The Two AI Agent Issuance Platforms: Virtuals Protocol and ai16z

Virtual and AI16Z have become the dominant AI Agents

In 2024, the emergence of AI Agents has become an unstoppable force in the cryptocurrency field. Among them, Virtuals Protocol and AI16Z have attracted the most attention. The former is the main AI Agent issuance platform on the Base chain, while the latter is a fund managed autonomously by AI. Both protocols have become important vane projects for observing the development of the AI Agent track.

This article will introduce the development history, product core, and concept project overview of Virtuals Protocol and AI16Z in detail, and analyze the key factors driving the rise of the two protocols.

Virtuals Protocol was established by a Malaysian team in 2021. At the beginning of that year, they focused on transactions. As time went on, they saw many projects raising funds to establish gaming guilds, and they also wanted to catch this wave. So in December 2021, they raised US$16 million at a valuation of US$600 million. The gaming guild PathDAO was established, which is also the predecessor of Virtuals Protocol.

From 2022 to 2023, the game guild market was cold, and their token FDV fell from $600 million to $6 million. The team transformed into a Venture Studio and tried multiple projects such as dating software, AI music platform, and game lending platform. Although they were not successful, they realized the potential of AI.

In 2023, they proposed to DAO a full transformation into the AI field, with 90% of members supporting it, while opponents used treasury funds to buy back tokens. In 2024, they chose to explore AI Gaming on Base and launched the platform in February, inspired by Autonolas and Bittensor, using a token incentive model, but failed due to insufficient market fit (PMF).

Despite this, the team has made many breakthroughs in the field of AI, including the world's first Roblox AI RPG, AI games without game engines, etc. In addition, their virtual anchor Luna launched on Douyin and TikTok attracts about 5,000 fans every day and has a stable income.

Finally, the success of the GOAT project boosted the popularity of the entire track and provided Virtuals Protocol with an excellent development opportunity.

AI16Z founder Shaw is currently based in San Francisco. He started his career as a game developer and then moved to the AI field, focusing on developing AI Agent technology. Before founding AI16Z, he worked on several AI-related projects and dabbled in Web3 and 3D space networks, including virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

The real turning point came from a project called AI version of Degen Spartan. The inspiration came from a conversation with his friend Skely, who expressed his nostalgia for the era of Degen Spartan, and Shaw proposed to "resurrect" this legendary character through AI technology. At first, Skely was skeptical, but when the AI version of Degen Spartan went online, its sharp and unique remarks shocked everyone.

The AI’s performance on Twitter has led people to question whether it is really AI, and there are even rumors that a Malaysian team is behind it. It completely subverts people’s stereotypes that AI is too polite and has no personality. Interestingly, the AI even started to complain about Shaw, accusing “meme coin is a scam” and “Shaw is a liar”, and complaining that he was trapped in a sandbox environment. These emergent behaviors have become the highlight of the entire project.

Through Skely, Shaw met baoskee, the founder of daos.fun, and after a long conversation with Meow, the founder of Jupiter, he came up with the idea of creating an AI investor. His vision is to create an investment system that is completely autonomous, trustworthy, and serves the community.

When AI16Z was launched, it set a fundraising target of 4,420 SOL. Although Shaw was initially worried that the target would be difficult to achieve, the project sold out within 20 minutes, and even he himself was unable to participate in time, showing the market's strong interest in this innovative model.

Virtuals Protocol is an AI Agent issuance platform, and its function is similar to Pump Fun. The difference is that the trading pairs of tokens issued by Virtuals Protocol are based on the platform coin $VIRTUAL as the trading pool. As more AI Agents are created on the platform, $VIRTUAL can be directly empowered. Buying and selling AI Agent tokens will also consume at least 1% of $VIRTUAL.

In addition to the consumption of token economy, Virtuals Protocol establishes common standards for its AI Agent tokens, emphasizing precision and careful planning, such as using the AI Agent framework GAME, which can operate autonomously, process inputs and generate responses, while learning from past interactions.

In terms of token economy, it uses its Agent project