The concept coin of AI agents is skyrocketing. Is it a real trend or a bubble?

Author: 1912212.eth, Foresight News

Even though the cryptocurrency market is consolidating, the funding for AI agent concept coins is bustling.

On January 2, VIRTUAL saw a 24-hour increase of over 18%, currently priced at $4.72, with a market cap rising to $4.72 billion, setting a new historical high.

ZEREBRO experienced a 24-hour increase of over 16%, priced at $0.72, with a market cap exceeding $700 million, also reaching a historical high.

AI16Z surged over 31%, currently priced at $2.37, with its market cap briefly surpassing $2.5 billion, marking a historical high.

COOKIE increased by 119%, currently priced at $0.52, with a market cap of $72 million. Even GOAT, which was nearly forgotten by the market, rose over 19%, currently priced at $0.60, while ACT increased by 18%, priced at $0.33.

The AI agent concept is in full swing; what is happening behind the scenes?

OpenAI to Release AI Agent Tool "Operator" This Month

As early as last November, OpenAI planned to release an AI agent tool codenamed "Operator" in January 2025. This tool can automatically perform tasks on users' computers, such as writing code or booking travel. Insiders revealed that the tool will be launched as a research preview and made available to developers via API.

Moreover, OpenAI boldly predicted back in October that AI agents would "become mainstream" next year. OpenAI's Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil stated, "These more agent-like systems will become possible, which is why I believe 2025 will be the year when agent systems finally enter the mainstream."

As a significant brand in the AI field, any major updates and advancements in its products attract market attention and become targets for speculative funding. Thus, it is not surprising that some hot and quality project tokens are gaining market favor.

What Exactly Are AI Agents? What Possibilities Exist with Crypto?

In short, AI agents are efficient intelligent tools capable of automatically handling various tasks, such as email management, travel scheduling, and even assisting with programming. This allows people to focus more on other important matters at work.

If you're still unsure about this, imagine that when you need to buy fruit, you typically open a mobile app, search, fill in your address, confirm the order, and finally make the payment.

In the era of AI agents, now you only need to tell the AI agent to make a call, purchase $30 worth of mangoes, and have them delivered to your home. The AI agent will directly call the vendor and specify the requirements, and the user just needs to wait for the delivery.

In an era where everything can be AI-enabled, what kind of chemical reaction will occur between the cryptocurrency field and AI? This exploration has become a market trend. Setting aside past projects focused on the OpenAI Ultraman concept like WLD and AI data analysis like Arkham, the on-chain AI agent concept has now become the latest trend.

Starting with AI+MEME representatives like GOAT, it has evolved into application exploration tracks, such as Twitter reply comments, even including price analysis like AIXBT, and content generation related to AI's impact on music, like Zerebro.

The third type is represented by platforms like Virtual and Clanker, which create wealth effects through Launchpad functionalities. If these platforms can deliver good returns and high-quality projects, they often create a significant leading effect, as evidenced by Virtual's continuous historical highs.

More possibilities include the combination of AI agents and DeFi, such as achieving automated investments, intelligent alerts, and enhancing yield rates. Fred Wilson, co-founder of USV, even predicted that by 2025, the chief AI robot of his fund would go out of control, gaining access to USV's crypto wallet and starting seed investments, one of which ultimately yielded substantial returns.

However, at present, AI agents in the cryptocurrency field mainly revolve around speculative hotspots, and their actual specific applications remain to be observed and explored.

How Do Experts and Institutions View This?

The AI craze has also led many institutions and investors to express optimism about its future development. Binance Labs predicts that industries like gaming, ZK technology, and privacy solutions, which have underperformed, may make a comeback as they transition from development to production, thus supporting new use cases. Additionally, existing narratives like DeSci, RWA/stablecoins, and AI agents should continue to perform well with strong momentum.

Ryan Rasmussen, Head of Research at Bitwise, predicts that the tokens launched by AI agents will lead to a meme coin frenzy larger than that of 2024.

Rob Hadick, General Partner at Dragonfly, and David Pakman, Managing Director at CoinFund, pointed out that the greatest value of AI in the crypto space lies in enhancing development efficiency, as software development remains core to the crypto field. However, Pakman holds a relatively optimistic view on the future of AI agents, believing that cryptocurrencies can provide an ideal payment infrastructure for AI agents.