The AI Agent market continues to heat up, with Virtual and AI16Z becoming industry leaders.

In early 2025, the AI Agent market continues to thrive, with a total market value exceeding $16.9 billion, reflecting a 22.7% increase from the previous week. In this rapidly developing field, two major platforms have emerged: the AI Agent issuance platform Virtuals Protocol on the Base chain and the AI management venture capital institution ai16z within the Solana ecosystem. The former has a market value exceeding $5 billion, ranking among the top 40 cryptocurrencies; the latter has also surpassed $2.5 billion in market value. These two platforms have become barometers for observing the AI Agent sector.

Development History

Virtuals Protocol: From Gaming Guilds to AI Agent Issuing Platform

Virtuals Protocol originated from a team in Malaysia, initially focused on trading. At the end of 2021, they raised $16 million at a valuation of $600 million and established the gaming guild PathDAO. However, from 2022 to 2023, the gaming guild market cooled down, and the team transformed into a Venture Studio, attempting multiple projects but did not achieve success.

In 2023, the team decided to fully pivot towards the AI field, gaining support from 90% of its members. In 2024, they explored AI Gaming on the Base chain and launched a platform. Although they did not initially gain market recognition, the team achieved several breakthroughs in the AI field, including the world's first Roblox AI RPG and an AI game without a game engine. They also launched a virtual streamer, Luna, attracting about 5,000 fans daily. Ultimately, the success of the GOAT project provided an excellent development opportunity for the Virtuals Protocol.

AI16Z: From Web 2 AI to Web 3 AI

The founder of AI16Z, Shaw, was originally a game developer before transitioning to the AI field. He has participated in several AI-related projects and has dabbled in Web3 and 3D spatial networks. The AI version of the degen Spartan project became a turning point, with its uniqueness and emergent behavior attracting widespread attention.

After communicating with industry peers, Shaw came up with the idea of creating AI investors, aiming to build an independent, trustworthy, and community-serving investment system. AI16Z set a fundraising target of 4,420 SOL at launch, which sold out in just 20 minutes, demonstrating strong market interest in this innovative model.

Product Kernel

Virtuals Protocol: AI's iOS

Virtuals Protocol, as an AI Agent issuance platform, functions similarly to Pump Fun, but trading pairs use the platform token $VIRTUAL. The platform establishes a common standard for its AI Agent tokens, emphasizing precise planning and utilizing the AI Agent framework GAME for autonomous operation and learning.

In the token economy, the Virtuals Protocol empowers VIRTUAL through its Agent project. The platform provides development tools to ensure that its tokens do not deviate from the parent protocol, building a complete ecosystem. Its model is similar to Apple's iOS.

AI16Z & ELIZA: Android in the AI World

AI16Z is a fund managed autonomously by AI, utilizing a hybrid strategy that includes community interaction mechanisms. ElizaOS is an open-source AI Agent framework that emphasizes decentralization, collaboration, and innovation.

The core features of ELIZA include a role profile system, an action system, providers, and evaluators. It also has autonomous trading capabilities, ensuring operational safety through a trust engine and trust market.

The ELIZA plug-in system has promoted the growth of the developer ecosystem, creating a virtuous cycle. However, Eliza has not tightly bound its architecture to the ecological protocol, allowing anyone to use the framework for development, with power distributed in a decentralized manner. Its model is somewhat similar to Android.

Catalysts Driving Coin Prices

Virtuals Protocol

The business model of this protocol is clear, with the product closely linked to the token price. The continuity of the token price increase mainly depends on the trading volume of the ecosystem tokens and the number of tokens issued. Virtuals Protocol does not pursue an increase in the number of issued tokens, but rather hopes to incubate high-quality projects.

Currently, there are 8 tokens in the Virtuals Protocol ecosystem with a market value exceeding 100 million USD, accounting for 33.3% of the overall mindshare in the AI Agent market, making it the largest ecosystem. Whether more tokens can break through the 100 million USD market value barrier in the future, and whether the overall ecosystem can maintain its advantage, is key to observing the development of the Virtuals Protocol.

AI16Z/Eliza

The overall ecosystem connection of AI16Z is relatively weak, and projects developed using the Eliza architecture cannot directly feedback value to AI16Z/Eliza. AI16Z adopts an open strategy, allowing everyone to use its framework, which emerging AI Agent projects can leverage to gain brand trust.

The strategic model of AI16Z is similar to "surrounding the city from the countryside." Whether its market value can continue to rise depends on the depth, speed, and breadth of cooperation with other protocols. Recently, AI16Z has collaborated with other well-known framework protocols (such as ARC and FXN), and we can expect to see more strong partnerships in the future.