The AI Agent Hype Is Not Over Yet

Author: Odaily Planet Daily, Golem

Recently, the tokens in the AI Agent sector have generally retraced.

According to GMGN data, the mainstream AI Agent tokens in the Base ecosystem, VIRTUAL, have seen a 7-day decline of over 39%, AIXBT over 20%, GAME over 30%, and LUNA over 50%; in the Solana ecosystem, the mainstream AI Agent tokens ai16z have seen a 7-day decline of over 45%, ELIZA over 48%, and swarms and ARC over 38%.

Since GOAT initiated a new model combining AI and Crypto, and with ai16z and Virtuals promoting the narrative of crypto AI Agents, more than three months have passed. Therefore, many opinions in the market suggest that the hype around AI Agents has ended, and those who have not yet liquidated their positions have become the payers of this "feast," with some even comparing this round of AI Agent hype to a "faster-paced inscription craze."

Is the AI Agent hype nearing its end? The answer is not so.

What Stage Have AI Agents Reached?

It is undeniable that in investing, we must respect cycles, entering the market before it peaks and exiting gracefully before the hype fades. Currently, AI Agents are in a deep squat phase before a powerful jump.

The Impact of CEX on Prices Continues to Diminish

From the perspective of market sentiment and liquidity, people generally view the listing of tokens on "the universe's largest exchange," Binance, as the endpoint for on-chain assets. When Binance lists a popular token from a sector, it signifies a dual peak in market sentiment and liquidity for that sector, and after a period of FOMO, the market will return to calm. However, in this round of AI Agent narratives, the impact of CEX listings on tokens may not be as significant as imagined.

According to public information, Binance has launched perpetual contract trading for ai16z and swarms, and only listed AIXBT for spot trading on January 10. Although the listing of ai16z and swarms contracts initially caused market FUD leading to price drops, both subsequently rebounded; similarly, even after Binance announced the listing of AIXBT for spot trading, the price returned to normal levels after a brief period of FOMO.

According to Cointelegraph statistics, on January 7, the proportion of spot cryptocurrency trading volume on DEX exceeded 20% for the first time. As more people engage in on-chain trading, the influence of CEX on the prices of on-chain assets will continue to diminish.

AI Agents Are the Metaverse of 2025

The world went crazy for the metaverse in 2021, and in 2025, the world will go crazy for AI Agents.

The metaverse in 2021 not only thrived in the web3 space but also sparked a wave in web2 internet companies, with the most notable event being social media giant Facebook rebranding to Meta, going all-in on the metaverse. In 2025, Nvidia resembles Meta of that year, attracting attention in the AI Agent wave. Nvidia's founder, Jensen Huang, mentioned in his keynote speech at CES 2025 that "over 30 million developers worldwide will have their own software assistants in the future, or they will fall behind their peers. Moreover, AI Agents are expected to become the next robotics industry, with an industry scale reaching trillions of dollars."

Web3 has always enjoyed combining with "hot narratives," from major tech industry trends to a squirrel killed in the U.S. The metaverse craze in 2021 gave birth to companies like Decentraland in web3, which, excluding derivative assets, had a peak token market cap exceeding $10 billion. However, neither ai16z nor virtuals have yet reached a market cap of $10 billion.

2025 is the year of the AI Agent explosion, and the traditional web2 tech industry's enthusiasm for it has not yet ended; web3 is just getting started.

Are AI Agents a Faster-Paced Version of Inscriptions?

Additionally, there is a viewpoint in the market that understands AI Agents as a faster-paced version of inscriptions. There are indeed some similarities between the two, such as AI Agents being fairly distributed through the pump.fun model, similar to the fair minting of inscriptions; the framework competition among AI Agents resembles the asset issuance protocol competition in the Bitcoin ecosystem, where overall, there are not many significant differences between the frameworks, but there are subtle differences; and the quicker launch of better-narrative assets is akin to the rapid minting of popular inscription assets back in the day.

However, there are also differences between the two:

Frankly speaking, Web3 indeed does not have an unchanging narrative; the AI Agent craze may fade, but at least