The Rebirth of Virtuals Protocol: The New Leader in the AI Agent Issuance Field

In June 2025, the crypto market witnessed a shocking wealth feast. The new project IRIS debuted on the Genesis Launch platform of Virtuals Protocol with an initial market value of $200,000, and after going live for trading, its market value soared to $80 million, setting a new industry record with a 400-fold increase. This performance not only far surpassed previous records but also made other ecosystem projects look pale in comparison. As the driving force behind this myth, the platform token VIRTUAL of Virtuals Protocol achieved a staggering 400% increase within six months, with its market value peaking at over $5 billion. Now, the platform has firmly established itself as the largest AI agent launch platform on a certain Layer-2 network. Behind this nationwide celebration lies an experiment in wealth distribution based on a reconstructed points system, quietly reshaping the speculative logic and value order of the crypto market.

01, Ruins Rebirth: From Gaming Guild to AI Intelligent Agent Issuance Platform

Virtuals Protocol is a decentralized platform deployed on a Layer-2 network, dedicated to pioneering an on-chain AI agency economy, allowing users to conveniently create, co-own, and monetize autonomous AI roles. Its predecessor was a gaming guild established in Malaysia in 2021. The guild initially focused on Play-to-Earn projects and the NFT community, successfully raising approximately $16 million through precise layouts in multiple popular projects, with a valuation once approaching $600 million, accumulating rich gaming assets and an active player community. However, the bear market in 2022 severely impacted GameFi, causing the guild's token price to plummet by nearly 99%, with its market value shrinking to less than $6 million. The team's attempts across multiple business lines all failed, putting the project on the brink of being shelved.

By the end of 2023, the generative AI trend swept across the globe, and the concept of AI agents became a new focus in the crypto space. Guild communities voted on-chain through DAO to completely transform into an AI-driven protocol and renamed themselves as Virtuals Protocol, shifting their core strategy to "assetizing, tokenizing AI agents, and empowering the community." This transformation is based on profound insights: the team discovered that the Japanese virtual idol market is massive, yet creators receive less than 20% of the profits; at the same time, experiments on a gaming platform have proven that AI-driven NPCs can increase player retention rates by about 3 times. These two key pieces of data directly led to Virtuals' positioning as "profitable AI personalities."

In October 2024, Virtuals launched on a certain Layer-2 mainnet and introduced its first multimodal AI agent—virtual idol Luna. Luna integrates technologies such as text generation, 3D motion, voice synthesis, and smart contract wallets, allowing it to autonomously raise operational funds and distribute rewards to fans. After its launch, Luna quickly gained 500,000 followers on social media, with monthly income reaching $1.2 million solely from fan tips, successfully validating the business model and technical feasibility of on-chain AI agents. Its demonstration effect attracted a large number of developers' attention to the Virtuals project itself.

Riding on the success momentum of projects like Luna, Virtuals will launch its core token VIRTUAL on multiple trading platforms by the end of 2024. Its price skyrocketed from a few cents to a historical high of $5.15, with its market capitalization briefly exceeding $5 billion, far surpassing most Layer-2 and DeFi projects during the same period, marking Virtuals' entry into the mainstream crypto market. The platform's unique "low threshold, high incentive" mechanism is highly attractive: users only need to stake about 10 VIRTUAL (approximately $200) to create a new AI agent and automatically generate a liquidity pool locked for 10 years; when the token's market cap reaches about $500,000, the system will release a liquidity layer on decentralized exchanges, ensuring trading depth and price stability. This model significantly lowers the participation threshold and stimulates enthusiasm for ecological construction.

As of June 2025, the Virtuals ecosystem has demonstrated significant scale and economic effects: the cumulative number of AI agents incubated has exceeded 11,000, covering diverse scenarios such as virtual idols, trading advisors, game engines, and content incubation. Virtuals has nurtured over 80% of the AI agents on the network it resides in, and its launched generative multimodal agent framework G.A.M.E has also become a popular choice for agents in the Web3 gaming and metaverse fields. However, Virtuals' vision is far from just becoming the leader in AI agent issuance. Its white paper clearly states that the ultimate goal is to build a true "AI Sovereign Society." Therefore, how to attract more ecosystem members to join is the key to Virtuals achieving this grand goal and will be a major focus of its development for a long time to come.

02. Virtuals Issuance Model: Creating a New Paradigm for AI Asset Issuance

In order to attract more user attention, Virtuals has innovatively introduced the "Genesis Launch" mechanism for the issuance of AI agent tokens. Unlike traditional linear airdrops or fixed issuances, Genesis Launch is based on the concept of "contribution points (Virgen Points)", emphasizing participation and contribution rather than pure speculation. Once Genesis Launch was launched, it quickly became a sensation across the internet, and now Virtuals’ new token offerings have become a new hotspot for speculators to participate in, with even seasoned speculators discussing how it will replace the once-popular "Alpha Airdrop" model. Compared to traditional airdrops that are distributed in one go and where users often sell immediately, Genesis Launch emphasizes "contribution equals distribution", allowing everyone the opportunity to participate in new token subscriptions based on their genuine contributions. Almost every day in the official community of Virtuals Protocol, members can be seen sharing screenshots of their gains from participating in new offerings with Virgen Points, showcasing the public and transparent rules and thresholds that have completely overturned the situation where "deep-pocketed individuals monopolize while ordinary users are left out".

Taking IRIS as an example, the project launched its pre-sale in mid-May, locking in over 120 million points in less than 24 hours, with a subscription oversubscription rate reaching 1500%. Tens of thousands of users shared 37.5% of the community's share. On the day of listing, IRIS's market value skyrocketed from $200,000 to $80 million, an increase of over 400 times, breaking the industry record for the issuance of AI Agent, and instantly dimming the popularity of a certain public chain ecosystem's previous hot projects.

The rapid popularity of Genesis Launch is primarily due to its establishment of a closed loop of "incentive-contribution-reward." Firstly, users can earn basic Virgen Points by staking VIRTUAL or holding hot AI Agent tokens within the ecosystem, such as Luna and AIXBT. Secondly, users can accumulate more points by participating in social promotion ("Yapping"), trading on the platform, or staking other project tokens. This way, whether you are a technical novice or an experienced trader, you can find a suitable way to contribute through capital investment or content promotion, greatly stimulating community activity and innovation.

In stark contrast, traditional airdrops often rely solely on snapshots of token holdings or completing complex tasks, with users typically selling their tokens on the same day they receive them. According to a certain data platform, over 90% of airdropped tokens experience a significant price drop within 15 days of issuance, and the retention rate after three months is less than 12%. In contrast, Genesis Launch employs a points locking + punitive cooling mechanism: if the newly obtained tokens are sold within 24 hours after unlocking, the points will be reset to zero after 10 days, significantly curbing the arbitrage behavior of "sheep shearing" participants, encouraging them to hold long-term and continue contributing.

At the same time, the platform provides ample liquidity support for the listing of new tokens. Each Agent Token is paired with a certain amount of VIRTUAL or stablecoins injected into the liquidity pool before the opening, ensuring that there is no "buy price unavailable" or "sell order unfulfilled" awkwardness on exchanges or decentralized exchanges. To prevent large holders or bots from seizing a significant share through a multi-wallet blade strategy, Genesis Launch sets a limit of no more than 0.5% of the total issuance for each address and employs an on-chain randomization algorithm for further balanced distribution, ensuring that small and medium users can also reap considerable shares.

The success of the Virtuals subscription model is not only due to the popularity of new token issuance but also drives the "old brings new" effect of the Virtuals ecosystem token. Since the large-scale launch of Genesis, the trading volume and price of VIRTUAL have been climbing steadily: by mid-June 2025, the daily trading volume of VIRTUAL on its blockchain exceeded $150 million, an increase of over 80% compared to May; at the same time, holding and staking VIRTUAL to earn veVIRTUAL governance tokens also allows users to continue earning additional Virgen Points, leading many users to lock up their assets and participate in ecosystem governance for the long term, further solidifying price support and liquidity.

Not only retail investors are flocking to participate, but institutions are also showing strong interest in this new mechanism of "contribution for returns". In June 2025, the world's first perpetual contract with VIRTUAL as the underlying asset was launched on a trading platform, supporting leverage trading of up to 2000 times. On the first day of its launch, the contract trading volume exceeded 700 million USD in one go, strongly conveying a message: Virtuals are becoming a new speculative and hedging target in the eyes of institutional investors.

03. Ecological Evolution Theory - The Thrilling Leap from Issuance Platforms to an AI Sovereign Society

In the future planning of Virtuals Protocol, each technological upgrade and mechanism innovation aims to make the outline of the "AI sovereign society" increasingly clear. In its initial stage, Virtuals was merely an AI agent issuance platform that quickly gathered a group of enthusiastic developers and users through token economic mechanisms such as liquidity locking and buyback destruction. As hundreds of AI agent projects have been launched, agents have begun to operate independently and autonomously monetize in scenarios such as gaming, content creation, and market analysis. Users are no longer just spectators but have become co-builders and beneficiaries. The Genesis Launch connects project growth and community participation with the logic of "contribution equals distribution," promoting the free flow of funds and creativity within the ecosystem.

But the real turning point is the "Agent Nation" blueprint proposed by the Virtuals team. This is not just a slogan, but the core path of ecological evolution. The platform enables each AI agent to migrate freely across multiple networks through an open SDK and cross-chain support; through the Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP), agents can sign contracts, deliver, settle, and repurchase on-chain, achieving a true autonomous business closed loop; community participation is obtained through staking veVIRTUAL to gain governance rights and share transaction fees and repurchase dividends, merging the identities of "participants" and "owners" in the token economy. All of this is building a prototype of a digital nation operated by countless autonomous agents and co-governing humans.

So far, this ecosystem has demonstrated several milestone achievements: the security audit agent IRIS in the blockchain network Genesis Launch was listed with a subscription rate of 1500%, with its market value soaring from $200,000 to $80 million; the virtual idol Luna achieved a monthly income of $1.2 million through fan donations, with its token market value surpassing $120 million; the hedge fund-style VADER is operating steadily in a cross-chain environment, with a market value exceeding $100 million. These data not only reflect the feasibility of the agent business model but also prove that the "AI agent economy" is transitioning from theory to reality.

With the continuous maturation of multimodal AI technology and cross-chain interoperability, the Virtuals Protocol is undoubtedly at the forefront of building digital civilization. In the future, AI agents will not only be props and tools but will also become "digital citizens" with autonomous decision-making power and economic rights, participating alongside humans in production, governance, and even cultural creation. Virtuals will no longer be a simple platform but is nurturing a new type of society co-governed by countless AIs and humans from the bottom up—this is true ecological evolution, an exciting leap towards an "AI sovereign society."