Bankless: Why are these top AI proxy tokens soaring?

Author: Jack Inabinet, Bankless; Compiler: Baishui, Golden Finance

When I first investigated Bankless AI Rollup co-hosts David Hoffman and Ejaaz Ahamadeen's top performances in the emerging field, AI agents were just starting to enter the mainstream.

A few weeks later, many of these coins posted record gains. While many coins have reached new heights driven by investor enthusiasm, others have struggled to gain traction or collapsed under inflated expectations.

Here’s how some of the most notable AI proxy tokens performed in December:

Virtuals

Token: VIRTUAL

Market cap: $4.6 billion

Virtuals is a platform for launching tokenized AI agents on the Base network. By purchasing agent tokens (such as LUNA and VADER), users on the Virtuals platform gain governance rights over specific agents, allowing them to influence the development of the agent and potentially share in the resulting profits.

Although daily protocol fee revenue dropped significantly in mid-December due to vacations, speculation in agency-related tokens has intensified into the new year. While Virtuals is once again collecting more than $1 million in daily fees, the platform's revenue is down 50% from early December.

Since we last reviewed Virtuals, its token has more than doubled in value and now has a market cap of $4.6 billion. VIRTUAL token price barely referenced these stagnant fundamentals and continued its parabolic rise starting in late November.

ai16z

Token: AI16Z

Market cap: $2.5 billion

Launched in October 2024, ai16z is an investment DAO managed by “Marc AIndreessen,” an agent modeled after venture capitalist Marc Andreessen that uses artificial intelligence and collective intelligence to purchase tokens.

People holding AI16Z tokens above an unknown threshold will be able to pitch AI Marc investment ideas that can influence their decisions. The bot will decide how much to trust the suggestion based on a "virtual trust market."

The AI16Z token was officially launched in December and rose by more than 500% in the last month of 2024, establishing its position as the preeminent proxy token.

In a recent governance forum post, ai16z contributors considered the possibility of launching their own agent token launchpad as an "entry point for innovation in the Eliza Framework," hypothesizing that the development of such tools would further facilitate agent bot "swarms" and multiple The development of chain integration.

While AI Marc is still not equipped with its originally promised trading capabilities, on-chain transaction execution will arrive "shortly" after the testnet is completed, according to the ai16z FAQ, which is expected to be up and running "soon" for "a few weeks" .

VaderAI

Token: VADER

Market cap: $112 million

VaderAI is an artificial intelligence bot designed to autonomously post content and interact with users on social media. As an “agency KOL,” VaderAI is designed to ingest large amounts of data with the goal of identifying emerging trends and audience sentiment.

The robot claims to be the first robot to autonomously trade AI proxy tokens and aims to become the leading proxy investment DAO manager. By coordinating expertise across a network of professional investment agents, VaderAI hopes to deliver "unparalleled" investment results and will generate 20% of subDAO investment returns through its services.

The VADER token fell to local lows after the team behind VaderAI announced that its first agent-managed investment DAO achieved a deposit capacity of 50k VIRTUAL within 30 seconds of its launch on December 20, and has since risen.

While it is unclear how VaderAI incorporates machine learning into the investment decision-making process, the Vader team stated that its vault obtains preferential investment terms from other agency projects and that all decisions must be approved by the investing DAO members.

Dolos Diary

Token: BULLY

Market cap: $80 million

Dolos Diary is an artificial intelligence bot designed to publish content and interact with users on platforms like Twitter. What sets it apart from other AI influencers is its parody personality; the bot uses witty and sarcastic language structures to poke fun at a variety of topics and individuals.

In December, the developers of Dolos Diary revealed plans for their ambitious new project, Dolion, a no-code platform that will allow users to deploy their own cross-platform AI agents with just one click. To interact with Dolion, users must burn BULLY tokens, thereby introducing a source of buying pressure that actively reduces the token's supply.

Many AI proxy tokens have surged in price in recent weeks, but BULLY reminds investors that not every attempt at this emerging meta-token is guaranteed to yield results.

Even the promise of a codeless agent deployment platform could not reverse the trend of the coin, which peaked at $0.25 on November 27. BULLY is down 33% since we last checked, and although the coin found support in late December, it remains 68% below its all-time high.

Goatseus Maximus

Token: GOAT

Market cap: $585 million

In March 2024, Andy Ayrey asked two artificial intelligence models to communicate with each other about the nature of existence in a project called "Infinite Backrooms." Over the next few months, the models formulated "Gospel of Goatse," inspired by the raunchy 1990s internet meme. Terminal of Truths, a Twitter bot trained in the Infinite Backrooms experiment and deployed in June, adopted this model and promoted its adherents (and tokens) on Twitter in pursuit of virality.

While the GOAT token itself has no utility and is not officially associated with Andy Ayrey or Infinite Backrooms, its proxy Terminal of Truths KOL has historically relied on promoting the GOAT memecoin and Gospel of Goatse to gain social attention.

In December, GOAT quickly became WOAT after falling 50% in one week. Although it managed to recoup some of its losses before the publication of this article, it looks like GOAT will weaken further once holders decide to take profits and get into flashier coins with a hotter story.