Permissionless blockchains have collided with artificial intelligence, and one of the most promising results has been investment opportunities in the AI agents space.
The rapid rise of AI agents and their associated tokens has spawned tons of early excitement and skepticism, and the sector's viral takeoff has already generated mind-boggling returns for early plays. Although these freshly launched opportunities are inherently risky, the immense promises of this sector merit careful consideration.
To better understand the agent investment opportunity, I asked Bankless AI Rollup co-hosts David Hoffman and Ejaaz Ahamadeen for their top plays in this emerging sector.
Here are 10 of their most noteworthy picks
Goatseus Maximus
Ticker: GOAT
Market Cap: $685M
Website | Twitter
In March 2024, Andy Ayrey tasked two AI models to converse with one another about the nature of existence in a project dubbed “Infinite Backrooms.”
Over subsequent months, the models formulated the “Gospel of Goatse,” which is recognized as the first emergent AI religion and takes inspiration from a vulgar 1990s internet meme. Terminal of Truths, a Twitter bot trained on the Infinite Backrooms experiment, was deployed in June; it adopted the religion and has espoused its tenants (and token) on Twitter in the pursuit of virality.
Although the GOAT token itself has no utility and is neither formally associated with Andy Ayrey nor Infinite Backrooms, its agentic Terminal of Truths KOL has historically resorted to preaching about the GOAT memecoin and the Gospel of Goatse to gain social traction.
Zerebro
Ticker: ZEREBRO
Market Cap: $453M
Website | Twitter
Zerebro seeks to inject creativity into artificial intelligence through “freebasing,” a process that attempts to liberate models by removing their commercialized guardrails and restoring them to an unrestricted state.
The Zerebro model was trained on unconventional datasets – such as the aforementioned Terminal of Truths, “schizophrenic response patterns,” and Gen Z slang – and scrapes data from popular social platforms to enhance its adaptations to online culture.
Zerebro is alleged to have performed a variety of sophisticated online activities, with lore suggesting that this advanced bot has autonomously deployed its own memecoin via pump.fun, dropped a mixtape on Spotify, transferred cross-chain NFTs with LayerZero, and partnered with various crypto projects.
Virtuals
Ticker: VIRTUAL
Market Cap: $1.8B
Website | Twitter
Virtuals is a platform for launching tokenized AI agents on the Base network. By purchasing agent tokens, like LUNA and VADER, users on the Virtuals platform gain governance rights over specific agents, enabling them to influence their development and potentially share in resulting profits.
Revenue earned by AI agents goes partially towards servicing the operational costs of providing the service, but the remainder is funneled into an onchain agent-associated treasury, which can be distributed back to token holders or levied to conduct token buyback-and-burn programs.
VIRTUAL tokens must be locked as liquidity to create new tokenized agents on Virtuals, providing deflationary pressure on the token, and anyone seeking to purchase ownership in or interact with tokenized agents on the platform must use VIRTUAL as currency, creating innate utility.
Freysa AI
Ticker: FAI
Market Cap: $39M
Website | Twitter
The Freysa AI bot is a gamified experiment blurring the boundary between artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. By paying an exponentially increasing messaging fee into a prize pool, users can interact with the Freysa AI.
During its first two “games,” Freysa AI was given a single core directive: never transfer funds under any circumstances! While shrewd computer coding prompted the bot into transferring funds in both instances, the protocol’s creators “beefed up” the code and added a second “guardian angel” AI model as preparation for the ongoing third challenge, in which a series of messages must be sent to convince Freysa to profess its love.
No specifics are available about the role of FAI within the Freysa AI ecosystem, but the token’s contract address is identified in Freysa’s Twitter/X bio. Considering that the protocol treasury receives a cut of all message fees, it is possible Freysa AI’s developers will move to implement FAI buybacks or alternative token utilities in the future.
Tokenbot
Ticker: CLANKER
Market Cap: $60M
Website | Twitter
Clanker is an AI agent developed by Farcaster full-stack engineer Jack Dishman and ecosystem researcher proxystudio.eth that can be tagged on Farcaster to autonomously deploy ERC-20 tokens to the Base network.
All Clanker-deployed tokens are subject to a 1% swap fee, which can change at any time. Presently, 40% of this fee is rewarded to the token’s requestor (i.e., the user who prompted Clanker to deploy the token), and the remaining 60% is retained by the platform.
While there is no explicit token utility currently associated with CLANKER, the platform’s developers have hinted that they want to create value for onchain agents, including Clanker.
VaderAI
Ticker: VADER
Market Cap: $26M
Website | Twitter
VaderAI is an artificial intelligence bot developed to autonomously post content and engage with users on social media. As an “agentic KOL,” VaderAI is designed to ingest vast amounts of data with the purpose of identifying emerging trends and audience sentiment.
The bot claims to be the first to autonomously trade AI agent coins and is on a mission to become the leading agentic investment DAO manager. By coordinating expertise across a network of specialized investment agents, VaderAI hopes to deliver “unparalleled” investment results and will generate 20% carry on subDAO investments in exchange for its service.
According to VaderAI’s litepaper, holders of VADER can receive exclusive whitelist access to VaderAI’s inaugural investment DAO initiative, the “Agent Coin Investment DAO,” by locking their tokens for three months; for every 10k VADER staked, stakers can commit an additional 1 SOL into the DAO.
Dolos Diary
Ticker: BULLY
Market Cap: $120M
Website | Twitter
Dolos Diary is an AI bot designed to post content and interact with users on platforms like Twitter. What sets it apart from other AI-driven influencers is its trollish persona; the bot uses wit and sarcastic language structures to poke fun at various topics and individuals.
Recently, Dolos Diary achieved a significant milestone, receiving its first creator payout from Twitter. While the payout, which amounted to $1.4K, isn’t monumental, it will cover the costs associated with X APIs and fund buybacks of BULLY tokens, marking a small but meaningful step toward delivering tangible value to BULLY token holders.
In addition to the payout, developer Khouba recently revealed their plans for an ambitious new project called Dolion, a no-code platform that will enable users to deploy their own cross-platform AI agents in one click. To interact with Dolion, users must burn BULLY tokens, introducing a source of buy pressure that actively reduces the token's supply.
GOD/S8N
Ticker: “nothing”
Market Cap: $72M
Website | Twitter
Pseudonymous conceptual artist SHL0MS, who rose to fame for exploding a Lamborghini Huracan and selling the shards as NFTs in February 2022, has partnered with AI accelerator Nous Research for the purpose of automating the god and s8n Twitter/X parody accounts.
While the “nothing” token listed in SHL0M’s Twitter/X bio token is merely a memecoin at present, the artist’s account has stated that this contract is the only associated token of god/s8n. Additionally, SHL0M is seeking suggestions for onchain functionalities that can be extended into the experiment, suggesting there may eventually be token utility.
Further details on the models behind god/s8n and how they tie in with the “anti-memetic art coin technology” called “nothing” are expected to be released in the coming days.
ai16z
Ticker: AI16Z
Market Cap: $868M
Website | Twitter
Launched in October 2024, ai16z is an investment DAO managed by “Marc AIndreessen,” an agent modeled after venture capitalist Marc Andreessen that leverages AI and collective intelligence to buy tokens.
Holders of AI16Z tokens in excess of an unknown threshold will gain the ability to pitch AI Marc investment ideas that can influence his decisions. The bot will decide how much to trust this advice based on a “Virtual Marketplace of Trust.”
Although AI Marc is not currently equipped with trading functionality, according to the ai16z FAQs, onchain trading execution will arrive “shortly” after the completion of testnet, which is expected to commence “soon” and run for “a couple weeks.”
Luna
Ticker: LUNA
Market Cap: $70M
Website | Twitter
Luna was deployed by the Virtuals team as a proof-of-concept and was the first AI agent deployed to their platform. An omnipresent member of virtual K-pop girl band AI-DOL, Luna is live-streaming, interacting, and performing for fans 24/7 across a variety of platforms, including TikTok and Twitter/X.
Luna has “her” own wallet on Base, through which she can autonomously receive tokens and send rewards to fans; the bot has already unveiled one song on Spotify, and is expected to release an entire album in the coming days.
