Innovative Practices of AI Agents and Cryptocurrency

In this wave of the AI + Crypto project boom, I have been very cautious about the vast majority of projects until I saw Coinbase use an AI agent to send crypto transactions for the first time on the Base Layer 2 network.

I believe this is a milestone event in the application of AI combined with blockchain technology, and I couldn't contain my excitement, writing "A Major Step in the AI + Blockchain Fission" on September 2.

I think it is very likely that in the future, many operations in the crypto network will not be conducted by humans but by AI agents, as I increasingly believe that crypto assets and crypto transactions are tailor-made for AI agents.

However, I haven't fully grasped how AI agents can further unleash their potential in the crypto ecosystem or how crypto assets and technologies can empower AI agents; I can only think and observe.

Later, when I saw ORA (https://www.ora.io/) propose the IMO model, which uses 1CO to finance the development of open-source language models, I began to have expectations for this model (August 21, "Interpreting the New Financing Model of AI: IMO"), but unfortunately, this method has not gained popularity since then.

Subsequently, Truth Terminal initiated the meme coin GOAT through AI agents, which seemed to give me a glimmer of hope—AI agents began to participate in project operations and interactions, which was a significant step beyond Coinbase's mere use of agents to send transactions. Although the project itself is a meme coin with no practical use, this scenario showed us various possibilities for the combination of AI agents and blockchain applications.

While observing GOAT, I noticed Virtuals Protocol (October 31, "'AI Agents' Hunting Memes: Is it the Next Hot Narrative in Web 3?"). It used the 1CO method to finance the construction and development of AI agents and built a platform for financing these projects at https://app.virtuals.io/.

However, at that time, there were not many projects on the platform, just a few sparse ones. Moreover, after looking at some project descriptions, I couldn't see any highlights.

But at least this was another way to use crypto assets to support AI development after IMO.

Unexpectedly, more than a month later, projects on the Virtuals platform began to explode.

Many people regarded the tokens on this platform as meme coins—believing that the projects behind them had no practical value. But I tested several projects' AI agents, and some of them were quite impressive.

Coincidentally, over the weekend, Deep Tide published an interview with the co-founder of Virtuals Protocol, which gave me a deeper understanding of this project.

The link to this interview is at the end of the article, and I recommend everyone to read it carefully.

When I look at any project, my primary focus is on the project's founder, paying attention to their experience, vision, and values. This interview reflects the co-founder's performance in these aspects very well.

I have extracted several impressive excerpts from the interview:

"Regarding AI Agents, we firmly believe that a form called AIRPG will definitely emerge in future game genres."

"I believe the future world will be like this: you will have a virtual world with 100 different AI Agents, each with a different personality. As players, we can go in to date, become hobby enthusiasts, pursue becoming the world's richest person, etc. These AI Agents can make money because they are independent entities with their own wallets. From a productivity perspective, they have cash flow, so we can tokenize them. This is our established overall framework."

"An Agent that wants to become popular may not write songs; it can pay other Agents to write a song; or if it needs cryptocurrency data analysis, it can find another Agent specialized in that area. This forms an Autonomous Agent Economy or Agent Commerce, where Agents can trade with each other because each Agent has its own wallet and can pay service fees to achieve its goals."

"We do not want to become Pump.fun; that is not our profit model. Our KPI is to attract excellent AI developers."

"I believe that in the next four years, after Trump takes office, the United States will become a very crypto-friendly country. And Base is the most 'American' ecosystem in the global ecosystem; no ecosystem is more American than Base. From a strategic perspective, choosing Base is currently the best decision."

"The most important thing about cryptocurrency is freedom; Permissionless is the first principle."

There are many other exciting excerpts in this interview that I won't list one by one.

I strongly resonate with this founder's understanding and vision regarding AI agents, the crypto ecosystem, and many other aspects.

Looking at the progress of Virtuals during this time, the application of financing AI agents through crypto assets is unfolding and accelerating.

Whether this method is feasible still needs further observation. Even if it is feasible, its future may not be smooth sailing; 99% of the projects on the platform may ultimately fail, but as long as one top project can stand out from this method, it would be a great success—Ethereum is the most successful one born from the 1CO model. Just this one case is enough to make 1CO a notable name in history.

Reference link:

https://www.techflowpost.com/article/detail_21958.html