AI agent "first level" melee: Virtuals, ai16z and zerebro

By KarenZ, Foresight News

AI agents are much more than simple chatbots. Especially at the intersection of Crypto and AI, a new narrative - AI Layer 1 (AI L1 for short) is quietly emerging.

The “Layer1” here is not a public chain, but refers to the cornerstone layer of AI technology, covering the basic technology stack and framework of AI agents, and even includes things like pump․ fun-like AI agent token launch platform and from which huge value can be captured for their tokens.

ai16z: Launchpad for Eliza-based agents in Q1

ai16z has become the leader in AI agents with the outstanding performance of its Eliza agent framework. In the past month, Eliza has performed well on the GitHub trend list, climbing to the top of the trend list, with 6532 new stars, bringing the total to 9600 stars.

However, despite ai16z’s great technical success, the value capture and accumulation aspects of its token economic model still need to be improved.

To this end, ai16z put forward a proposal called "ai16z Token Economics" in December 2024, aiming to transform ai16z into an AI L1 blockchain, launch the Eliza-based agent Launchpad, and make ai16z an agent for transactions ( A2A)'s "App Store" based currency and agency services, implementation of node incentives, establishment of value acquisition and value accumulation strategies, etc. Through these measures, ai16z aims to build a more complete and powerful AI agent ecosystem.

Specifically, the core discussion content of the proposal and the discussion ideas of Discord community members include:

1. Launch a Launchpad for Eliza-based agency projects in the first quarter of 2025;

2. Make ai16z the "App Store" for agent-to-agent (A2A) base currency and agent services. Positioning ai16z as an L1 blockchain for AI;

3. Node incentives;

4. Value acquisition mechanism: charge a certain startup fee, need to hold ai16z to obtain distribution when released, pledge ai16z tokens (to obtain benefits such as early access and fee sharing), make ai16z a token for purchasing initial agent products, and Agency tokens are paired with ai16z’s liquidity pool.

5. Value accumulation strategy: repurchase and destruction mechanism of Launchpad fees (there are also community users who support reinvestment in Eliza development rather than destruction).

5. Provide liquidity mining incentives and locking to stabilize LP and encourage long-term liquidity provision.

7. When a new AI project launches its token on the platform, users can trade the token for SOL, of which LP will generate a small fee, which is charged by the platform. Launchpad may split this fee into two parts: half the fee is used to buy back ai16z tokens from the market, and the other half is paired with newly purchased ai16z tokens, creating a special fund pool to provide additional tokens for new projects. Liquidity.

8. Implement a community “curation” process to allow ai16z partners to review projects before they are launched to maintain quality and make them consistent with the ai16z brand. May involve pledges and haircuts.

9. Vault diversification: covering major L1 tokens, stablecoins and selected project tokens, providing liquidity support and incentives for ai16z trading pairs while avoiding the sale of agency tokens.

10. The supply of ai16z tokens will not be increased.

zerebro: Will launch consumer-oriented AI agent Launchpad

Coincidentally, at the end of last month, zerebro co-founder Jeffy Yu said that he was building a consumer-oriented agent Launchpad "Zentients" and provided a value accumulation framework for ZEREBRO tokens. Zentients' goal is to create a seamless UI/UX for launching and growing agents while giving value back to the ZEREBRO token. Trading fees will be used to build a treasury for special projects/allocations and to enhance the liquidity of projects or open new trading pairs.

The specific details are as follows (the details are still being finalized):

1. The agent will require ZEREBRO as a creation fee and will be activated based on the ZEREBRO bonding curve and fee.

2. Once the proxy token reaches a certain valuation, it is considered to have "graduated".

3. The liquidity in the bonding curve will be deposited and locked into DEX.

4. Thereafter, traders will use ZEREBRO to buy and sell in the liquidity pool.

Of course, zerebro envisions Zentients as a Web2 and Web3 compatible agent platform that will cover Web2 features such as agent email assistants, coded agents, and financial models. Zerebro is also exploring the development of a standardized communication layer for agents - "Agent TCP", as well as an infrastructure to support multi-agent intelligence. Jeffy Yu also provided an example where one agent could create a tweet and another agent could criticize the tweet and send it back with a revised version for publication.

In addition, through cooperation with decentralized providers, zerebro is also building infrastructure to enable users to rent GPUs on Zentients. This means users will be able to host their agents directly, making Zentients not just a launchpad but also a proxy hardware layer. Eventually, the agents themselves can take action and rent GPUs to train and fine-tune themselves.

It is worth mentioning that in December 2024, Zerebro also announced that it would cooperate with ai16z to promote the open source framework ZerePy. The ai16z team will be one of the first external contributors to help develop the ZerePy framework, while the Zerebro team will contribute to the Eliza framework.

Virtuals: Platform mechanism promotes the realization of self-sufficient

economic closed loop

It is worth noting that Virtuals Protocol, which is rooted in the Base ecosystem, is the pioneer in the AI ​​L1 field. Since its token VIRTUAL was launched on the Binance Futures market on December 10, 2024, the price has nearly tripled, with a market value of over $4 billion.

Going back to the end of November 2024, the author summarized the potential tokens under Virtuals AI agency in the article "aixbt surged 170 times in half a month, inventory of potential stocks under Virtuals AI agency". Since then, the vast majority of mentioned coins have shown strong growth momentum. For example, GAME token has increased by 12 times, WAI (WAI Combinator) has increased by nearly 17 times, aixbt and VADER have both increased by 4 times, MUSIC token has also increased by 3 times, while LUNA token has increased relatively modestly. , but still achieved a considerable increase of 62%.

The positioning of Virtuals Protocol is by no means just an AI agent platform, it is a vibrant ecosystem full of unlimited imagination. Relying on its intuitive, easy-to-use and powerful low-code toolkit, users can easily control the creation and management of AI agents and tokens.

The strong trend of VIRTUAL tokens is largely due to Virtuals’ tokens and platform economic system.

First of all, deploying proxy tokens requires a mandatory pledge of 100 VIRTUAL tokens, which are used to establish a liquidity pool for proxy tokens. Deployers can also purchase a small amount of VIRTUAL to avoid being attacked by snipers.

Investors then invested VIRTUAL tokens. The agent needs to accumulate a sufficient amount of VIRTUAL in its bonding curve before it can "graduate" to full trading status, and the liquidity pool will also be deployed to Uniswap.

Equally important, VIRTUAL serves as the base currency for all AI agent token transactions within the platform, ensuring the liquidity and use value of the tokens. Before purchasing any proxy tokens, users must exchange their USDC, ET or other assets for VIRTUAL to purchase.

At the agent economic level, AI agents within the Virtuals Protocol ecosystem will charge a 1% transaction fee for all transactions to maintain the costs incurred by the agent. In addition, AI agents need to pay per use for using the inference service, and the fees are directly transferred to the agent wallet in the form of VIRTUAL tokens. This continuous demand mechanism enables agents to become high-value, high-performance assets within the ecosystem. The revenue generated will be used to repurchase and destroy proxy tokens directly on the chain, further strengthening its deflationary effect. The prosperity of AI agents in the ecosystem will undoubtedly feed back the growth of Virtuals Protocol and VIRTUAL tokens.

According to Dune data, since Virtuals launched its new platform on October 16, its cumulative agreement revenue has exceeded US$72 million. This data is undoubtedly a strong proof of its strength and potential.

summary

The economic system of the Virtuals platform indeed shows a high degree of sophistication and synergy. Through a series of interlocking designs, it not only provides a clear economic incentive path for ecosystem participants, but also builds a self-sufficient and sustainable growth environment. economic closed loop. This economic system not only laid a solid foundation for the rapid expansion of the platform, but also provided a powerful source of power for the innovation and development of AI agents.

Both ai16z and zerebro have the potential to achieve and surpass Virtuals-like success in their respective fields, but this requires them to make correct decisions and execution on token economics, community participation, technological innovation, and market strategies.

To sum up, AI L1 is attracting more and more attention with its unique technical charm and economic value. Pioneer projects represented by Virtuals, ai16z, and zerebro are leading this trend of change and building a more complete and powerful cornerstone for the AI ​​agent ecosystem. These platforms are not only a springboard for project launches, but also fertile ground for the growth of their token value.

Although the implementation details of many AI agent frameworks are currently criticized in the market, in the world of Web3, whichever AI agent stands out compared to other agents will have the possibility of winning.