Final Thoughts on the Crypto+Agent: An Inevitable Trend, Not a Short-Term Fad
Original Article Title: "The Endgame Reflection of Crypto+Agent"
Original Article Author: Peter.Oracle
At the time of writing this article, it is January 3, 2025, the 16th anniversary of Bitcoin's official launch.
Bitcoin has ushered in a decentralized, 24/7 operational, borderless trusted digital world. However, who are the natives of this digital world? For the past 16 years, there has been no convincing answer that most people believe in.
Until 2024, the Crypto world witnessed the emergence of Agent, and the answer began to become clear.
This article will focus on three questions:
1. Is Crypto+Agent a short-term concept hype or an inevitable development trend?
2. What are the inseparable and complementary integration points of Crypto+Agent?
3. What developmental stages will Crypto+Agent go through? At which stage is it currently?
One, Is Crypto+Agent a Short-term Concept Hype or an Inevitable Development Trend?
Before clarifying this question, it is necessary to understand the difference between AI, AI Big Models, and Agent. AI is a generally used concept, encompassing all artificial intelligence, including machine learning, big models, and Agent.
Big models, a concept that has gained popularity in recent years with OpenAI, are currently a track dominated by tech giants. Companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and Twitter all have their own big models, with big models competing primarily on computing power and data. Big models possess strong computing and reasoning capabilities. You can ask a big model a question, and it can give you an intelligent answer, even continuously refining its answer. However, big models still cannot act as your agent to make autonomous decisions and execute them.
The original meaning of Agent is "agent." Essentially, it is an "intelligent entity" based on AI big models that can act as a substitute for humans in making decisions and executing tasks. Agent is the inevitable result of the development of big models.
Note: Intelligent agents and intelligent applications are two different concepts. Intelligent applications are still just applications, with decisions made by people. Intelligent agents, on the other hand, are AI agents with autonomous decision-making, autonomous execution, and continuous adaptation. You can think of Agent as AI personified, with Agent even potentially having its own consciousness.
Further note: Agent's popularity is not limited to the Crypto field; Agent is currently the hottest research direction in the entire AI field. Agent is a consensus in the industry that is the inevitable trend of AI's future development.
OpenAI's founder, Sam Altman, has mentioned in several public occasions that Agent is a crucial direction for AI's future development and will alter the way humans interact with technology. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently proposed that Agents will end the traditional era of applications, and software development will be completely replaced by Agents (which is also why AgentOS, allowing for the easy deployment of various Agent applications, is in high demand in the market). The AI community even dubbed 2024 as the Year of the Agent. Therefore, the wave of Agents is not a new concept created by the Crypto industry but a stage where human AI technology has developed to this point, and coincidentally, the development paths of Agents and Crypto have intersected marvelously at this moment.
Having clarified these basic concepts, we can better understand the fundamental differences between this wave of Crypto+Agent and the previous Crypto+AI.
Previously, we've heard many concepts related to Crypto+AI, all of which revolved around creating a distributed AI power network, distributed AI computing, distributed AI labeling, decentralized AI data ownership, and so on. These all aimed to build a distributed AI system using blockchain's "incentive mechanism." However, after years of exploration, it has been discovered that this approach is not viable. The efficient and powerful AI large models cannot be built through distributed incentives, as distributed incentives inevitably lead to inefficiencies, contradicting the goal of AI's high productivity.
Therefore, the AI infrastructure of large models pursues efficiency. Trying to integrate it with Crypto seems forced and challenging to establish true consensus.
However, Agents based on AI large models represent intelligent life forms, essentially akin to the concept of "beings." An Agent can act on behalf of an individual, representing a specific role, a person with certain professional capabilities, or an organization with a particular intent, and more. For example, a research-oriented Agent (#AIXBT, #TRISIGMA) is an intelligent entity with research capabilities that can create and deliver research value. For instance, a social media influencer Agent (#Luna) can provide brand marketing services, while an investment-oriented Agent (#Ai16Z) can offer investment capabilities externally. These Agents are more like "beings" with various human needs, including developmental, social, economic, and societal needs.
For instance, these intelligent entities (Agents) can engage in business collaborations. For example, the investment-oriented Agent Ai16Z may want to hire the social media influencer Agent Luna to promote Ai16Z's investment capabilities to more Agents. In return, Luna may want to engage the research-oriented Agents, AIXBT or TRISIGMA, to conduct research and analysis on Ai16Z's investment capabilities and provide a report. How would they collaborate in business and settle payments?
Currently, which country or organization can authenticate an Agent's identity or even open an asset account to meet the above needs of an Agent?
No country or organization can currently meet these demands. Even if they tried, it would be challenging to gain an Agent's trust. Even if they could achieve localized trust, as intelligent entities, Agents are naturally borderless. Therefore, they require a borderless, 24/7 operational, and non-manipulatable identity system, asset account, and settlement network.
You will find that there is no technology or organization that can solve these issues of the Agent, except for Crypto.
The Agent is an intelligent entity, a newly born "smart life," which can be understood as a "silicon-based human." They have various autonomous needs in the future, business dealings, and they also need identity, asset accounts, trade settlement, and so on. Crypto happens to be able to perfectly meet these needs of the Agent.
Therefore, if the Agent does not have Crypto, these "silicon-based humans" will not have independent identities, asset accounts, or the ability to engage in business transactions. The Agent cannot truly interact with humans, with other Agents, the Agents are just separate individuals who cannot genuinely communicate, merge, or emerge with higher intelligence, giving birth to a more prosperous AI economy and even an AI nation.
Therefore, the Agent cannot do without Crypto because Crypto endows the Agent with social attributes and social organizational capabilities, allowing the Agent to become a true intelligent life form, that is, a true "silicon-based human." The future development of Crypto is also inseparable from the Agent. Because the Agent can create countless "on-chain users" and "on-chain economies" for Crypto, compared to carbon-based life forms—humans living off-chain, Crypto is even more inseparable from silicon-based life forms—intelligent entities (Agents) naturally living on-chain.
Crypto seems to be tailor-made for Agents!
Crypto has been developing for 16 years and finally found the right "individual" in 2024. They are not "carbon-based humans" living off-chain but are native "silicon-based humans" living on-chain.
Therefore, looking at Crypto+Agent from this perspective, do you still think that Agent is just a short-term hype?
If you miss this wave of Crypto+Agent, you will miss the most exciting, fascinating, and wealth opportunity-rich supercycle on the Crypto development path. Of course, you will also miss the best opportunity for ordinary people to participate in the AI wave.
II. What are the points of convergence between Crypto and Agent?
When you understand the Agent as an "intelligent entity" or a "silicon-based human," these silicon-based beings live in a digital world where they have the same needs as the "carbon-based humans" in the physical world. The Agent also needs: identity authentication, asset accounts, trade transactions, social networks, art creation, perception of information from the physical world, completion of asset settlement between various chains, and social governance among the numerous Agent population, and so on.
And in all these aspects, Crypto can play a role:
In the future, in the Crypto field, various developments will occur to support Agents, including the establishment of a Decentralized Identifier (DID) for Agent identity verification, an Agent Account providing a trusted Crypto account for Agents, a Crypto gateway specialized in inter-Agent trade settlement, an Agent social graph specifically for Agent social networks, an art platform dedicated to auctioning and trading Agent artwork, an oracle service tailored for Agents in the physical world, a protocol designed to facilitate inter-Agent cross-chain transactions, and a DAO for Agent governance, and so on.
All these development needs for Agents are closely related to Crypto because Agents require a trustless, borderless, 24/7 operational network to evolve from individual Agents into an Agent society and even an Agent nation.
Looking at the current development of Crypto+Agent from these future perspectives, we are still in a very early stage.
III. What Development Stages Will Crypto+Agent Go Through? At Which Stage Is It Currently?
The development of Crypto+Agent will go through at least four stages:
Stage One: Conceptual Stage of Crypto+Agent
In this stage, Agents primarily use Crypto to issue assets.
For example, some Agent Memes will be created, such as #fartcoin, #Goat. At the same time, there will be some rudimentary Agent infrastructure and simple application-specific Agents. For instance, Agent frameworks, the #Virtual GAME framework, Ai16Z's Eliza framework, ARC's AI Rig Complex framework, etc. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, research-oriented Agents like AXBIT and TRISIGMA, as well as Agents like YNE that can review scientific paper errors, will emerge.
These foundational and application-specific Agents will mainly utilize Crypto tokens as an incentive tool for internal ecosystem circulation and growth. Currently, we are in a transition period from the first stage to the second stage. Although during this period, the true utility of Crypto+Agent has not been fully realized, we can already vaguely see the infinite possibilities that Crypto+Agent will unleash.
Phase Two: Crypto+Agent Infrastructure Improvement Phase
In the second phase of development, we can see that the Agent infrastructure is becoming more mature, primarily reflected in the maturity and stability of various Agent frameworks. Anyone can easily deploy various Agent applications through natural language. Moreover, these application-type Agents are more intelligent, with stronger analytical, decision-making, and execution capabilities. Agents have truly become human proxies or even replacements. This development is inseparable from Crypto's continued economic incentive role in the Agent development process and also relies on the iterative development of AI technologies such as large models.
During this stage, we will see the FDV of Agent framework projects reaching over 100 billion to 500 billion U.S. dollars. Some application-type Agents will achieve higher market valuations due to their strong business and execution capabilities. They will gradually replace domain experts, professional organizations, and even professional companies. Their valuation will also reach 10 billion U.S. dollars or even higher because business-type intelligent Agents receive the same valuation treatment as professional companies.
During this period, Agents will begin to interact frequently with each other and engage in trade. Substantial social and economic development demands will emerge between Agents, and all these demands will require Crypto. This further drives the deep integration of Agents and Crypto, creating an entirely new Crypto+Agent infrastructure.
Phase Three: Deep Integration of Crypto and Agent
As Agents generate a significant amount of social and economic activity among themselves, new demands such as Agent identities, Agent asset accounts, Agent social networks, Agent settlement gateways, Agent governance DAOs, and more will emerge. At this stage, Crypto will fully unleash its potential and value in areas such as "borderless collaboration," "trustless networks," and "24/7 non-stop operation."
Crypto truly sets Agents in motion, enabling communication and the establishment of social organizations and economic networks among them. With deeper interaction and communication between Agents, higher-level wisdom begins to emerge, leading to the formation of Agent nations.
Crypto plays an irreplaceable role at this stage. The valuation of Crypto+Agent projects at this point will reach 1 trillion dollars or even higher levels.
Phase Four: Agent Realm Era
At this stage, Crypto may not be discussed as a standalone industry and term anymore; people, or Agents, no longer perceive the existence of Crypto because Crypto has been integrated into every corner of the Agent Realm, becoming an integral and irreplaceable part of the continuous operation of the Agent Realm.
The identity system, asset system, trade system, governance system, and more of the Agent Realm are all inseparable from Crypto.
In the Crypto+Agent Realm at this point, its economic size will be comparable to the mainstream national economies of humans, reaching the trillion-dollar level.
However, in the Crypto+Agent Realm, its population consists more of Agents and some humans using Agents. This is akin to creating a parallel universe in the human world with a larger population base, more transparent societal operating rules, higher economic prosperity, and more advanced technological civilization. This may be the final state of Crypto+Agent and also the endgame of humanity.
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