AI Agent Tokens Emerge as the New Hotspots in the Crypto Market, While Established AI Concept Tokens Encounter Coldness

At CES 2025 in the United States on January 7, Jensen Huang, founder of Nvidia and a leading figure in the AI industry, stated: "AI Agents are expected to become the next robotics industry, with a market scale of trillions of dollars." Although the audience at the event reacted lukewarmly to this bold claim, the crypto industry has long since bought into AI Agents—tokens related to AI Agents such as VIRTUAL, ai16z, and swarms have become some of the few focal points of attention in the recent market, and their price trends have performed notably better than the overall market; in contrast, many established AI concept projects, such as FET, WLD, and ARKM, have recently appeared somewhat desolate, with their price performances significantly down from their highs.

Odaily Planet Daily will conduct a comparative analysis of new and old AI concept tokens in this article, providing a glimpse into market trends.

Status of New and Old AI Concept Tokens: AI Agent Tokens in High Demand, AI Concept Tokens Encountering Coldness

From a market perspective, AI Agent tokens represented by VIRTUAL, ai16z, and swarms are undoubtedly the most eye-catching projects at present. Compared to AI concept tokens like FET, WLD, and ARKM, the former not only integrates the AI concept but also presents a more grand narrative, lower participation barriers, and greater expected returns. Upon closer examination, I personally believe the reasons mainly include the following aspects:

Market Inertia of Favoring the New Over the Old: New Cars Attract More Attention, Old Cars Are Too Heavy

As an industry that operates 24/7, the cryptocurrency market's enthusiasm for new hotspots and technologies can be said to be a common trait, leading to the practice of "favoring the new over the old" in token trading: for market retail investors and the crypto community, compared to the "old AI coins" that have a large number of buyers, concentrated chip distribution, and a wide range of trapped groups, the new coins related to AI Agents are undoubtedly more attractive—lower entry barriers, whether in terms of the price of a single token or the overall market capitalization, provide more opportunities to get involved with AI Agent tokens.

More Attractive Narratives: AI Agents Are Far More Engaging Than "Riding the AI Concept"

From the narrative perspective, which is the most discussed in the cryptocurrency industry, events such as issuing tokens, trading tokens, and interacting with fans on social media related to AI Agents are undoubtedly more interesting, fun, and conducive to discussion than trying to "hard shape" a serious project to ride the AI concept.

With the emergence of Truth Terminal (GOAT), the cryptocurrency industry has essentially opened a Pandora's box for AI Agents, liberating the power of AI in ways that many had not previously anticipated, endowing cryptocurrency with a stronger technological attribute, futuristic quality, and a narrative with greater imaginative space—AI Agents in the crypto field can do more than just help humans produce content; they also have the potential to directly participate in human social and economic activities and currency transactions.

Differences in Project Roadmaps: Teams, Technologies, and Development Directions Vary Greatly

In terms of project development roadmaps, the current AI Agent and token projects exhibit certain differences compared to the established AI concept token projects.

On the team level, AI Agent and token projects are often backed by independent developers in their early stages. On one hand, AI and AI Agents provide developers and even ordinary people with a lower-cost, lower-barrier development path; on the other hand, relatively independent developers can respond more quickly to market hotspots and adjust project directions based on market feedback, with lower decision-making and optimization iteration costs, which aligns more with the "grassroots" positioning. In contrast, established AI concept projects often start with mature teams that have grand missions and visions, aiming to attract high-value investments through grand narratives, with project development measured in years and being more accountable to investors rather than originating from the community. For example, FET (Fetch.ai) is a typical case, having raised $5 million in March 2021 and $40 million in March 2023, and being the second crowdfunding project issued through Binance IEO, which can be seen as a product of top-tier resources.

On the technology level, previous AI concept token projects tended to view technology as a tool and packaging, emphasizing practical use cases and user scenarios, but the actual business implementation was often far from AI, creating a strong sense of distance from users; whereas the current AI Agent and token projects are relatively more straightforward, with their technological origins rooted in the AI technology that has emerged after a technological explosion, making the understanding barrier lower and the technological extensibility stronger, allowing users to personally engage in practical operations, with user education on technology being more direct and in-depth.

In terms of development direction, established AI concept token projects emphasize building the future digital economy with AI, which sounds more like "pie in the sky,"