AI Token Infrastructure Outperforms Agents and Memecoins

The AI agent market sector has undergone a shift over the last month, with liquidity moving from agent memecoins, towards infrastructure and frameworks.

AI16z and Virtuals are leading the move, both of which are up over 200% in the last 30 days. AI16z surged to a fresh all-time high on Jan. 1 and currently changes hands at $2.01 per token, or a $2.2 billion valuation.

VIRTUAL is up another 57% over the last seven days, and hit a new all-time high of $5.2, or a $5.2 billion market capitalization on Jan. 1. The fresh all-time high caps off a parabolic move from below $0.05 at the end of September, making for a 10,300% increase across a three-month window.

Unlike the first iteration of AI agent tokens, which are largely memecoins that represent specific agents, AI16z and VIRTUAL present framework infrastructure to the AI agent space.

VIRTUAL, is the native token for Virtuals Protocol which operates similarly to a PumpFun for AI agents. AI16z, on the other hand originally, provides the most popular open-sourced framework for AI agent development, enabling independent developers to create and customize their own agents based on AI16z’s ELIZA framework.

While AI16z and VIRTUAL lead the charge, plenty of agent-focused projects are in the process of launching their own native frameworks in order to further the open-sourced AI movement.

The Zerebro team open-sourced its Zerepy framework on Dec. 21, and the developers behind Dolos the Bully and its BULLY token announced Dolion, a one-click AI agent creation platform slated to launch in January.

Since these announcements ZEREBRO is up 82% to $0.64 from $0.35, and BULLY is up 67% to $0.75 from $0.45.

Meanwhile, agent-specific tokens are struggling to keep up. GOAT, the memecoin adopted by Truth Terminal that started the entire movement, is down 53% from its all-time high of $1.3 billion to a $610 million valuation.

Token Demand is a Priority

The stark valuation difference between AI16z and Virtuals and other AI-related tokens may come down to factors including the developer user-interface, as well as value accrual mechanisms for each project's native token.

AI16z, despite reaching the number one trending repository across all of Github earlier this month, requires a degree of technical knowledge that some users may be lacking, while Virtuals allows anyone to head to their website, and launch an agent as easily as a PumpFun token.

Virtuals Protocol also has a token demand flywheel in place for their product, where users are required to transact in VIRTUAL token in order to build, buy, and sell agent tokens launched via its platform.

The AI16z token entitles holders to take part in the DAO, as the initiative was first launched as “the AI VC fund” on DAOs.Fun. However, as AI16z has evolved into an infrastructure provider, the team is preparing to enhance token benefits.

Shaw, the creator of the Eliza framework and AI16z, told The Defiant that reworking token valuation mechanism is his top priority.

“We are doing the hedge fund but our token is trading so high against AUM that people are asking how we accrue value to the token. We are working on some stuff that will make the token more valuable,” said Shaw.