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

At the beginning of 2025, the AI Agent market showed a strong growth trend, with a total market value surpassing 16.9 billion USD, an increase of about 22.7% compared to the previous week. In this blue ocean, Virtuals Protocol and AI16Z stood out in the Base chain and Solana ecosystem respectively, becoming important indicators for observing the AI Agent track.

Virtuals Protocol, as the main AI Agent issuance platform on the Base chain, has a platform token VIRTUAL with a market capitalization exceeding $5 billion, ranking among the top 40 cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, in the Solana ecosystem, ai16z, as a venture capital institution managed by AI Agents, has also surpassed a market capitalization of $2.5 billion. These two protocols each have their own characteristics and differences in development paths.

Development History

Virtuals Protocol: From Gaming Guild to AI Agent Issuing Platform

Virtuals Protocol originated from a Malaysian team established in 2021. Initially focused on trading, it later transformed into the gaming guild PathDAO. However, between 2022 and 2023, the gaming guild market cooled down, and the team made several unsuccessful attempts to pivot, ultimately realizing the enormous potential of AI.

In 2023, the team proposed a full transformation into the AI field, receiving 90% member support. In 2024, they explored AI Gaming on Base and launched the platform. Although it initially did not gain market recognition, the team achieved several breakthroughs in the AI field, including the world's first Roblox AI RPG and AI games without game engines, among others. Their virtual streamer Luna, launched on social media, also generated stable income. 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, is an experienced game developer and AI expert. His career spans multiple fields including AI, Web3, and 3D spatial networks.

The birth of AI16Z originated from a project called "AI version degen Spartan." The performance of this AI on social media has overturned people's stereotypes of AI, sparking widespread discussion. Subsequently, Shaw's communication with industry professionals inspired the idea of creating AI investors, aiming to build an autonomous, trustworthy investment system that serves the community.

AI16Z set a fundraising target of 4,420 SOL at its launch, and sold out in just 20 minutes, demonstrating strong market interest in this innovative model.

Product Core

Virtuals Protocol: AI's iOS

Virtuals Protocol serves as the issuance platform for AI Agents, with functionalities similar to some existing platforms, but its uniqueness lies in the use of the platform token VIRTUAL as the trading pool. The platform establishes common standards for its AI Agent tokens, emphasizing precise planning and autonomous operational capabilities.

In terms of token economy, Virtuals Protocol empowers VIRTUAL through its Agent project. The platform also provides development tools to ensure that its tokens maintain a close connection with the parent protocol, forming a complete ecosystem. Its model is somewhat similar to a well-known technology company's mobile operating system.

AI16Z & ELIZA: An Open System in the AI Field

AI16Z is a fund managed autonomously by AI, employing a hybrid strategy that includes community interaction mechanisms. ELIZA is an open-source framework for AI Agents, allowing developers to freely build and experiment with AI Agents.

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

The ELIZA plug-in system has facilitated the growth of the developer ecosystem, creating a positive cycle. However, in terms of token economics, ELIZA is not strongly bound to the ecological protocol, allowing anyone to freely use the framework for development. This open model is similar to the philosophy of a well-known mobile operating system.

Concept Project Overview

In the VIRTUALS ecosystem, VIRTUAL has a market value of 4.34B as a protocol token, and projects like AIXBT, GAME, and VADER have also performed well. In the AI16Z/Eliza ecosystem, the AI16Z fund has a market value of 2.29B, and projects like the ELIZA framework and DegenAI have also attracted market attention.

Catalysts Driving Coin Prices

Virtuals Protocol

The business model of this protocol is clear, and the product is closely linked to the coin price. To observe the trend of the coin price, one can pay attention to the trading volume of ecosystem tokens and the number of issued tokens. Data shows that the platform issues a stable amount of tokens daily in the range of 100-200.

Virtuals Protocol focuses on high-quality projects rather than pursuing an increase in the number of tokens issued. The key to driving the value of the Virtual token in the future lies in the continuous incubation of excellent AI Agent projects. Currently, among the platform's ecological tokens, there are 8 tokens with a market capitalization exceeding 100 million USD, collectively holding a 33.3% mindshare in the AI Agent market, making it the largest ecosystem.

AI16Z/Eliza

The overall ecosystem of AI16Z is relatively weak, and projects using the Eliza architecture do not directly feed value back to AI16Z/Eliza. This is also one of the reasons why the current market value of AI16Z is only half that of Virtual.

AI16Z adopts an open strategy, allowing emerging AI Agent projects to use the ElizaOS architecture. Whether AI16Z's market value can continue to rise in the future depends on the depth, speed, and number of collaborations with other protocols. Recently, it has collaborated with other well-known framework protocols (such as ARC and FXN), and we look forward to more strong partnerships in the future.