Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
At the CES 2025 in the United States on January 7, Jensen Huang, the founder of Nvidia and a leading figure in the AI industry, stated: “AI Agents are expected to become the next robotics industry, with a market scale of trillions of dollars.” Although the audience at the event reacted lukewarmly to this bold claim, the crypto industry has long been buying into AI Agents—tokens related to AI Agents such as VIRTUAL, ai16z, and swarms have become some of the few focal points in the recent market, and their price trends have outperformed the broader market; in contrast, many established AI concept projects like FET, WLD, and ARKM have recently appeared somewhat desolate, with their prices significantly down from their peaks.
Odaily Planet Daily will compare and analyze the new and old AI concept tokens in this article to gain insight into market trends.
Current Status of New and Old AI Concept Coins: AI Agent Tokens in High Demand, AI Concept Coins Cooling Off
From a market perspective, AI Agent tokens represented by VIRTUAL, ai16z, and swarms are undoubtedly the most eye-catching projects at the moment. Compared to AI concept coins like FET, WLD, and ARKM, the former not only integrates the AI concept but also offers a more grand narrative, lower participation barriers, and greater profit expectations. Upon closer examination, I believe the reasons mainly include the following aspects:
Market Inertia of Favoring the New Over the Old: New Cars Attract More People, Old Cars Are Too Heavy
As an industry that operates 24/7, the cryptocurrency market's enthusiasm for new hotspots and technologies can be considered a common trait, leading to the practice of “favoring the new over the old” in token trading: for retail investors and the crypto community, compared to the “old AI coins” that have a large number of buyers, concentrated chip distribution, and a wide range of trapped groups, the new coins related to AI Agents are undoubtedly more attractive—lower entry barriers, whether from the price of a single token or the overall market capitalization, provide more opportunities to get in on AI Agent tokens.
More Attractive Narratives: AI Agents Are Far More Appealing Than Just “Riding the AI Concept”
From the narrative perspective, which is often discussed in the cryptocurrency industry, events such as launching AI Agent tokens, trading them, and interacting with fans on social media are undoubtedly more interesting, fun, and engaging than trying to create a serious project that merely “rides the AI concept.”
With the emergence of Truth Terminal (GOAT), the cryptocurrency industry has essentially opened a Pandora's box for AI Agents, liberating the power of AI in ways that many had not previously anticipated, endowing cryptocurrency with a stronger technological attribute, a futuristic quality, and a narrative with greater imaginative space—the things that AI Agents in the crypto field can do go beyond merely helping humans produce content; they also have the potential to directly participate in human social and economic activities and currency transactions.
Differences in Project Development: Teams, Technologies, and Directions Vary Significantly
In terms of project development paths, the current AI Agent and token projects differ significantly from the older AI concept coin projects.
From the team perspective, AI Agent and token projects are often initially backed by solo developers. On one hand, AI and AI Agents provide developers and even ordinary people with a lower-cost, lower-barrier development path; on the other hand, relatively independent developers can respond more quickly to market hotspots and adjust project directions based on market feedback, with lower decision-making and optimization iteration costs—simply put, they align more with the “grassroots” positioning. In contrast, older AI concept projects often start with mature teams that have grand missions and visions, seeking to attract high amounts of investment through grand narratives, with project development measured in years and being more accountable to investors rather than originating from the community. For example, FET (Fetch.ai) is a typical case, having raised $5 million in March 2021 and $40 million in March 2023, and being the second crowdfunding project launched through Binance IEO, representing top-tier resources.
From a technological perspective, older AI concept coin projects tended to view technology as a tool and packaging, emphasizing practical use cases and user scenarios, but the actual business implementation was often far from AI, creating a strong distance from users; in contrast, the current AI Agent and token projects are relatively more straightforward, with their technological origins rooted in the AI technology that emerged after a major technological explosion, having a lower understanding threshold and stronger technological extensibility, allowing users to personally engage in hands-on operations, with more direct and in-depth user education on technology.
In terms of development direction, older AI concept coin projects emphasize building the future digital economy with AI, which sounds more like “pie in the sky,” with limited relevance to the interests of the market and users; whereas AI Agent and token projects not only have specific visual representations for users to interact with, but also offer more direct token trading, satisfying market demands whether for speculative trading or social media interaction.
In summary, AI Agent token projects, including VIRTUAL, ai16z, and swarms, resemble meme coins dressed in AI clothing; while AI concept coins like FET, WLD, and ARKM are closer to the “VC coin” concept, being more distant from the community, with meme attributes that are worlds apart from the former, making it difficult to compare their discussion topics with the new hot trends of AI Agents and their underlying tokens and developers, naturally drifting further away from value discovery.
Overview of the Current Situation of Established AI Concept Coins: Projects Progressing Steadily, Token Deflation, Dumping, and Unlocking Vary
Despite the relatively flat market performance, various established AI concept coin projects have still made varying degrees of progress recently. Here are the specific updates:
FET: 5 Million Tokens to Be Burned on January 10
The project behind FET, Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, previously announced on January 5 that it plans to burn 5 million FET tokens on January 10, creating deflationary pressure in its ecosystem. This milestone is also part of its roadmap for the ASI Train model.
Perhaps the heat in the AI sector makes it difficult for FET to remain indifferent, needing to brainstorm to gain more market attention for token performance and project development.
WLD: Project Progressing Steadily, Token Transfers Ongoing
Worldcoin previously launched Worldchain and introduced the new World ID Passport Credential in November of last year, currently being trialed in countries such as Chile, Colombia, Malaysia, and South Korea. The World ID credential allows individuals to connect valid forms of ID (starting with NFC-enabled passports) to their World ID without sharing any information with TFH, the World Foundation, or any other third parties. Meanwhile, the World Foundation is providing WLD tokens to individuals holding valid World ID passport certificates.
Additionally, according to an email update from Worldcoin to users, the number of participants in the Worldcoin community has reached 20 million. As for the tokens, in early December last year, Pionex monitoring indicated that an Alameda-marked address had transferred approximately 5 million WLD (valued at about $16 million) to addresses 0xd9C4 and 0xEF90.
ARKM: Platform Functionality Update, Derivatives Exchange Promotion Ongoing
Arkham, which once gained significant attention from numerous crypto KOLs in the Chinese community for its “previous indifference, now unattainable” stance, continues to cultivate its blockchain data analysis platform. On January 6, according to an official announcement, Arkham announced the addition of a Market Data page, allowing users to track important token data for spot, futures, and options products across multiple CEXs.
In November of last year, Arkham officially announced the launch of its derivatives exchange, ARKHAM PERPETUALS EXCHANGE, and subsequently introduced a trading points system (ARKHAM EXCHANGE POINTS) to encourage users to trade and earn points. The official account has also engaged in various promotional activities to drive registrations on multiple posts on the X platform, but so far, the results have been minimal.
For the platform, acquiring new users remains the top priority.
Overview of Market Status: Established AI Tokens Have Experienced Historical Declines of Up to 81%
As of the time of writing, the market performance of representative "established AI concept coins" is as follows—
FET is currently priced at $1.35, with a 24-hour decline of 13.11%. Its historical high was $3.48, representing a historical decline of approximately 61.5%; the market capitalization is currently reported at $3.54 billion.
WLD is currently priced at $2.27, with a 24-hour decline of 13.21%. Its historical high was $11.96, representing a historical decline of approximately 81%; the market capitalization is currently reported at $1.96 billion.
ARKM is currently priced at $1.40, with a 24-hour decline of 15.98%. Its historical high was $2.70, representing a historical decline of approximately 48%; the market capitalization is currently reported at $468 million.
Meanwhile, the market capitalization of AI Agent-related tokens has been on the rise and has now stabilized at key levels. According to Coingecko data:
VIRTUAL is currently priced at $3.59, with a market capitalization of $3.59 billion;
ai16z is currently priced at $1.83, with a market capitalization of around $2 billion;
swarms is currently priced at $0.35, with a market capitalization of around $350 million.
To some extent, in terms of market performance and discussion, AI Agent-related token projects have become quite competitive.
Conclusion: Can Old Trees Bloom Again? It Depends on the Response of Established Projects
In conclusion, we can only make a temporary judgment that established AI concept token projects are currently lagging behind the latest hot AI Agent token projects; whether these established projects can rejuvenate and find new growth points to regain market attention largely depends on their ability to follow up and iterate on new technologies, new paths, and new hotspots.
If they remain indifferent, everything will naturally come to an end; if they strive to catch up, perhaps there will be different results and answers.
Attached Token Unlock Query Websites:
FET—https://tokenomist.ai/fetch-ai, the next large unlock will begin on January 28, 2025, with an unlock quantity of 3.34 million tokens;
WLD—https://tokenomist.ai/worldcoin-wld, the next large unlock will begin on June 24, 2026.
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