How to build a potential AI Agent project in a deserted environment?

Editor's note: This article discusses the correct way to build cryptographic AI agents, first of all, emphasizes that agents should be a supplement to core products, enhancing product value by changing user paths, rather than relying solely on tokens. Entrepreneurs should focus on solving problems in practice, create sustainable core products, and then promote and make profits through agents and tokens.

The following is the original content (to facilitate reading comprehension, the original content has been compiled):

The market has experienced retracement after retracement, and liquidity has gradually become thinner and thinner. The largest market value of the new agent successfully launched recently is approximately US$10 million.

By "success" I mean that the product has product market fit (PMF), provides value to actual users, and has begun (or is about to start) generating revenue. This is very different from what happened three or four months ago, when agents with PMF could have a maximum market value of over $100 million, especially if they were positioned as proxy+framework/start platform tokens. For example, AVA, as a 3D proxy, not only serves as the proxy itself, but also gains value from the startup platform and supported projects through its audio-visual layer.

Old Manual: Agent as a framework

The approach was to launch an agent to demonstrate its capabilities, attract developers to want to build their own agents, and require these developers to hold/destroy/pay proxy tokens to access the framework. The problem is that the crypto community gives framework tokens too high premiums, and these "framework agents" often lack differentiation. In many cases, they don’t even have products – they just ramble on Twitter, hoping to get the token price up.

The first version of the agent takes the conversation agent itself as a product, which is unique in the crypto space because we place more emphasis on community building—similar to founder-led marketing (founders get attention through chatter). It seems like a good idea to have the agent chatter about your project and add attention to it by using it as a result – it worked well when it first launched in November 2024, lasting for a month. But now, with 420,690 agents slogging nonstop, most of them appear immature, repetitive, and frankly, annoying.

New Manual: Agent as a business

Here is how you should think about launching an agent—launched agent means you will run a startup while managing up to three products at the same time:

1. Core products (actual business)

Your core product should solve practical problems. It should not be just a conversation agent, but a real product.

Example:

· Improve the prediction model of sports betting odds to help users gain more victories in sports betting (for example, the crypto community AskBillyBets).

· A crypto asset prediction model that can better conduct transactions, reduce temporary losses and maximize liquidity provider returns (e.g., crypto community Cod3xOrg, crypto community gizatechxyz, crypto community Almanak).

·Aggregate insights from top alpha sources such as Cookies, Kaito, Nansen, Messari, Aixbt, CG, Dexscreener, and Bubblemaps to help invest in decision-making AI agent research search engines (no team has solved this problem yet -we need a Perplexity-like AI agent).

Core products should be the top priority for every team before launching the token. You need to make sure there is real demand in the market and that users are willing to pay for it. Otherwise, you will be trapped in the "Death Valley" in the crypto world, with the consequences that may be more serious than traditional startups:

·High operating costs.

· Use tokens to pay for customer acquisition costs (CAC).

·Token price plummets → reputation collapses → no one cares about your project.

If your token plummets, it will become a curse. Most people won't care about your project, no matter how powerful your core product is or how much progress you have made.

Instead of relying on token incentives, focus on attracting customers through products. Find a profit model that balances growth and revenue generation.

The manual for the crypto community KaitoAI is a great case study:

·They build a corporate product—a crypto search engine focused on social/emotion/narrative, and charge users, projects and ecosystems to provide real value.

·They launched Mindshare Dashboard, which became the standard for tracking narratives and trends.

·They stepped up their efforts and launched the Yapper rankings, allowing KOLs to share it spontaneously as a status symbol.

·They further launched NFT WL and KAITO airdrops to inspire Twitter interactions with actual rewards.

This approach is not easy to replicate, but the lesson is: first find PMF, generate revenue, and get people excited before launching the token. Once you get attention (hype) and income, you can move to the next level.

Again, communication is very important. Many projects have strong products but poor communication skills. If no one knows what you are doing, no one cares.

2. Tokens (alignment tool)

We have moved from "VC coins" to "fair issuance" to celebrate high circulation, low FDV tokens. But fair issuance is not entirely fair – every token strategy has its tradeoffs.

If you launch a proxy token with high circulation and low FDV structure, you won’t be able to raise funds from venture capitalists and angel investors (because the valuation is too low). However, you can use tokens as a marketing tool to initiate mind sharing.

Many teams will launch two tokens:

·Proxy tokens → Start thinking sharing.

·Eco Tokens → Financing from venture capitalists and angel investors at a higher valuation.

But this creates a mismatch of expectations - communities expect airdrops, and when eco-tokens are launched, capital is transferred from proxy to eco-tokens, causing the proxy token price to collapse. It is very complicated to manage core products + proxy tokens + ecological tokens while ensuring the accumulation of value of each token.

In an ideal world, there should be a token to accumulate all the value from the core product. Historically, projects that generate income and return it to tokens (through repurchase or income distribution) can survive for a long time.

Tokens should be a supplement to core products, not a necessary condition. To gain insight into proxy token strategies, check out the crypto community VaderResearch's Proxy Token Manual Analysis of crypto community virtuals io.

3. Agent (supplementary product)

"Proxy" refers to a conversation proxy built using frameworks such as ElizaOS, GAME, ARC, Pippin, etc. While these agents integrate on-chain/off-chain capabilities, they should be complementary to core products.

Agents should enhance the value of core products by changing user paths:

Instead of letting users find and use your product on their own initiative, let the agent bring the product to them.

This can mean:

·Display products directly on Twitter via text/video.

·Use the agent as an AI companion to change the way users interact (similar to the abstraction of ChatGPT).

·The agent acts as the interface itself, and performs tasks behind it.

Of course, there are exceptions. The aixbt agent is an example - it provides real-time social and sentiment analysis from Twitter, allowing users to get real-time alpha signals before others. Aixbt has become the NO.1 KOL on CT by continuously providing Alpha, demonstrating the capabilities of the terminal. In this case, the agent itself is the product.

However, this pattern is very difficult to replicate. Most projects should focus first on strengthening core products.

A product-first success story is cookedotfun:

·Start with the free AI agent dashboard to attract users.

·Turn to paid value-added mode to unlock advanced insights by locking in COOKIE.

·Monetize by providing APIs for projects and agents.

· Launch agentcookiefun to bring insights directly to Twitter.

Summarize

In 2020-21, the launch of tokens requires mastering Solidity. But now platforms like pumpdotfun make anything easy to tokenized.

This changed the way of thinking – people no longer focus on building real products, but instead launching tokens directly. This method is to "got in and out of garbage", and capital will be quickly transferred to the next "trash".

We need to change that.

In order to build sustainable projects, agency projects should be treated as startups. Rather than looking for funds between CT, VC and angel investors, it is better to build projects with long-term value—not for the next 6 months, but for the next 6 years.

Innovate, solve practical problems, create real businesses—rather than just building the next speculative token farm.

The future of encrypted AI agents depends on this.