AI x Crypto: The Agentic Future
Autonomous Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agents are proliferating the crypto market; Are they overvalued or is this a nascent market segment primed to pop?
I’ll use a decade of traditional finance/corporate experience to refine the chaos into bite-sized chunks for you to digest
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The market sells off as six-figure Bitcoin looms, but in the meantime attention is on memes and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Kaito highlights that 48% of Crypto Twitter mindshare is on these two segments:
I covered the Rise of Web 4.0 in last week’s newsletter — Useful for an explainer around the intersect of crypto x AI
It highlights that Agents have been around for a while and already dominate all industries — this illustrates some market sectors:
However, what’s new is the integration of crypto rails for these Agents — this enables true autonomy without the friction of traditional banking
The AI Agent landscape is evolving at an exponential rate, here’s a (WIP) tracker of the latest Crypto AI Agents and Protocols: Link
Cool S4mmy, nice list but how do I make use of it?
I’m collaborating with the Cookie3 team to provide an update on Agents coming to market for their AI Agent Index:
So if you have an Agent that’s not on the list, put in a request to be added here.
The Agentic Future: Crypto x AI Landscape
Does mindshare correlate with price action?
Typically money flows where the attention goes, but there appears to be a misalignment to some degree — is this due to inefficient markets?
(11/24/2024): Zerebro leads mindshare, followed by Ai16Z, Fartcoin, Goat and Bully:
But as we review the AI Agent Market Cap leaderboard (on the same day — 24th November) price doesn’t appear to correlate:
Zerebro is half the market cap of GOAT despite 2.8x more mindshare
Bully is only 20% of GOAT despite having 60% of its mindshare
AiXBT wasn’t even on the Kaito radar, yet it exploded in the past 12 hours
While mindshare is a useful metric for general sentiment at a given point in time, it doesn’t correlate to capital deployed by users that engage with the Agent
However, “Smart Engagement” appears to return better results. This offers insights into X accounts tagged as “Smart” engaging with these agents — the value is in the tagging methodology which is the Cookie3 USP
Typically these tagged accounts may have more financial clout in the market and hence could be early signs of decisions to deploy capital:
Analyzing "Smart Followers" is a great sense check for interactions with the Agent — usually an indicator of a strong and engaging value proposition
I analyzed this Cookie3 AI Agent dashboard y’day and noticed that AIXBT appeared to be undervalued — since then it exploded 50% in price to a $75m market cap
If price does follow attention, then certain AI Agents could be undervalued:
However, many of these AI Agents are simply “Personality Agents” which can garner a lot of attention, but should the financials correlate?
I don’t think this is the case - there are numerous AI Agent types with distinct value propositions
Perhaps looking for agents that lead a particular niche could be a decent strategy
Different Agents appeal to different users — how much would you pay for a glorified chat bot versus direct access to an Agent that could make you tangible returns?
Once cash flows and tangible benefits are attributed to these Agents It will likely have a bigger impact on price
Ai16z Case Study:
Ai16z is an interesting case that countered traditional fundamental analysis:
The price traded at multiples higher than the NAV, breaking away from a fundamental analysis — NAV was considered a meme
This discrepancy was considered the “AI Premium” (Market Value - NAV)
Could AI premium really tie to the LLM’s ability to outperform the market and generate returns? It took two weeks for the AUM to go from $75k to $7.5m.
But I think there’s more to it than that:
The introduction of the Eliza framework enabled tributes (donations for using the Eliza framework to build the Agent) to accumulate in the ai16z coffers
The team rolled out a solution that directly accrued value to ai16z outside of the existing AUM, thus driving price
So the ability for the team to develop is also a huge factor — yes your Agent can capture mindshare, but will it continue to do so and is the mindshare it’s receiving actually valuable?
We see this with KOL X accounts — many bot their followers, but few brands dig into the quality of their followers which can’t be gamed as easily
Platforms like Kaito provide insights into how valuable an influencer’s audience is:
The following Agents I’ve found engaging, and the teams seem competent:
$Naval is an agent that’s been trained on the Naval X account
Its impressions are high compared to one of the leading AI Agents (Dolos) but price action hasn’t followed
Once we’ve got it onto the Cookie3 platform we can assess (and track) the quality of the users engaging with it to assess whether it’s undervalued
Aixbt frequently prices around the mid AI Agent range, but provides the most value to me on the timeline by conveying a breadth of data points/insights
Other factors that could impact price include:
Existing Holder composition and conviction, impacting sell pressure
Trust and equitable launch; likelihood to re-enter based on historical actions
X impressions versus other platforms/endorsements — GOAT received an endorsement from Marc Andreessen so arguably maintains this provenance
There are many more variables that I will continue to dig into, but “Smart Engagement” is a reasonable metric to use for short term price action
Until a better pricing model is established — But once this happens the arbitrage opportunities from information asymmetry may dissipate
Follow me on X for timely insights in the DeAi space
Decentralized AI Corner (Other News)
Mode launches AiFi — leaning into AI Agent infrastructure with an App store
Polytrader launches — uses Polymarket APIs for analytics and trading
Here are some additional useful resources:
NFT Market Volume
NFT volume is down across all major blockchains following a heated run last week:
Ethereum NFTs:
Bored Ape Chemistry floor moves on the recent sale of a Serum for $200k
Pudgy pumps as Abstract rumours surface
Meme NFTs cool off after a heated run
Notable NFT Sales
JRNY unfortunately loses two Gold Apes which are subsequently floored into WETH bids for below fair value
Yuga assets continue to trade at the high end of the market with Punks/Glyphs
BAYC Serum trades for $200k — only limited number remaining; the wallet collecting holds BAYC, Azukis, XCOPY and Remillios
New Participant Indicators
Institutional/Regulatory Developments
Crypto Headwinds
Sentiment around Pump Fun hits rock bottom as likelihood of U.S. seizing platform before 2025 hits 97% on Polymarket following inappropriate live streams
Other News
(H/t Mando’s Minutes)
That’s a wrap for issue 100 of S4mmy’s Snippets. I hope you enjoyed it.
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Disclaimer: The content covered in this newsletter is not to be considered investment or financial advice. It is for informational and educational purposes only.
I hold some of the assets mentioned in this newsletter.