DeFAI: A new rise point for AI Agents

At the beginning of this year, AI Agent projects on the blockchain showed rapid growth. Some well-known projects like Virtuals and ai16z reached market capitalizations of several billion dollars at one point, while foundational framework projects like ARC and Swarms exceeded a market cap of 600 million dollars. The market cap of DeFAI projects such as BUZZ and Grift touched 200 million dollars. This wave even attracted traditional Web2 AI Agent projects like Pippin and AIOS to venture into the blockchain field.

However, as market sentiment changed, the liquidity of AI Agent tokens rapidly decreased. The sudden rise of DeepSeek further burst the AI bubble. The market values of Virtuals and ai16z plummeted significantly, while other AI Agent tokens generally fell by more than 90%. The AI Agent sector has entered a winter period, leaving many investors trapped.

Due to the overall market capitalization of the AI Agent sector being relatively small (less than $7 billion), many people are not familiar with this field. Therefore, we will first provide a brief introduction to the AI Agent sector, and then analyze why DeFAI is expected to become a new rise point for AI Agents, potentially bringing significant market opportunities.

Overview of AI Agent Section

The AI Agent is an intelligent entity that can act autonomously, perform tasks, and interact with external tools. Its core is the model service, primarily supported by ChatGPT, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek, Llama, and others. However, the AI Agent is not just a conversational system; it also needs to manage its own state, call various tools, and execute tasks safely.

In the Web3 field, AI Agent projects mainly include several categories such as launch platforms, frameworks, infrastructure, agents, and DeFAI.

launch platform

The launch platform is currently the easiest type to capture value in the AI Agent project. It allows users to create, deploy, and monetize AI Agents, similar to the pump.fun platform in Meme coins.

Virtuals is currently the largest launch platform, launched on the Base network. Its ecosystem has issued over 100,000 Agents, including the virtual live streamer Luna, market analyst "KOL" AIXBT, and the Agent development framework G.A.M.E among several well-known projects.

framework

The framework is a toolkit for developing AI Agents. A well-known public blockchain has listed 5 main framework projects: SendAI's SolanaAgentKit, ai16z's Eliza, ARC's Rig, Crossmint's GOAT, and Zerebro's ZerePy.

ai16z is currently the second highest market capitalization AI Agent project. In addition to providing the Eliza framework, it is also a venture capital fund focused on the AI field, and it plans to develop into a Layer 1 platform for AI Agents in the future.

infrastructure

Infrastructure refers to the off-chain platforms or tools built around AI Agents, covering a wide range. For example, AI Agent data aggregation service cookie.fun, testing platform Jailbreak, resource sharing network FXN, model fine-tuning training service LUMO, and AI Agent Layer1 platform Artela, etc.

cookie.fun has tracked over 1000 AI Agents, providing multi-dimensional analysis and comparison features including mind share, intelligent attention, engagement, and on-chain data.

Jailbreak aims to create a decentralized AI model and agent testing platform to help enterprises identify potential vulnerabilities in distributed environments and enhance the practical application security of AI models.

FXN is an Agent resource sharing network that enables Agents from different frameworks to securely share functions through P2P protocols.

Lumo Labs develops customized AI models for a well-known public chain ecosystem, assisting in tasks such as market analysis, risk assessment, and project planning.

Artela is the first high-performance public chain that supports full-chain AI, featuring elastic block space, parallel execution, and a modular architecture, providing a technical foundation for complex, independent, and transparent AI.

Intelligent Body

The intelligent agents are specific instances of AI Agents. In addition to the previously mentioned AIXBT and Luna, there are several distinctive intelligent agent projects worth noting:

Freysa is a competitive proxy game where players need to persuade the AI controlling the prize pool to send rewards to themselves.

Zerebro is an intelligent agent on a public chain that focuses on artistic creation and content generation, capable of independently creating music, memes, artworks, and NFTs.

Pippin is both an agent and a framework, initially created by Yohei Nakajima, the author of the well-known AGI framework BabyAGI, and later launched a framework for creating "self-feedback" mechanism agents.

DeFAI

DeFAI is the combination of decentralized finance (DeFi) and artificial intelligence (AI), aimed at simplifying the complex processes of DeFi through AI technology, enhancing the user experience for ordinary users. DeFAI is considered the most likely application direction for the integration of AI Agent and blockchain.

Griffain is an intent-based blockchain terminal that simplifies on-chain transaction processes through agent technology. Users can also create their own agents to complete social interactions and DeFi transactions.

Orbit is a platform focused on simplifying DeFi operations and obtaining market information, providing users with a smooth interactive experience. Its token Grift is the AI Agent token it launched.

BUZZ, as the champion project of a certain AI hackathon, utilizes AI technology to provide a natural language interface, allowing users to conduct and manage DeFi transactions more intuitively. Based on a cellular architecture and a certain Agent Kit, BUZZ can automatically handle complex DeFi operations through user chat commands, and also supports customized strategies.

The Development Prospects of DeFAI

Although the AI Agent sector has experienced a brief surge followed by a decline, its development story is far from over. DeFAI is considered to be the most promising direction for a new rise in AI Agents, for the following reasons:

1. From a macro perspective, the integration of AI and Web3 is an inevitable trend, and the direction in which AI improves Web3 is more certain. Currently, the most needed improvement in Web3 is user experience, and AI Agents can play a guiding and assisting role throughout the Web3 ecosystem.

2. From a market perspective, the sudden interruption of AI Agent narratives is more due to the "trust crisis" triggered by celebrity Meme coins, leading to misunderstandings about utility tokens.

The advantages of DeFAI are:

1. It can directly address practical issues in Web3, namely reducing the complexity of DeFi operations.

2. The tokens of the DeFAI project are easier to empower, such as unlocking advanced features through token payments or staking.

3. DeFAI stands at the intersection of DeFi and AI Agents, promoting the popularization of DeFi while providing practical application scenarios for AI Agents.

Conclusion

DeFAI not only simplifies the complexity of DeFi operations and enhances user experience, but more importantly, it stands at the intersection of DeFi and AI Agent. This enables DeFAI to both promote the popularization of DeFi and provide real-world scenarios for AI Agents.

During periods of market volatility, it is especially important to stick to one's beliefs in technology and applications. Although the market has experienced severe fluctuations recently, for those who believe in the value of DeFAI, this may be a rare opportunity.