When you can identify trends, you can quickly invest without too much hesitation.
Author: Tomb
Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow
Key Points of This Post
Review the developments of agents and AI over the past few months;
Review some obvious investment opportunities in the market;
Take a short break during the New Year to observe many things from an outsider's perspective and reflect deeply on past successes and failures;
Next, I will try to clearly share all my thoughts;
Review of the Developments of Agents and AI Over the Past Few Months
AI Agent Review
Very satisfied with the performance at the end of last year.
From September to early October, we entered many narratives about AI, agents, and infrastructure very early.
Without overcomplicating the analysis of these trends, it was clear that these are the next phase of the AI supercycle (there will be more important catalysts in the future).
This mature judgment comes from long-term experience in capturing narratives in the market. When you can identify these trends, you can quickly invest without too much hesitation.
Even now, I still see some people arguing about trivial issues such as the encapsulated applications of ChatGPT, specific functions of certain agents, or a protocol not responding in time.
But are these really important? We are here to make money, not to prove ourselves right.
The key is to be clear about the stage of the market cycle you are in. Every cycle has its unique rules and strategies.
This is also why many people hold onto old projects for too long, missing out on some "simple patterns" of hot trends. What I mean by "old" is not old in the literal sense, but rather "relatively old" compared to the fast pace of industry development.
Remember, new hotspots emerge every day, and the speed of capital flow is increasing—if a team cannot clearly communicate their ideas or present a clear roadmap, capital will flow to those protocols that have better communication skills and can quickly implement projects.
When I first encountered Goat, I realized its potential and paid attention to it very early on—what surprised me was that others took so long to migrate to Base via cross-chain bridges or start exploring agents on Sol.
This phenomenon is largely due to the "Mid Curve Effect" (a way of thinking that overcomplicates) and market panic. If you only realize these issues now, you need to seriously reflect on the reasons.
I am very grateful for the past few months because I did not experience too many serious losses.
I seized the opportunity with ai16z when it had a market cap of 30 million, also entered aixbt at a 30 million market cap, and had some layout opportunities with gaming and conversational projects below 10 million market cap.
Of course, there were also some missed opportunities, such as Zerebro, Fartcoin, Snai, and Swarm Node. But that's okay; it's impossible to seize every opportunity. The important thing is to reflect on why you missed them and why they succeeded.
Quality
As always, quality is the key determinant of success or failure:
High-level developers;
Excellent brand building;
Innovative ideas or unique technologies with competitive advantages;
A cohesive, high-quality community;
Clear and valuable information and communication;
These are the core elements we have always focused on. If two or more of the above are missing, there is a risk. Why? Because there will always be other teams that can do better.
For example, in the current environment of Virtuals, as long as a high-quality team launches AI agents or related infrastructure, I will quickly invest early (i.e., "go all in"). The developers are transparent (doxxed), they have been deeply involved in this field for over 5 years, and have participated in multiple protocols—if I discover such a team early, I will decisively enter.
In fact, you don't even need to invest too much capital to achieve considerable returns. For example, I discovered the GEKKO project when it just started, and its market cap was only 4 million dollars. Because it was developed by the Axal team and received investment from a16z—this was enough for me, so I decisively invested. As a result, it rose from a 4 million market cap to 40 million, yielding very considerable returns. I believe it will continue to grow further. Turning 4,000 dollars into 40,000 dollars is a year's salary for some people. Sometimes, you don't need to invest huge amounts; 2,000 or 4,000 dollars can bring quite considerable returns. Don't underestimate the potential of these funds.
Another project I have been laying out is Acolyt, which has a very strong team and a narrative similar to GEKKO. I have mentioned before that if there are 100 different AI agents that can provide high-quality market intelligence (alpha), then the only things that can distinguish them are identity, user interface (UI), branding, developer level, etc.—this is no different from other areas of life.
This is what I have been looking for: teams that have been focused on building for a long time—those passionate top developers who continuously tweet and keep launching new products. They are the only destination for my funds; I won't consider other places.
Things to Avoid
Avoid single-person development teams with undisclosed identities, especially when building speculative agent projects, as this carries high risks.
Another thing to be wary of is agent projects initiated by individual "influencers." These projects are often abandoned shortly after being announced because the developers realize the responsibilities exceed expectations.
Struggling Narratives
- I have to admit that there are some narratives that I personally have high hopes for, but they have indeed encountered some difficulties in their development. This does not mean these projects are bad, but rather that their progress is relatively slow.
Investing in a seemingly promising project only to find its performance below expectations, while other projects around it achieve 2-3 times growth in a short time, can indeed be frustrating.
These projects often belong to the "slow burn" category or ultimately become "experimental subjects" for other projects.
A few examples include $GRIFT + $REALIS + $OMEGA. I still hold some of these, but in practical terms, I should have cut my losses earlier and shifted my funds to stronger AI infrastructure projects like REI and ARC. The potential of these projects is more obvious, and their performance is more stable.
At that time, I invested about 100,000 to 120,000 dollars in these "experimental" projects, originally expecting them to capture a larger market share. But looking back, projects like Griffain, which are supported by Solana, are clearly stronger, while projects like Realis need more time to mature, possibly because their ideas are too ahead of their time or their team size is small.
Reflecting on this, when you achieve 20-30 times returns on projects like $GAME, you might feel you have enough capital to "test the waters" or take risks, so you don't care too much about putting funds into a slow-progressing project. But in reality, as a trader or investor, we should not treat our funds this way.
In the coming weeks, I will continue to share observations about agents and market operations, while also focusing on the next possible market rotation opportunities. We all know that no narrative can last forever. This does not necessarily mean the narrative of agents has ended, but they may be entering a new stage of development.
Remember, the market is changing very quickly now, almost accelerating in all directions. If you become complacent, you may be eliminated. Pay attention to market dynamics every day, as the "hot potato" is becoming increasingly hot.
Review of Some Obvious Investment Opportunities in the Market
Some market opportunities are very obvious to some people, but not necessarily to others. I won't list all the examples, but I will share some major cases and how I grasped these narratives.
VIRTUALS
When I first saw the GOAT project take off, I was deeply attracted to it. Realizing its potential, I immediately invested. But then, I completely missed the $ZEREBRO and $BULLY projects, which have performed very well to this day. This made me more eager to find the next possible opportunity.
At that moment, I discovered aixbt. When I learned about its functions and positioning, I immediately realized this was the next project worth paying attention to, especially after seeing discussions about $GOAT, $ZEREBRO, and $BULLY in the community. I noticed the market was gradually shifting from entertainment projects to practical projects. This shift is precisely why I began to focus on projects like Base, Virtuals, $GAME, and $CONVO.
In fact, it was Jeff's article about how Virtuals could become a billion-dollar protocol that made me determined. The article mentioned token economics, brand building, and the ecological advantages of the Base chain, further convincing me of Virtuals' immense potential.
By studying $GAME, I was finally able to correctly understand the concept of "frameworks." This knowledge allowed me to seize many excellent investment opportunities in the following weeks. Although I am not a tech geek and cannot fully understand all the details, I am very interested in this field and willing to learn as much as possible.
Interestingly, when the market cap of Virtuals reached 5-6 million dollars, I did not invest in it.
I believe that when you confirm the potential of an ecosystem, such as its potential to grow to a scale of 5 billion, 10 billion, or even 20 billion dollars, you need to focus on two key points: **first is the "pioneers," and second are those *agents* that continuously occupy users' minds.**
For example, $LUNA is a typical pioneer, while $VADER is the first DAO/ALPHA project.
In this ecosystem, there are many projects worth paying attention to. For me, the team is the most critical factor, followed by the concept and practicality, and finally the brand and identity. These three form the "holy trinity."
Here are some excellent projects worth researching:
> $WAI；
> $ACOLYT；
> $SEKOIA ；
> $GEKKO；
These projects are all worth paying attention to, especially those that belong to the Agentstarter ecosystem.
AI16z
It may sound a bit casual, but when I first encountered and promoted daos.fun, I almost invested in AI16z just because of the name. After researching projects like Truth Terminal funded by Marc, I was convinced that this is a project worth paying attention to.
When I learned that the AI16z DAO is attracting top developers from around the world and is committed to accelerating the construction of its ecosystem and framework, I became even more convinced of its immense potential. The activity on GitHub is continuously rising, and the momentum of the entire project is rapidly accumulating, which is certainly not something that "mid-curve thinking" can explain.
Despite some FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) during this period, their test projects in the agent ecosystem, $ELIZA and $DEGENAI, both show great potential. For example, Eliza's market cap has reached 160 million dollars, while @degenspartanai has reached 100 million dollars. With the continued expansion of AI16z, these two projects are expected to grow further—these are very obvious investment opportunities.
Other Ecosystems
In Agentic Outlook One, I analyzed each major Launchpad/protocol and its Alpha agents or Beta projects in detail:
Creator.Bid | $BID (potential dark horse)
Algo | grew from a market cap of 2-3 million dollars to 25 million dollars (an obvious opportunity)
AVA | grew from about 25 million dollars to 150 million dollars
@dasha | grew from 15 million dollars to 150 million dollars
The following ecosystems are also worth paying attention to:
$UOS
$AIMONICA
$STOIC
@MoemateAI | $MATES (coming soon)
We also covered Nebula | $MOE early on, growing from 5 million dollars to 25 million dollars.
Other ecosystems worth noting:
griffain | $GRIFFAIN
Many of these projects have already achieved several times growth.
For a complete analysis, you can check here: link
This list can go on, and the potential of these projects will be even higher—they are all very obvious investment opportunities.
However, I still hold onto some other projects that I believe have potential, such as $GRIFT and $REALIS. I believe they just need more time and some adjustments to perform well.
Here are some projects I haven't had time to analyze in depth, but they are also worth paying attention to:
Among these projects, especially $REI, is worth extra attention.
Outside of the on-chain ecosystem, I am very optimistic about the combination of decentralized finance (DEFI) and agents:
$MODE | Mode, which I believe will be a very promising project.
Another one to look forward to is the further development of Uomi.
Stick to choosing projects with excellent teams, strong infrastructure (Infra), and high attention/heat/mindshare, and you won't go wrong.
For me, the lifecycle of agents is usually short because most projects struggle to maintain market attention for long periods. But in my view, AIXBT and GOAT are successful models and benchmarks in the field of agents.
Why reflect on these?
Because it can help you discover the next investment opportunity.
Notes
Pay attention to some early projects, such as $GNON, $PROJECT89, $AVB, etc.
The market cap of $OPUS has already dropped by 85%, and many early AI projects may have bottomed out.
We need to monitor whether these projects are still actively developing, while also remembering that the potential of AI infrastructure (Infra) and agents is enormous.
New ideas and concepts emerge every week, and these new projects often have stronger teams and better branding, so we need to continuously scan the entire market.
I'm not saying these projects are bad, but I want to emphasize that the speed of market changes is very fast—many traders who have experienced 80-100 times returns will quickly take profits and then turn to the next more attractive opportunity, whether in the fields of swarm intelligence, decentralized science (DeSci), or DEFI agents.
Excellent teams always find ways to keep themselves relevant in the market over the long term.
Finally, here are some trends worth noting:
- There are currently many hackathons taking place, which are giving rise to some very interesting ideas and projects. Participating in these events can not only help you broaden your horizons but also give you a better understanding of future technological trends.
Data sources for AI agents:
Decentralised.Co, in collaboration with Sentient Market；
In the coming days, we can discuss the future development direction of the agent field together, so that we can seize the opportunity when the market narrative changes.
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