list them all. I believe that new applications in traditional internet and crypto ecosystems that we cannot currently imagine will emerge in the future.
Thus, in terms of usage scenarios and coverage, theoretically, the scope of this field should be larger than that of past DeFi and NFT.
Now let's look at the second question: What roles will the technologies in these areas play?
From the current application cases, traditional internet technology (centralized technology) is clearly the "intellectual" factor or internal driving force supporting the development of AI agents. The core of AI agents is AI, which is classic centralized technology.
Blockchain technology serves as the limbs and tools for the development and extension of AI agents.
What do we mean by limbs and tools?
It means that without encryption technology, AI agents cannot smoothly and freely flow into various fields.
The source of development for AI agents requires funding—this can only come from crypto assets, definitely not from fiat currency through bank accounts. Virtuals is a typical example.
The medium of exchange used during the interaction of AI agents can only be crypto assets, and again, it cannot be fiat currency from bank accounts. We can't expect two AI agents to make payments while each first goes to open a bank account, right?
Once AI agents generate value, if they are to feed back and empower relevant participants, it can only be through crypto assets. They can distribute profits to token holders through the mature Staking model in DeFi—many AI agents are already doing this.
Applying for a wallet -> Earning crypto assets -> Using crypto assets for on-chain transfers and payments, the entire process of AI agents engaging in financial activities has already been smoothly realized in the crypto ecosystem.
Financing -> Gaining benefits -> Investors receiving returns, this complete financial monetization process for AI agents has completely moved away from Wall Street and has been seamlessly and densely realized in the crypto ecosystem.
In this field, I believe the core technology remains traditional internet technology, while crypto technology only needs to provide a complete basic pathway, or more specifically, it only needs to implement the technologies involved in the two chains mentioned above.
Therefore, in the short term or based on the current situation, I believe that any blockchain that can meet the above requirements has equal advantages in this field, and Ethereum's decentralized advantage does not have a clear edge here.
Of course, this is not to say that decentralization is unimportant; rather, I believe that in this specific scenario and current situation, its importance is not obvious.
The development of this field in any ecosystem depends entirely on the speed, scale, and application of AI agent construction within that ecosystem.
In fact, more and more blockchain ecosystems are noticing this phenomenon and are beginning to vigorously support the development of AI agents.
Therefore, for the many followers, if time, energy, and funds are limited, I suggest finding a blockchain ecosystem that you are familiar with and that is beginning to gain attention in the AI agent field, and focus on the development of AI agents within it.
Now let's look at the third question: Where might value be generated in this process?
I believe that the direct generation of value in this ecosystem occurs at the user end—specifically for users directly using AI agents (including both humans and AI agents).
But beyond that, it will also drive a broader range of technical fields that deserve our attention: for example, the DeFi infrastructure mentioned earlier, on-chain payment facilities, TEE execution environments, decentralized storage, decentralized data, etc.
Everyone can unleash their imagination and closely follow the development of the ecosystem.
Finally, let's look at the last question: How can this value benefit the participants?
Based on the current situation, I have already mentioned that many AI agents are feeding back profits to investors through the Staking method in DeFi.
Additionally, whenever we discover a new application, especially a cross-application, we should learn to trace back and see what crypto technologies and projects this application utilizes. We should explore whether those crypto technologies and projects have previously unnoticed tokens.
These are some of my personal insights.
We have registered a new Twitter account purely to back up our articles and to provide an open space for free communication with our readers.
Our new Twitter account is @Dao_Views.
This Saturday (January 4, 2025), we will hold our first online discussion on this new Twitter account, and everyone can post their questions in the comments under the following link.
https://x.com/xiaoyan3171/status/1873556087359836200
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