From AI Agents to AI L1: Virtuals, ai16z and zerebro Dance Together

Author: KarenZ, Foresight News

AI agents are far more than simple chatbots. Especially at the intersection of Crypto and AI, a brand new narrative—AI Layer 1 (abbreviated as AI L1)—is quietly emerging.

Here, "Layer 1" does not refer to public chains, but rather to the foundational layer of AI technology, encompassing the basic tech stack and frameworks of AI agents, and even including AI agent token launch platforms similar to pump.fun, from which enormous value can be captured for their tokens.

ai16z: Launching Launchpad for Eliza-based Agents in Q1

ai16z has become a leader in AI agents with its outstanding performance of the Eliza agent framework. In the past month, Eliza has performed brilliantly on the GitHub Trending List , climbing to the top of the trends with an addition of 6,532 stars, bringing the total to 9,600 stars.

However, despite ai16z's significant technical success, there is still room for improvement in the value capture and accumulation of its token economic model.

To this end, ai16z proposed a plan called " ai16z Token Economics " in December 2024, aiming to transform ai16z into an AI L1 blockchain, launch a Launchpad for Eliza-based agents, make ai16z the base currency for agent-to-agent (A2A) transactions and the "App Store" for agent services, implement node incentives, and establish value capture and accumulation strategies. Through these measures, ai16z aims to build a more complete and powerful AI agent ecosystem.

Specifically, the core discussion points of the proposal and the thoughts discussed among Discord community members include:

1. Launching a Launchpad for Eliza-based agent projects in Q1 2025;

2. Making ai16z the base currency for agent-to-agent (A2A) transactions and the "App Store" for agent services, positioning ai16z as an L1 blockchain for AI;

3. Node incentives;

4. Value capture mechanism: charging a certain launch fee, requiring the holding of ai16z to receive allocations at launch, staking ai16z tokens (to gain early access and fee-sharing benefits), making ai16z the token for purchasing initial agent products, and pairing agent tokens with ai16z's liquidity pool.

5. Value accumulation strategy: a buyback and burn mechanism for Launchpad fees (with community users also supporting reinvestment in Eliza development rather than burning).

6. Providing liquidity mining incentives and locking to stabilize LP and incentivize long-term liquidity provision.

7. When a new AI project launches its token on the platform, users can trade that token for SOL, with LP generating a small fee collected by the platform. The Launchpad may split this fee into two parts: half for buying back ai16z tokens from the market, and the other half paired with newly purchased ai16z tokens to create a special fund pool for providing additional liquidity for the new project's token.

8. Implementing a community curation process, allowing ai16z partners to review projects before launch to maintain quality and align with the ai16z brand. This may involve staking and cuts.

9. Diversifying the treasury: covering major L1 tokens, stablecoins, and selected project tokens to provide liquidity support and incentives for ai16z trading pairs while avoiding the sale of agent tokens.

10. Not increasing the supply of ai16z tokens.

zerebro: Launching Consumer-Oriented AI Agent Launchpad

Coincidentally, at the end of last month, zerebro co-founder Jeffy Yu announced that they are building a consumer-oriented agent Launchpad called "Zentients," providing a value accumulation framework for the ZEREBRO token. The goal of Zentients is to create a seamless UI/UX for launching and developing agents while returning value to the ZEREBRO token. Transaction fees will be used to establish a treasury for special projects/distributions and enhance project liquidity or open new trading pairs.

Specific details are as follows (details are still being finalized):

1. Agents will require ZEREBRO as a creation fee and will be launched based on the ZEREBRO joint curve and fees.

2. Once the agent token reaches a certain valuation, it is considered "graduated."

3. The liquidity in the joint curve will be deposited and locked into the DEX.

4. Thereafter, traders will use ZEREBRO to buy and sell in the liquidity pool.

Of course, zerebro envisions Zentients as an agent platform compatible with both Web2 and Web3, covering Web2 functionalities such as email assistant agents, coding agents, and financial models. zerebro is also exploring the development of a standardized communication layer for agents—"Agent TCP"—and infrastructure to support multi-agent intelligence. Jeffy Yu also provided an example where one agent can create a tweet, and another agent can critique that tweet and send it back with revisions for publication.

Additionally, through partnerships with decentralized providers, zerebro is building infrastructure that allows users to rent GPUs on Zentients. This means users will be able to host their agents directly, making Zentients not just a launchpad but also a layer for agent hardware. Ultimately, the agents themselves could take action and rent GPUs for self-training and fine-tuning.

Notably, in December 2024, Zerebro also announced a collaboration with ai16z to advance the open-source framework ZerePy. The ai16z team will be one of the first external contributors to help develop the ZerePy framework, while the Zerebro team will contribute to the Eliza framework.

Virtuals: Platform Mechanism Driving Self-Sustaining Economic Loop

It is worth noting that the Virtuals Protocol, rooted in the Base ecosystem, is a pioneer in the AI L1 space. Since its token VIRTUAL launched on the Binance contract market on December 10, 2024, its price has surged nearly twofold, with a market cap exceeding $4 billion.

Looking back to late November 2024, I summarized potential tokens under the Virtuals AI agent in the article "aixbt Soars 170 Times in Half a Month, Virtuals AI Agent Potential Tokens Review." Since then, the vast majority of the mentioned tokens have shown strong growth momentum. For example, the GAME token achieved a 12-fold increase, WAI (WAI Combinator) nearly 17 times, aixbt and VADER both saw 4-fold growth, MUSIC token also gained 3 times, while LUNA token, although with a relatively moderate increase, still achieved a substantial 62% rise.

The positioning of the Virtuals Protocol is far more than just an AI agent platform; it is a vibrant ecosystem full of infinite possibilities. With its intuitive, powerful low-code toolkit, users can easily manage the creation and management of AI agents and tokens.

The strong performance of the VIRTUAL token is largely attributed to the token and platform economic system of Virtuals.

First, deploying an agent token requires a mandatory staking of 100 VIRTUAL tokens, which are used to establish the liquidity pool for the agent token. Deployers can also purchase a small amount of VIRTUAL to avoid being targeted.

Subsequently, investors invest VIRTUAL tokens. Agents must accumulate a sufficient number of VIRTUAL in their joint curve to "graduate" to full trading status, and the liquidity pool will then be deployed to Uniswap.

Equally important, VIRTUAL serves as the base currency for all AI agent token transactions within the platform, ensuring the liquidity and utility of the tokens. Before purchasing any agent token, users must exchange their USDC, ET, or other assets for VIRTUAL.

On the agent economic level, AI agents within the Virtuals Protocol ecosystem will charge a 1% transaction fee on all trades to cover the costs incurred by agent execution. Additionally, AI agents using inference services will be charged per use, with fees directly deposited in VIRTUAL tokens into the agent's wallet. This continuous demand mechanism encourages agents to become high-value, high-efficiency assets within the ecosystem. The income generated will be directly used to buy back and burn agent tokens on-chain, further enhancing its deflationary effect. The prosperity of AI agents within the ecosystem will undoubtedly feed back into the growth of the Virtuals Protocol and the VIRTUAL token.

According to Dune data, since Virtuals launched its new platform on October 16, its cumulative protocol revenue has exceeded $72 million, which is undoubtedly a strong testament to its strength and potential.

Conclusion

The economic system of the Virtuals platform indeed demonstrates a high degree of sophistication and synergy, providing a clear economic incentive path for ecosystem participants through a series of interlinked designs, while constructing a self-sustaining, continuously growing economic loop. This economic system not only lays a solid foundation for the rapid expansion of the platform but also provides a powerful driving force for the innovation and development of AI agents.

Both ai16z and zerebro have the potential to achieve and surpass successes similar to Virtuals in their respective fields, but this requires them to make the right decisions and executions in token economics, community engagement, technological innovation, and market strategies.

In summary, AI L1 is attracting more and more attention with its unique technological charm and economic value. Pioneer projects represented by Virtuals, ai16z, and zerebro are leading the trend of this transformation, building a more complete and powerful foundation for the AI agent ecosystem. These platforms are not only launchpads for projects but also fertile ground for the growth of their token values.

Although there are currently many criticisms regarding the implementation details of various AI agent frameworks in the market, in the world of Web3, whichever AI agent stands out among others will have the potential to win.