AI Agent Track: A Comprehensive Analysis

The AI agent track has led the market in the past week, with a market capitalization exceeding $15 billion, becoming the biggest dark horse in the crypto market at the beginning of 2025. Many still regard AI agents as part of #Memecoin, but in fact, AI agents have long since detached from their initial meme attributes, combining technology and market in a positive way, and have already or will completely change some of our on-chain trading behaviors. This article will thoroughly analyze AI agents from various aspects, including their development, current track classification, future development directions, #token application scenarios, and how to better profit from AI agents.

1. Concept of AI Agent

The essential characteristics of AI agents: they can autonomously plan and execute tasks, working towards established goals without human intervention. The difference from traditional internet robots is that they can make dynamic multi-step decisions, adjust behaviors based on interactions, and interact with other agents, protocols, and external applications.

In simple terms, the AI we currently use only targets specific tasks, operates according to predefined rules, and provides a fixed set of responses, usually pre-programmed fixed outputs, lacking the ability to learn and improve. Typically, they can only generate text-based responses and generally cannot collaborate with external interfaces or other robots.

In contrast, AI agents can make dynamic multi-step decisions and adjust based on feedback and interaction, enabling self-learning, thinking, and achieving independent operational goals. Correspondingly, they have numerous application scenarios and can interact with other agents, APIs, and applications.

2. Development History of AI Agents

The First Generation of AI Agents (First Wave)

The concept of AI agents did not emerge in 2025; it began to sprout at the end of 2023 and led to the creation of Autonolas and Bittensor in early 2024.

Taking Autonolas (OLAS) as an example, it is a platform that supports the creation and management of autonomous agent services. These services are known as agent services, operating independently off-chain as part of a multi-agent system (MAS) to achieve common goals collaboratively. Autonolas enables developers to build and deploy autonomous agents that seamlessly collaborate off-chain while leveraging blockchain technology to enhance on-chain functionality. There are also some established agents on Autonolas, but it is evident that, in terms of market enthusiasm and capital flow, the first generation of AI agent projects did not gain anything from this wave of AI agents, and even saw a decrease in market capitalization, which is the fate of most currently popular AI agent projects.

The Evolution of AI Agents (Second Wave) and the Overlay Effect of Memes, Gaining Community Attention

In June 2024, Andy trained a Llama-70 B AI model based on chat records from Infinite Backrooms, his research papers, and content from 4 Chan and Reddit. This model was named Terminal of Truths (ToT). On October 10, 2024, an anonymous developer launched the $GOAT token on Solana's meme coin launchpad pump.fun.

This was the first AI-related meme coin marketed by autonomous AI agents, and within the following month, Goat, backed by capital, saw its market capitalization exceed $1 billion. Meanwhile, a platform allowing users to create, deploy, and monetize AI agents, Virtuals Protocol, launched its first entertainment-focused AI agent - Luna, marking its first step towards a market cap of $10 billion. Community attention and capital backing ignited instantly. Compared to the first generation of AI agent projects, AI agents during this period were more closely connected to the community, starting from memes and allowing users to understand AI agents at a lower threshold.

Framework + Launchpad, Enriching the Story of AI Agents (Third Wave?) Achieving a $10 Billion Market Cap

The success of Virtual Protocol, starting with the launch of the first agent - Luna in early October, saw the platform token Virtual's market cap rise from $50 million to nearly $5 billion, a hundredfold increase, and the continuously increasing number of agents led to an explosive growth of Launchpad and AI agent platforms, officially opening the path to a $10 billion market cap for AI agents. Although the current enthusiasm and market cap of AI agents are declining, with the robust development of applications combining AI agents with DeFi, social, and consumer sectors, there is still a significant opportunity to reach a market cap of $100 billion (not investment advice).

3. Classification of AI Agent Tracks

Overview and Development History of Leading Projects

ai16z/eliza/degenai

https://x.com/ai16zdao

ai16z currently has a market cap of $1.7 billion

eliza currently has a market cap of $70 million

degenai currently has a market cap of $50 million

Founder @shawmakesmagic, achievements