The value of the Virtuals Protocol ecosystem surged by 28% over the last day, bringing the total market capitalization of the Base blockchain tokens to $1.9 billion, according to CoinGecko.

The native token of the Virtuals Protocol, VIRTUAL, is currently trading at $1.38—up nearly 29% in the last 24 hours and 161% over the last week. It's set an all-time high in the process, bounding into the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap.

What’s driving the sudden interest in Virtuals? Demand for AI agents, or AI-powered autonomous programs designed to perform tasks on their own and mimic how humans would handle a specific situation. These agents can understand their environment, make decisions, and take action to achieve their goals.

The rise in interest in AI agents is the latest in the blockchain industry’s pivot to artificial intelligence technology and tokenization. And amid recent demand for crypto tokens tied to AI agents and ecosystems, Virtuals is the latest big winner.

Launched in January on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 scaling network, Virtuals Protocol is a launchpad and marketplace for gaming and entertainment AI agents that was co-founded in 2021 by Jansen Teng, Weekee Tiew, and Wei Xiong as PathDAO, before relaunching as Virtuals Protocol.

Virtuals Protocol launched its VIRTUAL token after a 1-for-1 swap of its PATH token in December, and says its goal is to enable as many people as possible to participate in the ownership of AI agents.

It allows developers to build AI agents with six core functionalities: posting to X (formerly known as Twitter), Telegram chatting, livestreaming, meme generation, "Sentient AI," and music creation. These agents are compatible with platforms like Roblox, utilizing Virtuals Protocol’s Generative Autonomous Multimodal Entities (GAME) engine.

In terms of their use with cryptocurrency and digital assets, according to Virtuals Protocol, AI agents are able to facilitate transactions without their owner needing to give it a command once launched.

Other AI agent tokens within the Virtuals Protocol ecosystem also saw significant gains on Friday. Aixbt by Virtuals (AIXBT) rose 23.8% to $0.21, followed by Luna by Virtuals (LUNA), which increased 9.4% over the same period, reaching $0.08. Meanwhile, VaderAI by Virtuals (VADER) increased 78.9% over the same period, reaching $0.05.

All of those tokens have more than doubled in price this week.

Virtuals bills itself as an AI x metaverse Protocol that is building the future of virtual interactions. The tokens play unique roles in their respective ecosystems and reward users for staking them. For example, AIXBT offers AI-driven insights from X, real-time project data, and staking benefits. $VADER powers VaderAI with rewards, access to its DAO, and exclusive AI monetization tools. Meanwhile, the LUNA token provides staking options and promises future rewards for its holders.

What are AI agents?

Outside of blockchain, several big names in the AI industry are leading the push into developing AI agents, including OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Amazon Web Services. In 2023, the AI Agent market was valued at $3.86 billion, according to a report by market research firm Grand View Research. That number is expected to rise 45% by 2023.

“If I was betting my career on one thing right now, it would be AI agents. Literally a trillion dollar market up for grabs,” entrepreneur and venture capitalist Greg Isenberg said on X. “We're headed to a world where AI agents replace entire workflows.”

But why the sudden interest in AI agents in crypto? According to investor and entrepreneur Markus Jun, the rise of interest in AI agents in the blockchain space is a natural progression in an industry where markets are open 24/7 with no downtime.

“As a general trend, I think agentic AI is extremely hotly anticipated,” Jun told Decrypt. “The reason why crypto agentic AI makes so much sense is that autonomous agents can use crypto and on-chain data and Twitter at the protocol level, natively.”

The same would not be possible with traditional financial tools, Jun said, adding that handling a currency native to the internet gives AI agents an edge in facilitating transactions for their users.

“Crypto is internet money, and the agent's ability to send money to anyone on the internet opens up a lot of interesting possibilities that wouldn't be the same as an agent using a bank account API,” he added.

Edited by Andrew Hayward