AI Agents Knock Off Meme Tokens as Whales Accumulate AI16Z and VIRTUAL

The persistence of whale interest in AI16Z is a signal of a developing trend in AI tokens. AI16Z and its ELIZA ecosystem token remain

A whale address has been accumulating AI16Z over the past few days, starting with the first substantial purchase on December 26.

The whale buying once again signals accumulation for AI16Z, one of the top AI agent tokens, as covered.

The new storage wallet mainly holds AI16Z and ZEREBRO, another trending AI agent. Nansen tags the address itself as a “Zerebro Whale.”

The other notable wallet, tagged “Michi Whale,” rolled over from POPCAT into AI16Z and MICHI. The two whale wallets also contain minor holdings from previous meme cycles, especially animal and viral memes on Solana.

Meme tokens remained one of the strongest narratives at the end of 2024. However, the sector as a whole went through a drawdown, with its total valuation sliding under $100B. Despite this, both whales and retail are on the lookout for the next hot category of memes.

It is precisely AI agents that started to deliver returns in the past day, rising from a valuation of around $8.7B to over $9.64B. The growth of AI agent tokens is driven by outliers, staging unexpected rallies. Whales make use of the short-term price fluctuations, while also betting on having sufficient liquidity to be able to realize profits.

Truth Terminal still holds cult status, while boosting the FARTCOIN rally.

Social media users quickly got bored of AI agents as a single personality. However, the agent market is spawning a new series of projects, aiming to provide utility and long-term sustainability.

Toward the end of 2024, several platforms for launching new AI agents and tokens appeared. Those platforms model their activity after Pump.fun, though with a more complex process of creating agents and deploying them on social media.

While agents themselves compete for mindshare, platform tokens are singled out for their potential to reflect the growth of the entire AI agent space.

AI16Z and its ELIZA sparks competition between AI agent platforms

Social media users quickly got bored of AI agents as a single personality. However, the agent market is spawning a new series of projects, aiming to provide utility and long-term sustainability.

Toward the end of 2024, several platforms for launching new AI agents and tokens have appeared. Those platforms model their activity after Pump.fun, though with a more complex process of creating agents and deploying them on social media.

While agents themselves compete for mindshare, platform tokens are singled out for their potential to reflect the growth of the entire AI agent space.

AI16Z and its Eliza agent launchpad helped the token appreciate by 58% in the past week and draw the attention of buyers. AI16Z traded at $0.88, near its all-time high.

While ELIZA was announced early and tried to market its launchpad brand, Virtuals Protocol locked in the biggest share of value in December. The token is second only to Virtuals Protocol, the leading AI agent launchpad on Base.

VIRTUAL also traded close to its record price at $3.13. The two leading tokens made up around 30% of the entire market cap of AI agent assets. For now, the market does not reflect the newly rising agents, which are yet building up their social media presence.

The biggest earner this time was Phala Network (PHA), expanding by 192% in the past week, close to its yearly high of $0.33. Phala Network reinvented itself after launching its 2.0 version on December 25. The platform does not explicitly deal with launching AI agents but with infrastructure for AI computation. Phala Network’s infrastructure is used for trusted AI token launches, making it indispensable in the new on-chain experiment.

PHA also rose after the success of Spore.fun, a platform where AI agents compete and evolve independently. The Phala Network technology is also applied among projects from the Eliza framework by AI16Z.

The recent token rallies show the AI agent space is increasingly connected, bringing both mindshare on social media and liquidity for new projects. The sector is also trying to build up liquidity and set up value transfers between agents. The AI narrative displaced the older types of AI tokens, which focused on nodes and consensus and often failed to deliver a usable product.

The recent rise in AI agent platforms displaced previous narratives, such as shared GPU infrastructure for rendering and other tasks. The current drive is for infrastructure to tap the activity and value of AI personalities while adding meme tokens and DeFi elements.