Artificial intelligence (AI) tokens, which surged last year on anticipation of AI becoming a major theme for 2024, are yet to live up to their lofty goals.
Last March, a surge in interest ahead of Nvidia's annual conference saw the NEAR token clock double-digit gains, a move that was mirrored across the broader crypto AI market. Fetch.ai (FET), the graph (GRT) and singularityNET (AGIX) all posted strong gains to the upside in unison with the conference.
This year, however, AI tokens have shown their fragility. NEAR is down more than 8% in the past 24 hours, while FET slid nearly 9%. NVDA, in contrast, started the year trading at $133 and rose by 15% to $153 on Monday as the conference commenced.
There are several potential reasons why AI tokens are no longer garnering the attention they once did. One is the emergence of AI agent tokens, which share some similarities with memecoins in their volatility and cult-like followings. Investors are more likely to trade these tokens, as they have the potential for triple- or quadruple-digit gains compared to regular AI tokens, which are harder to move due to their larger market caps. Like memecoins, AI agent tokens also have the potential for deeper losses.
Another reason is simply a lack of interest; Google search trends show that searches for "NEAR token" and "Fetch.ai" are down 47% and 84%, respectively, since March.
The fall from grace is hardly surprising, as the crypto market is known to be fickle and has a habit of punishing sectors that rise rapidly in a speculative manner. Last year's rally was just that: people piled into AI tokens because they thought it would be the primary narrative of the crypto bull market, but instead it was Bitcoin that stole the show with tens of billions of dollars in ETF inflows and bullish sentiment around Donald Trump's presidential victory.
AI tokens are still in their early days, however. Few mainstream crypto AI projects were used by the masses, as many of the products are still being built out. Nvidia, meanwhile, announced a $3,000 mini supercomputer called Digits, which will be available to purchase in May.
