Author of this article: ABC Alpha DAO Researcher

Since January 27, when DeepSeek became popular worldwide due to its low-cost training model, global AI concept stocks have experienced panic selling, with Nvidia's stock plummeting by 17%. The Crypto Agent sector has not been spared either; as of today, the overall market value of the Crypto Agent sector has dropped from $12 billion to below $6 billion. Most blue-chip Agent tokens, such as Virtual, Ai16Z, ARC, Griffain, Aixbt, FAI, and others, have seen declines of over 70%, with many Agent concept tokens dropping by more than 90%.

Currently, there is a pervasive sense of pessimism surrounding the Agent sector, with many people outright denying its viability, believing that Crypto Agent is merely a short-term speculative concept, and that the bubble has completely burst.

Will the Agent sector, like NFTs in 2022 and inscriptions in 2023, never recover from this setback?

Is the Agent sector, which was once highly anticipated by the industry just a month ago, really going to perish in its infancy before it has a chance to grow?

I have been closely following the development of the Agent sector and have previously articulated my views on the development and future of Crypto Agent, so I will not elaborate further here. My stance on the Agent sector remains unchanged: Crypto Agent is a major sector with long-term growth potential. This sector will develop in parallel and in conjunction with the traditional AI industry, ultimately leading to the emergence of unique Agents in the Crypto field. Therefore, Crypto Agent is by no means a short-term speculative concept, nor will it be a fleeting phenomenon like NFTs and inscriptions. After a brief period of adjustment, the Crypto Agent sector will quickly recover. Crypto Agent remains the most noteworthy sector to watch in 2025.

To determine whether a Crypto sector has long-term growth value, I believe we only need to answer three questions:

1. Does the sector truly solve problems and create value?

2. Does Crypto play an irreplaceable role in this sector?

3. Is there a continuous influx of talent and capital into this sector?

In the following sections, we will explore these three questions to discuss whether Crypto Agent possesses long-term growth value and ultimately answer whether Crypto Agent is a super sector worth long-term attention.

1. What problems does Crypto Agent solve, and what value does it create?

The essence of an Agent is that it acts as a proxy, meaning that Agents replace humans in completing a series of tasks or specific jobs, substituting for more costly human labor, and can perform better and more efficiently than humans. Therefore, the value that Agents provide in various fields primarily revolves around cost reduction and efficiency enhancement. Thus, the greatest value of Agents in the Crypto field will also be cost reduction and efficiency enhancement.

For example, in the field of scientific paper auditing, Agents can replace humans in correcting scientific papers, often doing so more accurately, quickly, and at a lower cost. #YNE is a very successful case;

In the field of investment research and analysis, Agents can replace research personnel in conducting investment analysis, with #AIXBT and #REI being excellent examples;

In the field of brand marketing, Agents can replace humans in providing continuous 24/7 brand exposure and community interaction, with #Luna being a great case;

In the DeFi field, Agents can replace humans in making smarter and more rational financial decisions, and they can significantly lower the entry barriers to DeFi, thereby attracting more capital into the DeFi space. This has led to the emergence of the DeFAI sub-sector, although I prefer to refer to it as DeFi Agent applications. Here, #Buzz is a good example.

In the SaaS field, the application of Agents involves using Agents to replace programmers in app deployment, essentially disrupting the current SaaS landscape. This is one of the largest application directions for Agents, and this statement is not mine; it is the original words of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (“I think the notion of business applications might go away in the era of intelligent agents.”). In the Crypto field, #Griffain is a great example.

The examples above are all focused on specific applications of Crypto Agents. Although the current applications of Crypto Agents are not perfect and may not be sufficiently intelligent (traditional Agent applications are similarly flawed), human AI technology is rapidly advancing, and training costs are significantly decreasing. The large-scale application and popularization of Agents is merely a matter of time. Moreover, Crypto Agent applications can quickly iterate and upgrade, further enhancing their cost-reduction and efficiency-boosting capabilities.

Of course, in addition to Crypto Agent applications, the underlying infrastructure for Crypto Agents is also very important, such as various Agent frameworks like Virtual, ARC, Ai16Z, ALCH, etc. Infrastructure like #REI and #FAI, which explore the deep integration of Crypto and Agents, is also worth attention.

In summary: The essence of an Agent is that it acts as a proxy, and its value lies in cost reduction and efficiency enhancement. The problem that Crypto Agent applications solve is to use smarter Agents to replace humans in work, providing the same value of cost reduction and efficiency enhancement, while the tokens issued by Agents will also serve as a cost of application within the ecosystem.

2. Does Crypto play an irreplaceable role in the Agent sector?

In the early days of the Crypto Agent boom, I wrote about the relationship between Crypto and Agents, as well as the future of Crypto Agent development. The original article can be found here: https://x.com/ABCAlphaDAO/status/1875429038719955189

The core argument of the article is that Crypto is not only the currency of AI but also the infrastructure that supports the identity, asset accounts, and asset settlement needs of Agents (silicon-based beings). Agents without Crypto would lose their independent and trustworthy social attributes. The development of Agents is inseparable from Crypto, and Agents will become the largest service recipients of Crypto.

Here, I will briefly summarize three points:

1. In the future, mainstream Agents will extend in two major directions: one is Agent applications controlled by individuals or companies, which will serve as tools for humans, existing at the behest of human will. The other direction is Agents built on Crypto that establish identity and account systems, which will be more independent and autonomous, possessing free social relationships and business networks, bringing them closer to "silicon-based beings." Therefore, these Agents must be constructed based on Crypto, which provides them with identity and asset account systems based on private keys, as no sovereign nation or organization will grant these Agents a borderless identity, except for Crypto.

2. Agents will become the largest user group of Crypto, and in turn, Agents will help Crypto thrive even more. In the future, the number of on-chain Agents will surpass that of human users. Crypto and Agents will long depend on each other and achieve mutual success.

3. The current consensus in the mainstream AI industry is that relying solely on feeding data and computational power to large models cannot produce true AI wisdom. Allowing Agents based on large models to mimic human interactions—enabling independent and autonomous interactions between Agents—relies on emergence to generate wisdom, which is currently a highly anticipated direction for AI exploration and a pathway toward AGI. Given this backdrop, truly independent and autonomous Agents must be built on Crypto; thus, Crypto will play a long-term and irreplaceable role in humanity's exploration of AI.

In summary: Crypto is the infrastructure that enables Agents to have independent and autonomous identities and account systems, and it is a necessary infrastructure. The number of on-chain Agents will surpass that of real human users, and Crypto and Agents will depend on and achieve success with each other. Crypto will play a long-term and irreplaceable role in humanity's exploration of AI development.

3. Does the Agent sector have a continuous influx of talent and capital?

It is well known that Agents are not a concept unique to the Crypto industry but rather the most mainstream development direction in the global AI industry today. The prevailing consensus is that 2025 will be the year of Agents, and in the next 5-10 years, Agents will experience sustained explosive growth.

Although DeepSeek's low-cost training model has had a significant short-term impact on the AI industry, especially the AI chip sector, these are all short-term effects. According to Jevons' Paradox (technological efficiency improvements stimulate demand), after the shock of DeepSeek, the AI and Agent fields will welcome even larger-scale explosions and growth.

This is because the cost of AI training has drastically decreased, and the research and development costs of Agents have also dropped exponentially, which will greatly promote the explosion and popularization of Agent applications, allowing many ordinary households to use Agents on a large scale. Just like the reduction in smartphone production costs significantly increased global internet access rates, further promoting the development of the mobile interactive web economy.

Similarly, the continuous development of the mainstream Agent industry will provide ongoing creativity and developmental nutrients for Crypto Agents, and the Crypto Agent market will long enjoy the spillover benefits of the mainstream AI industry's growth.

Moreover, the more free and efficient asset issuance and fundraising methods in Crypto will continue to attract outstanding AI entrepreneurs from around the world into the Crypto field, allowing the Crypto Agent sector to continuously absorb talent and capital overflow from the traditional AI industry.

By 2025, we will see more and more talented professionals in the AI field entering the Crypto space, which will bring a continuous influx of talent and capital into the Crypto Agent sector, thereby propelling the entire sector to surpass a scale of $100 billion.

Conclusion:

This article explores whether the Crypto Agent sector possesses long-term growth potential from three dimensions, examining the interaction between Crypto and Agents, as well as the impact of mainstream AI industry development on the Crypto Agent sector. The conclusion drawn is that Crypto Agent meets the criteria for long-term growth potential. Once the Crypto market stabilizes and the impact of DeepSeek subsides, Crypto Agent will quickly recover and usher in a long-term explosive growth phase. As stated before, Crypto Agent remains the sector to watch in 2025 and throughout this bull market.

Risk Warning:

This article represents the personal views of the ABC Alpha researcher, and all opinions and reasoning are based on personal knowledge and judgment. The Agent tokens mentioned in the article do not constitute investment advice. The Crypto market is a highly volatile industry; please make investment judgments based on personal understanding.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。