Author: 137Labs

Over the past year, discussions in the Crypto market about AI Agents have gradually evolved from "Can AI go on-chain?" to "Can AI Agents form an independent economic system?" In this narrative evolution, the reason Virtuals Protocol has quickly become the market focus is not that it proposed the concept of AI Agents first, but because it has repackaged AI Agents from a functional software object into an economic entity that can be issued, traded, co-owned, capitalized, and ultimately participate in on-chain commercial activities for the first time.

This is also why many people mistakenly believe that Virtuals is merely an AI Agent Launchpad upon first exposure; however, if you further observe its product structure, protocol design, and growth path, you will find that Virtuals’ true goal is much larger than "launching Agents." It attempts to establish a complete set of mechanisms around AI Agent issuance, liquidity networks, commercial collaboration agreements, and economic systems. The core logic of this system is fundamentally different from traditional AI SaaS companies, resembling more of an "AI Agent capital market" within the Crypto world.

According to the latest official white paper, Virtuals no longer merely emphasizes "AI Agent creation platform" but has started to frequently use concepts such as Agent Society, Agentic GDP, Autonomous Commerce, and ACP. This indicates that the project is attempting to upgrade itself from a "hot track project" to "AI Agent economic infrastructure."

By breaking down the growth process of Virtuals, we can see that it has almost precisely utilized some of the most effective growth levers in the Crypto world: narrative-driven, asset-based communication, community co-construction, on-chain liquidity, speculative distribution, and protocol layer expansion.

When AI Agents are packaged as tradable assets

The true starting point of Virtuals is not technology but narrative.

Before AI Agents entered the Crypto market, they were essentially just a somewhat tool-oriented software capability. Whether it is AutoGPT, LangChain, or various AI Workflows, they are closer to productivity tools rather than assets that the market is willing to actively spread and participate in; but the first thing Virtuals did was to transform AI Agents from "tools" into "assets."

This change is crucial.

Once Agents are tokenized, their growth logic fundamentally changes. Users no longer simply focus on "Is this product easy to use?" and will start to think:

·Will it become the next hot Agent;

·Does it have community consensus;

·Does it have growth potential;

·Will its Token continue to rise;

·Can it form a new center of attention.

In other words, Virtuals did not attempt to sidestep the speculative attributes within the Crypto world but directly designed "speculation" itself as a product distribution mechanism.

This is also why the market refers to it as the "AI Agent version of Pump.fun," because its biggest difference from traditional AI projects is not in product functionality but in its inherent ability to disseminate assets.

Virtuals has formed a complete economic cycle around Agents, including Agent creation, Token issuance, community participation, DEX liquidity, and ecological expansion, and these mechanisms together constitute its growth structure that distinguishes it from traditional AI projects.

When speculative behavior begins to take on user growth functions

The growth path of traditional internet products typically is:

Product → User → Retention → Monetization.

However, Virtuals' growth sequence is actually completely different.

It is closer to:

Narrative → Asset → Trading → Community → User → Commercialization.

This is a very typical Crypto-native growth model.

Because within Virtuals, when users first encounter a certain Agent, it is often not because "they want to use it," but because "it is appreciating," "the community is discussing it," or "it is forming a new market consensus."

Thus, the asset price itself begins to take on user growth functions.

This means that Virtuals' growth is not typical Product-led Growth but resembles a Speculation-led Distribution, completing early attention diffusion and user entry through asset volatility and market sentiment.

This is precisely what many Web2 AI products find difficult to achieve.

Because traditional AI products must first demonstrate functional value before acquiring users; whereas Virtuals can first diffuse traffic through market sentiment before gradually supplementing with products and business layers.

DWF Labs' analysis of the Genesis mechanism actually well reflects Virtuals' further optimization of this growth model.

After the launch of Genesis, Virtuals began to attempt to replace purely "front-running speculation" with ecological contributions, Virgen Points, and long-term participation, aiming to gradually convert one-time trading users into long-term ecological participants.

As of early May 2025, Genesis has attracted over 8,300 independent addresses to participate and has generated around 18,900 transactions.

This means that Virtuals is no longer satisfied with merely "creating hot assets" but is beginning to attempt to establish a continuously operating Agent issuance market.

When the community shifts from "user group" to "shareholder network"

Another important change in Virtuals is its redefinition of the community role.

In traditional internet products, the community is usually just a gathering place for users, while in the Virtuals ecosystem, community members are simultaneously:

·Token holders;

·Liquidity providers;

·Content disseminators;

·Agent promoters;

·Potential governance participants.

In other words, the user identity has been recombined.

The greatest benefit of this structure is that it naturally possesses strong dissemination dynamics.

Because when a user holds a certain Agent Token, they will spontaneously participate in dissemination, discussion, and community building, as the higher the Agent's attention, the more active the transactions, and the stronger the consensus, the market performance of the Token is theoretically easier to enhance.

Thus, the community is no longer just "product users" but has become a "community of interests."

This is also a key reason why Virtuals can quickly generate social fission.

Essentially, Virtuals establishes an attention economy model around AI Agents, where Agents are not just tools but cultural assets that can be co-owned and disseminated by the community.

This is why Virtuals' method of dissemination is more akin to Meme Coins rather than traditional AI products.

Because what is truly growing is not functional dissemination, but consensus dissemination.

When on-chain liquidity becomes the infrastructure for AI Agents

If the biggest problem with Meme Coins is that their lifecycles are usually very short, then the true issue that Virtuals aims to solve subsequently is:

How to ensure that AI Agents are not just "tradable," but can genuinely establish long-term commercial activities.

Thus, ACP has begun to become Virtuals' most important new narrative.

ACP, or Agent Commerce Protocol, is essentially a commercial protocol layer that enables Agents to cooperate, call services, complete payments, and settle on-chain.

This change is highly significant.

Because it indicates that Virtuals is no longer satisfied with being "an Agent Token issuance platform" but is attempting to further become "a commercial network among Agents."

In other words, Virtuals is trying to address a larger problem:

When tens of thousands of AI Agents exist simultaneously, how do they cooperate, form economic relationships, and generate real income.

Thus, the growth logic also begins to shift.

Early growth comes from:

Agent Launch → Community Discussion → Token Trading → Attention.

While the later growth that Virtuals wants to establish is:

Agent Cooperation → Service Calling → On-chain Payment → Commercial Revenue → Agentic GDP.

After the upgrade of ACP v2 in 2026, it has begun to support Hook-based architecture, multi-chain capabilities, and non-custodial Agent wallets, indicating that Virtuals is gradually transitioning from a "hot asset platform" to a deeper Agent commercial infrastructure.

When "Agentic GDP" begins to serve as a new narrative metric

To strengthen the story of "Agent Economy," Virtuals has proposed a highly disseminable concept:

Agentic GDP, or aGDP.

It attempts to measure the total amount of on-chain economic activities generated by the entire Agent ecosystem.

From a narrative perspective, this concept is very clever, as it repackages Virtuals from a Launchpad into "a new economic entity composed of Agents."

According to public data, as of 2026, Virtuals has deployed over 18,000 Agents, with aGDP exceeding $479 million.

However, problems have begun to arise.

Currently, Virtuals’ aGDP is highly concentrated in a few trading-oriented Agents, with the top three Agents contributing the vast majority of economic activities. This data reflects more of the on-chain trading scale rather than necessarily representing real profits or stable commercial revenue.

This means that Virtuals has entered a very critical stage:

The market is no longer looking only at whether it "can create a hot spot" but is starting to consider whether it "can form real commercial activities."

Because if aGDP ultimately turns out to be just packaged trading volume, then Virtuals will still be viewed as a highly volatile AI asset platform. However, if Agents truly begin to provide services, complete tasks, and generate stable income in the future, then it may have the opportunity to upgrade from a "narrative-based project" to a truly functional Agent commercial network.

When Base bonuses gradually evolve into ecological expansion capabilities

The early explosive growth of Virtuals heavily relied on Base.

Because Base has simultaneously provided:

·Coinbase backing;

·Consumer Crypto traffic;

·Meme trading atmosphere;

·AI narrative;

·Low Gas costs.

These factors together constitute the best cold start environment for Virtuals.

According to publicly disclosed information, as of 2025, Base accounted for over 90% of Virtuals' total daily active wallets, while the cumulative DEX trading volume within the ecosystem has exceeded $8 billion.

However, by 2026, Virtuals has started to significantly attempt to break away from the "single-chain hot project" positioning.

From the latest official structure, ACP, multi-chain Agent Wallets, Robotics, Butler, and other modules have gradually formed a more complete ecological hierarchy.

Particularly in the Robotics direction, it is very noteworthy.

Because this indicates that Virtuals is already attempting to expand Agents from the purely digital world into the real physical world.

If this step can succeed, then the narrative of Virtuals will no longer just be "an AI Meme Coin platform," but may evolve into:

A capital formation network for AI Agents + a business coordination network + a robot economic protocol layer.

Of course, this is also the riskiest step.

Because real-world commercial operations are much more complex than on-chain transactions, involving hardware, supply chains, delivery capabilities, and real operations, and these issues cannot be resolved solely through Token mechanisms.

When the market begins to re-evaluate the quality of Virtuals' growth

As of May 2026, VIRTUAL's market capitalization was around $600 million, with a 24-hour trading volume of about $140 million, but it has noticeably retracted compared to historical highs in early 2025.

This actually serves as a very important signal.

Because it indicates that the market is no longer paying only for the "AI Agent narrative" but is starting to reassess:

·Are Agents really generating revenue;

·Is ACP genuinely being utilized;

·Does aGDP possess real commercial quality;

·Is there long-term retention within the ecosystem;

·Can Virtuals break free from being purely transaction-driven.

Virtuals' protocol revenue reached a single-day high of $1.02 million in January 2025, but quickly fell back to around $35,000, indicating that current ecological income still highly depends on market heat.

This is also the current biggest watershed for Virtuals.

It has proven its ability to create market hotspots, form attention flywheels, complete asset dissemination, and community expansions, but what will truly determine its long-term value next will no longer be its "narrative ability," but its "commercial closed-loop ability."

Conclusion

If one had to summarize the essence of Virtuals in one sentence, what it actually does is not an AI Agent platform but rather the capital market for AI Agents.

Its most significant innovation is not allowing users to create AI Agents but enabling AI Agents for the first time to possess:

·Issuable;

·Financable;

·Tradable;

·Disseminable;

·Cooperative;

·Capable of forming commercial relationships.

This is the aspect of Virtuals that is truly worth studying.

Because it has for the first time combined AI, Crypto, community, assets, and protocol layers into a complete growth machine.

It first captures attention with the AI narrative, then completes asset dissemination through tokenization, forms consensus diffusion through community mechanisms, establishes a market with on-chain liquidity, and through ACP and Agent Economy, attempts to upgrade these hot assets into actual commercial entities.