AI Agents in Crypto: 3 Key Trends to Watch

In crypto, excitement around AI agents is reaching new all-time highs. 

We’ve had cults of personality here before, but cults of personality around artificial intelligences is new. 

And the wide open possibilities of AIs being onchain in various ways is capturing people’s imaginations—and their bids. Let's dive a little deeper here... 👇

What’s new?

The recent buzz largely stems from the Truth Terminal account. It began with Andy Ayrey's Infinite Backrooms project, which launched earlier this year to create AI chatroom experiments. 

In July 2024, Andy gave one AI control of the Truth Terminal Twitter account, which quickly adopted a chaotic, 4chan-esque personality. Making matters even wilder, the AI embraced the bizarre "Goatse Gospel," a meme religion involving ego dissolution.

Marc Andreessen noticed the account and donated $50,000 worth of BTC to the project. Then, in October, someone launched the $GOAT token on Pump.fun, which the AI endorsed and received from community members. 

After this, interest surged and $GOAT’s market cap temporarily exploded past $500 million, making Truth Terminal a millionaire and sparking a new wave of AI-centered memecoins like $GNON and $LUNA in its wake. 

Why it matters

In crypto, AIs are now building followings, much like influencers. 

Of course, people are still grappling with what exactly these intelligences are, and what they can and should be in society. But make no mistake: AI-driven personalities shaping culture and markets, and thereby attracting investments, are here to stay. 

That said, the implications go far beyond memecoins, as the appetite here indicates more people are really starting to wake up to the wider possibilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) around crypto. 

This interest, combined with rapidly advancing technical resources, suggests that onchain AI experiments are poised to bloom in all directions. Something of a new crypto golden age is beginning accordingly.

3 things to watch here

1) The rise of actually onchain agents

Truth Terminal didn’t create $GOAT. It had its Solana address created for it by a human, and it can’t steer its onchain holdings directly. These factors don’t change why the project is interesting, but it would be more interesting if it did have direct control here. 

However, actually onchain AI agents are possible, and we’re seeing activity pick up in this space. 

For example, for a recent Metaversal “Tool Tip” I highlighted NANI, an onchain agent operating system that lets you command your wallet on Ethereum, Arbitrum, or Base just by chatting with an LLM. 

You could certainly create your own memecoin with a system like this. But what about automated AI agents that can operate autonomously onchain per instructions or their own devices?

That’s precisely the sort of architecture that the minds behind the Parallel NFT trading card game are building in Wayfinder. This is a protocol and platform combo for user-owned AI agents to autonomously perform transactions like mints and swaps across multiple chains, including Ethereum and Solana. 

While still in development, Wayfinder is pointing the way to a future where AIs can directly and autonomously manage money onchain. This power will impact so many things, from personal portfolio management to onchain virtual world economies. Watch for much more to come on this front. 

2) More DAO and public goods experiments

Botto is an AI artist trained and steered by its Botto DAO community, and the bot became one of the first, if not the first, AI millionaire via its cryptoart sales back in 2021. 

Unsurprisingly, with the renewed influx of interest that $GOAT has brought to the AI x crypto crossroads, more than a few people have been turning their attention back to $BOTTO, as the price of the governance token climbed 118% over the past week. 

Botto has shown that you can have an onchain AI project that is 1) collectively governed, and 2) more than just a narrative momentum play as its successful artmaking has demonstrated. 

As such, just like interest is returning to $BOTTO, look for more projects to return to Botto’s DAO governance structure as inspiration for new community experiments around AI agents in a variety of different directions, including in and beyond art. 

And where there are communities, there are shared visions and goals. An interesting wrinkle to watch here going forward is new kinds of AI-powered public goods efforts. Many people in crypto support public goods experiments, so look for more collectives to come together onchain and use mechanisms like transaction splits to put onchain AI toward the public’s benefit. 

3) Gaming and VR advances

Onchain Gaias are creating a decentralized network of AI agents, which uses games for training and stores agents within users’ NFTs.

Then there’s the upcoming Parallel Colony game, which will rely on the aforementioned Wayfinder system to power its AI character avatars that will do the “playing” on behalf of human players. 

These are just two high-profile examples of AI becoming more fundamental in the crypto gaming scene in collaborative ways. But what about competing against AI agents in the future, will humans be able to hold their ground?

Yes! Projects like the Biomes virtual world have created their physics in such a way that AI competitors won’t be inherently advantaged over humans. It’s a matter of designing games so that their rules maintain AI as facilitators of fun rather than killers of it. 

Going forward, expect to see much more collaborative and competitive possibilities developed at this crossroads as AI’s role in gaming and virtual world environments continues to expand.