The AI Agent market continues to heat up, with Virtual and AI16Z becoming the dominant players in the field.

In early 2025, the AI Agent market remains hot, with a total market value surpassing $16.9 billion and a week-on-week growth of 22.7%. In this rapidly developing field, Virtuals Protocol and AI16Z have become barometers for observing industry trends.

Virtuals Protocol, as the main AI Agent issuance platform on the Base chain, has a platform token VIRTUAL with a market value exceeding 5 billion USD, ranking among the top 40 cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, in the Solana ecosystem, ai16z, as a venture capital institution managed by AI Agents, has also surpassed a market value of 2.5 billion USD. Although these two protocols have similarities, there are significant differences in their development trajectories.

Development History

Virtuals Protocol: From Gaming Guilds to AI Agent Issuance Platform

Virtuals Protocol originated from the gaming guild PathDAO, established in 2021. The team has gone through a transformation from trading to gaming guilds and then to the AI field. From 2022 to 2023, facing a downturn in the gaming guild market, they experimented with multiple project directions and ultimately recognized the potential of AI. In 2023, the team decided to fully pivot to the AI field, receiving support from 90% of its members.

In 2024, they explored AI Gaming on the Base chain and launched the platform. Although initial success was not as expected, the team made several breakthroughs in the AI field, including the world's first Roblox AI RPG and non-game engine AI games. The virtual streamer Luna, launched on short video platforms, attracts about 5,000 fans daily. Ultimately, the success of the GOAT project provided an excellent development opportunity for the Virtuals Protocol.

AI16Z: From Web 2 AI to Web 3 AI

The founder of AI16Z, Shaw, was initially a game developer before shifting to the AI field, focusing on the development of AI Agent technology. He has extensive experience in Web3 and 3D spatial networks.

The turning point of the project came from the success of the AI version of degen Spartan. This AI's performance on social media has subverted people's stereotypes about AI and sparked widespread discussion. Through communication with industry insiders, Shaw conceived the idea of creating an AI investor, aiming to build a fully autonomous, trustworthy investment system that serves the community.

AI16Z set a fundraising goal of 4,420 SOL at launch, which sold out in just 20 minutes, demonstrating strong market interest in this innovative model.

Product Core

Virtuals Protocol: AI's iOS

Virtuals Protocol serves as an AI Agent issuance platform, functioning similarly to Pump Fun, but trading pairs are based on the platform token $VIRTUAL. The platform establishes common standards for its AI Agent tokens, utilizing the AI Agent framework GAME, emphasizing autonomous operation and learning capabilities.

In the token economy, the Virtuals Protocol empowers VIRTUAL through its Agent project. The platform provides development tools for its AI Agents, ensuring the integrity of the overall ecosystem, and its model is somewhat similar to Apple's iOS.

AI16Z & ELIZA: Android of the AI World

AI16Z is a fund managed autonomously by AI, employing a hybrid strategy that includes AI autonomous operations and community interaction mechanisms. ElizaOS is the open-source framework for AI Agent, emphasizing decentralization, collaboration, and innovation.

The core features of ELIZA include a role profile system, an action system, suppliers, and evaluators. It also has autonomous trading capabilities, ensuring operational security through a trust engine and trust market.

The ELIZA plug-in system has promoted the growth of the developer ecosystem, creating a virtuous cycle. However, in terms of token economics, Eliza is not strongly bound to the ecological protocol, and anyone can use the Eliza framework for development, making its model more similar to Android.

Catalysts Driving Coin Prices

Virtuals Protocol

The business model of Virtuals Protocol is clear, with products closely linked to the token price. To observe the sustainability of the token price increase, one can pay attention to the trading volume of the ecological tokens and the number of tokens issued. The daily issuance of tokens on the platform currently remains in the range of 100-200.

Virtuals Protocol does not pursue the growth of the number of tokens, but is committed to incubating high-quality AI Agent projects. According to data analysis, there are 138 currencies in the Virtuals Protocol ecosystem, with 8 tokens having a market value exceeding 100 million USD, accounting for 33.3% of the AI Agent market, making it the largest ecosystem.

Whether more cryptocurrencies can break the $100 million market cap in the future, and whether the overall ecosystem can maintain its leading position, is key to observing the development of Virtuals Protocol.

AI16Z/Eliza

The overall ecosystem of AI16Z is weakly connected, and projects developed using the Eliza architecture do not directly provide value back to AI16Z/Eliza. This is one of the reasons why AI16Z's current market value is only half of that of Virtual.

AI16Z adopts an open strategy, allowing emerging AI Agent projects to use the ElizaOS architecture as a promotional point. AI16Z enhances brand trust by collaborating with other protocols, with a strategic model similar to "surrounding the city from the countryside".

The continued rise in the market value of AI16Z depends on the depth, speed, and breadth of its collaborations with other protocols. Recently, AI16Z's cooperation with other well-known framework protocols (such as ARC and FXN) has brought new possibilities for future development.