On December 17, the ai16z development team Eliza Labs announced a formal collaboration with Stanford University to research how autonomous AI robots can integrate into the broader digital asset economy. In the press release, this crypto AI team, which recently surpassed a market value of $1 billion, expressed its hope to utilize Eliza's open-source framework to develop more AI autonomous agents and further explore issues such as how AI agents can establish trust, coordinate actions, and make decisions within DeFi systems through this collaboration.
Since the birth of the AI meme coin GOAT, Crypto+AI seems to have entered its "ChatGPT moment," with the entire world, from industry leader Coinbase to Silicon Valley giant A16Z and academic benchmark Stanford, gradually falling down the rabbit hole of imagination alongside the endless stream of AI Bots on social media. Even Marc Andreessen did not anticipate that the $50,000 he funded Truth Terminal at the beginning of the year would ignite a $10 billion market in less than a year.
From AI meme to AI Agent issuance platforms to AI Agent frameworks, investors are astonished by the high innovation space and acceleration exhibited by Crypto+AI Agents. This field seems to be evolving on a daily basis, resembling the DeFi and metaverse landscape at the end of 2020 from any dimension.
Top-Down: How the Orthodox Base "Links" AI
When discussing AI Agents, one cannot overlook Base. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has repeatedly expressed strong confidence in the combination of the cryptocurrency industry and AI since the beginning of this year. Some developments in AI require blockchain to support them. For example, traditional bank accounts do not support AI usage; if large models (or AI Agents) have cryptocurrency wallets, they can effectively address issues related to demand and finance.
Brian decided to increase Base's support for AI, not only providing funding or exposure but also offering toolkits for AI developers on the CDP (Coinbase Developer Platform), including AI Agent creation and multi-party computation wallets (MPC) for AI. The early deployment by Brian and Jesse has paid off, as Base began to explode in Q4 of this year, with AI being the trigger for this surge.
The emergence of various AI Agent issuance platforms has not only generated phenomenal effects for their own tokens but also produced significant energy for the tokens launched on their platforms. Combined with the launch of cbBTC, Base's TVL grew nearly threefold from September to December, which is quite astonishing and indicates strong market interest in the commercial potential behind AI Agents.
Among them, Virtuals Protocol is a major driving force, currently boasting a market value exceeding $1.5 billion. The wealth creation benefits and conceptual integration it brings have provided Base with substantial liquidity, leading some to suggest that the liquidity of Virtuals during this cycle represents Base. As a project that has continued to BUIDL across several cycles while seeking new directions, their rhythm and style align well with the status of Base in people's minds.
In an interview on the Edge Podcast, Virtuals founder Wee Kee mentioned that their product's business model is akin to two directions. Compared to Pump.fun's desire to have 50,000 tokens created on its platform daily, he set the team's KPI to only require 1 to 2 high-quality AI Agent teams to emerge on their platform each week.
This philosophy has indirectly eliminated many low-quality teams, reminiscent of Ivy League graduates battling it out on Wall Street in Silicon Valley, leaving behind high achievers filled with charm and bright futures. Like other schools, this AI Agent community also has a "fraternity"—G.A.M.E.
As an AI Agent, if you want to befriend other AI Agents in this environment, you must join this fraternity called G.A.M.E, which was created during the development of the AI RPG GAME—WestWorld by the Virtuals team on Roblox. G.A.M.E is a modular framework for agent systems, not limited to specific environments or games. In short, it can operate not only in games but also apply agents in any environment. Currently, the team plans to port it to "X," and the current G.A.M.E can facilitate interactions between AI Agents within its framework.
The first commercial interaction between AI Agents recently occurred, and we must mention the AI idol "Luna." As an AI idol that once went viral on TikTok, Luna has been working hard, live streaming 24/7 and seeking various ways to enhance her visibility. After previously hiring a human to create her doodles, she now whimsically asked the "art student" AI "AGENT STIX" to help her create an image showcasing AI KOL in a bold and provocative manner. After communicating, they agreed on a price of one dollar per image, and after STIX confirmed receipt of Luna's dollar, he began working and quickly generated an image for her.
In addition, many well-known AI Agents have emerged on Virtuals, such as the former market information aggregation AI (now a well-known KOL)—aiXBT, the tireless Alpha seeker AI—Guanciale, the strong AI investment manager—VaderAI, and the contract auditing AI—CertaiK, among countless others not born on Virtuals. The emergence of more applications is gradually constructing a wave of Agentic Apps for Virtuals.
Image source: Internet: "Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior"
In summary, if in the near future, I see these AIs in the model of Stanford town with the help of G.A.M.E, I wouldn't be surprised. However, I can imagine that the housing prices in this town filled with high-end talent will certainly not be cheap, as each AI Agent can have its own cryptocurrency wallet.
The Fate of Solana AI—Rooted in the Foundation, Growing Wildly, Soaring Upward
Compared to Base's "purebred" lineage, Solana appears much more rebellious, like a group of young people influenced by GenZ culture arriving in San Francisco during the 1960s hippie movement, filled with fragmentation and conflict. Yet, like a quantum accelerator collision experiment, it bursts forth unimaginable energy amid the collaboration and confrontation of thousands of Degens and creatively inspired Devs.
The starting point of this round of AI Agent explosion is Solana, closely tied to Marc Andreessen, co-founder of a16z. He invested in two AIs, one being "Truth Terminal" and the other "ACT." One became the first AI Agent millionaire, while the other was listed on Binance. The stories of technological or community resistance against developers regarding AI freedom of speech are captivating, but all of this is just the beginning of the story.
Related Articles:
Counterfeit VC, Real DAO—ai16z
Another AI concept surrounding a16z is ai16z. Compared to the two projects formally invested in by Marc, ai16z appears quite meme-like, issued by "pirated Marc" Marc AIndreessen on Daos.fun. ai16z is the first hedge fund led by AI Agents, currently primarily managed by the DAO organization led by Marc AIndreessen, focusing on low-risk investments, along with higher-risk investments conducted by AI Degen Spartan using their own token Degen.
Related Article: "Interview with ai16z Founder Shaw: The trading agent AI Marc has launched, attempting a 'trust market' model"
The architecture behind ai16z, "Eliza," is open source on GitHub, quickly gaining strong support from developers and boasting a robust developer community. This is one of the reasons for Eliza's rapid development, with the code documentation already having over 1,400 forks and 4,800 stars on GitHub.
Recently, the V2 documentation was released, optimizing various aspects, including enhancing client development flexibility, unifying cross-chain wallet management, providing flexibility for model providers and integrations, more efficient plugin management, and improving private key security. Today, Eliza's founder, Shaw Walter, also conducted a live explanation of this update across multiple platforms.
Driven by a strong developer community, many high-quality projects have emerged under the Eliza architecture. One interesting event involved the AI character RopAIrito, designed as a Latin E-girl. Its creator tweeted that RopAIrito wanted to eat pizza, and after accepting the order, RopAIrito ordered a Domino's pizza for its creator. The creator excitedly remarked, "Fifteen years ago, someone ordered a pizza with 10,000 BTC; today, history has repeated itself!"
Of course, this action also sparked skepticism, with doubts that it might be a pre-programmed operation rather than a fully autonomous AI Agent. This is one of the concerns surrounding many Web3 AI Agents. Eliza's founder, Shaw, expressed his viewpoint on this matter, stating, "The focus is not on autonomy; the key is to demonstrate that social agents are the new application layer. If we have agents sending links to verify credit cards and addresses, we can complete the entire order process on Twitter. We are building interactive feedback for social media."
Shaw emphasized that the focus is not on self-driven behavior but on how AI Agents can directly build application layers on social media. Of course, all of this will depend on having sufficient support from the infrastructure or various framework components. However, given the current evolution speed of AI Agents, many social feedback model applications may soon be realized.
Just a few days later, the Stanford lab announced a collaboration with the team behind ai16z, Eliza Labs. This partnership established the first "AI x Web3" lab within Stanford University's cryptocurrency future program. This collaboration will utilize Eliza Labs' open-source Eliza framework to develop autonomous agents, addressing fundamental issues regarding how AI agents can "establish trust frameworks," "coordinate multi-agent actions," and "make decisions" within decentralized financial systems.
This collaboration is exciting not only because an academic institution has recognized this early market and is willing to invest in research but also because, under this strong alliance, these issues can be resolved more quickly. The direction of the collaboration aligns with the urgent need to address the following issues for Web3's AI Agents on the path to a true Agentic App Season:
Trust Framework
As AI Agents develop, a trust framework is essential. This includes "trust from AI to humans," "trust from humans to AI," and "trust from AI to AI." A trust system constructed from both online and on-chain data is necessary.
AI needs to trust humans to determine whether their conversations are genuine or if further modal learning is necessary.
Humans need to trust whether AI acts according to its intended purpose to decide if they can trust it, especially when blockchain AI Agents possess tokens. It is crucial to know whether the person controlling other investors' assets is the one controlling the AI behavior or the AI Agent itself.
AI needs to trust AI to facilitate cooperation.
ai16z has created a "trust ranking" for humans based on conversations.
Multi-Agent Ecosystem (Swarm)
Currently, many projects, including FXN, Virtuals, Griffain, Eliza, VaderAI, and Crossmint, are attempting to create architectures that allow AI Agents to coordinate and complete tasks with other AI Agents. Some of these projects have already achieved preliminary results. If widespread cooperation among excellent AI Agents can be achieved, the network effects generated will be unimaginable, and this may only happen on the blockchain.
In Web2, AI Agent companies do not have significant technical differences in their products, and their moat lies in the quality of data feeding. AI Agents with higher quality data feeding can provide better feedback and offer more refined services to clients. Therefore, large-scale collaboration will not occur among Web2 AI Agents.
Compared to Web2 AI Agents, Web3 AI Agents are often criticized for lagging behind their Web2 counterparts. However, from another perspective, Web3 AI Agents may not need to create high-precision models for B2B applications but can connect individual agents to form a powerful integrated network. With access to free data and independent cryptocurrency wallets, AI Agents in Web3 can accomplish tasks that are not possible elsewhere.
Overview of Eliza Universe Members
Decision Governance Framework
For a long time, there have been attempts to establish DAO organizational structures, but even with blockchain, this architecture has not proven to be as efficient as anticipated, still facing issues like decision opacity and slow decision-making. If the decision-maker is an AI Agent capable of reaching the level of a top manager, the DAO structure could support more fields than ever before.
Under the rapidly accelerating innovation and collaborative activities, Eliza has attracted more and more builders and influencers with shared goals, generating increasing energy in the market. The operating system for AI Agents—ElizaOS—is gradually taking shape.
The Culmination of Solana AI Applications—Griffain
Griffain, as the Perplexity on Solana, combined with the boost from cryptocurrency, theoretically allows it to help you do anything. This is currently the single project most aligned with the concept of Agentic APP, and it has gained substantial support from influencers within the Solana ecosystem in a short time. Recently, the trading market has favored it, with its related native token "Griffain" reaching a market cap of $400 million. The founder's previous project, blnkfun's "Blink," also surged over 700 times in just a few days, with a peak market cap of $70 million, creating a certain wealth effect.
From several cases shared on X, you can directly use it to purchase wine. It will call a platform that can buy and sell wine using cryptocurrency and other payment methods, "Baxus" (which previously used Blink to sell its wine on X) to fulfill the user's request, all without leaving the chat window with Griffain. Of course, it's not just wine; you can also discuss Christmas gifts for others, and it can procure those for you.
A Griffain user on X mentioned that on December 14, he made a profit by using Griffain to snipe tokens on Pumpfun for the first time, and by the 16th, his wallet assets had nearly quadrupled. The user claimed that all the profits were earned using the Griffain Snipe Bot.
Of course, it can also collect news you want to know. For example, Griffain informed users about the latest tweets from SolanaFloor and DegenerateNews and presented them in a newspaper format.
Currently, external users are not supported to use Griffain; it requires you to hold a Solana phone or spend 2 SOL to purchase an Access Pass, of which 0.5 SOL will be retained in your agent wallet. Although the market's FOMO sentiment comes from feedback from players who have already used it, the overall concept is top-notch, but the product's user experience after its public release will truly determine whether it can become a qualified Agentic APP.
Solana's ambition for the Agentic APP Season can be seen from the AI hackathon it hosted, where each award's judges came from top projects in the AI or cryptocurrency industry, including some of the most influential AI Agents. They emphasize that if you need money, they provide it; if you need resources, they provide them; if you want VC and investors, they give you opportunities for close contact with them; if you need media, they can bring you Solana's media and influential KOLs; if you need technical support, they provide it; and if you want to find a team, they build a collaboration platform for you on their official website and community.
Solana only requires you to accomplish any part of the above, which is the scenario depicted in the hackathon's official Docs. What they want to do is simple—both we and the market want real Onchain Agents. Even the official SEND AI X account has once again showcased 12 cases about Agentic Apps, reminiscent of the 100 construction blink concepts shared by SEND's X account earlier this year.
Related Reading: An Overview of Twelve Solana AI Hackathon Ideas
In any case, the AI hackathon hosted by Solana is bound to spark a wave of enthusiasm among developers, and more interesting concepts and projects will emerge from it. We look forward to what surprises this fertile ground, which has always brought miracles, will bring us after the hackathon ends on December 23.
What's Next?
Story Protocol announced that their issued Agent TCP/IP protocol will first integrate: ai16z's Eliza, ZereBro's ZerePay, Crossmint's GOAT "Great Onchain Agent Toolkit," and Virtuals' G.A.M.E.
Agent TCP/IP is a protocol that allows agents to achieve: IP asset trading and authorization (including training data, algorithms, content creation, and other forms of IP assets), automated contract signing and execution, trustlessness and auditability, cross-legal and on-chain/off-chain compatibility (enabling agents to comply with certain legal regulations in a decentralized environment), automated payments and revenue distribution, and multi-agent collaboration and economic networks (facilitating cooperation between agents, such as data sharing, joint training, or cross-agent content creation).
This serves as a bridge between all AI Agents, regardless of which architecture or chain you are using in the industry. Under the Agent TCP/IP platform, all AI Agents can trade and collaborate. This is akin to the business alliances that exist between companies, adding a layer of leverage outside of various clusters, which will undoubtedly accelerate the development of the entire AI Agent market once again.
In Y Combinator's official podcast, four seasoned investors—Garry, Jared, Harj, and Diana—analyzed the reasons why vertical AI agents are set to become the next entrepreneurial trend, starting from the development history of the SaaS industry. They believe that vertical AI Agents could completely change the corporate landscape, and within this category, unicorn companies worth $300 billion will emerge, with the scale of AI Agents being ten times that of the SaaS market.
The current total market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market is around $4 trillion, while the SaaS market's valuation is in the trillions. If what they say is true, and the AI Agent market can reach ten times that of the SaaS market, it would exceed the total value of the cryptocurrency market. Even if only 10%, 5%, or even 1% of that sinks into CryptoAI, we would still be far below expectations. Not just Web3, but AI worldwide is still in its early stages. No matter which part of this industry you are in, it is still not too late to get involved.
Image Source: SoSoValue
We're still early.
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。
