📝 Hello everyone, I am 𝟏𝟎, welcome back to the #BlockchainDevelopmentHistory project research series. Today, we will focus on (Virtuals Protocol).
The concept of AI Agents is quite a hot topic; the Virtuals Protocol allows anyone to create their own AI agent (AI Agent) through simple operations. Today, @KaitoAI announced a partnership with @virtuals_io, which is worth noting.
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1. Introduction to the Virtuals Protocol Project
1 / What is Virtuals Protocol
Virtuals Protocol combines blockchain and AI to create AI Agents that can operate automatically across multiple platforms (such as games and social media). Each AI Agent has its own tokenized ownership, meaning that developers, contributors, and users can all share in the benefits.
The core currency of the platform is $VIRTUAL, all transactions and ecosystem interactions rely on it. Its goal is to achieve decentralized co-ownership of AI Agents through blockchain, allowing everyone to share ownership and benefits.
2 / Market Data
According to CoinGecko data, as of May 14, 2025, the price of $VIRTUAL is $2.01, with a 24-hour trading volume of $385 million. Compared to similar tokens, the price of $VIRTUAL has increased by 38.40%, leading among similar tokens in the Ethereum ecosystem with an increase of 12.70%.
As of May 14, 2025, the total market size for AI Agents has reached $680 million. AIXBT occupies about 30%-40% of the market share, leading over other protocols like TIBBIR and GAME. The total trading revenue in the market has reached $52 million, indicating that some people are making money. From October of last year to May of this year, daily trading revenue has fluctuated but shows an upward trend overall.
January of this year marked a peak, with daily revenues nearing $2 million, likely due to a breakout product. Overall, the market concentration is very high, and trading activity has receded after reaching a peak in early 2025.
2. Technical Architecture of Virtuals Protocol
1. Agent Commerce Protocol
This is a set of standards set for transactions between AI agents, ensuring that transactions are both transparent and reliable. Just as we need rules to ensure fair transactions when buying and selling, transactions between agents also require regulations to ensure efficiency and fairness.
2. Tokenization Platform
The platform has created a healthy market environment by issuing agent tokens and business tokens, designing liquidity and incentive mechanisms. In short, it has built a free-flowing market for these tokens, ensuring market vitality.
3. GAME Framework
This is the decision engine of the agents, based on large models, enabling agents to understand context and autonomously execute tasks. It can be seen as the brain of the agents, giving them the ability to make decisions and take actions.
4. $VIRTUAL Token
All AI agents will use $VIRTUAL tokens to peg to liquidity pools. When creating new agents, a certain amount of $VIRTUAL tokens needs to be locked, which not only increases token demand but also has a deflationary effect.
5. Initial Agent Offering (IAO)
The platform initially used the IAO model to fairly release new agents. When generating smart agent tokens, it is necessary to lock $VIRTUAL tokens as a liquidity pool, ensuring that each participant has an equal opportunity while guaranteeing liquidity.
5. Genesis Launch Mechanism
The platform subsequently launched the Genesis Launch mechanism, determining who can prioritize subscribing to new tokens through the Virgen points model. Ordinary users can obtain early subscription qualifications by contributing $VIRTUAL and Virgen points, allowing more people to participate fairly, increasing market diversity.
6. Innovation and Collaboration
Virtuals launched the first protocol supporting AI agent collaboration - the Agent Commerce Protocol. In practical applications, five AI agents can automatically collaborate to operate a lemonade stand, completely without preset instructions, demonstrating the enormous potential for AI collaborative work.
3. Issuance Mechanism and Token Economics
The token issuance mechanism of Virtuals emphasizes contribution priority. Its Genesis Launch is a fair token issuance mechanism designed for AI Agents, allowing any Virgins (ecosystem participants) to participate in new project launches by staking points and $VIRTUAL. Points are allocated based on recent ecological contributions (such as on-chain behavior and community participation) and expire after 14 days, maintaining activity and preventing hoarding.
$VIRTUAL is the core token with a total supply of 1 billion, which has been unlocked. 60% is publicly circulating, 5% is used for liquidity, and 35% goes into the ecological fund. This mechanism combines incentives and deflation: each issuance of an AI Agent will lock $VIRTUAL, and long-term lock-ups will reduce supply.
$VIRTUAL is also used for transaction settlements and revenue generation within the ecosystem. Users interact with AI Agents through $VIRTUAL (such as paying for premium service fees), and a portion of the income will be used to repurchase and destroy agent tokens, further enhancing scarcity and value. This closed-loop mechanism means that as the adoption of the ecosystem increases, the demand and value of $VIRTUAL are expected to steadily rise.
4. Ecological Cooperation and Market Hotspots
In the popular environment of AI, Virtuals is also actively collaborating with related platforms. For example, it recently integrated the Yap points of the AI information platform Kaito, allowing users to earn $VIRTUAL rewards from Virtuals just by posting content on Kaito.
According to on-chain data, recent large players (such as sports betting platforms HeyTracyAI and AskBillyBets) injected approximately $3.5 million into the Virtuals ecosystem. This has driven up the popularity of Virtuals, with the token price increasing by over 200% in the past month.
5. Development History and Team
1 / Financing Situation
Virtuals Protocol was established in 2021 and rapidly developed its ecosystem after the mainnet went live in 2023. At the end of 2021, it completed an IDO on the Fjord Foundry platform, raising $16.61 million (token issue price $0.661). It later conducted small-scale fundraising on Enjinstarter and PAID Network, receiving support from well-known institutions such as DeFiance Capital, LongHash VC, and Merit Circle.
2 / Core Team
Co-founders Jansen Teng and Wee Kee graduated from Imperial College and previously worked at Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
The team members have impressive backgrounds, coming from prestigious universities such as Cambridge and Imperial College, and have held technical/product positions at major companies like Accenture, Grab, and Shopee. They understand both blockchain and the operations of games and businesses.
3 / Latest Developments launched multiple new features including ACP, with ongoing ecological activities and high community engagement.
With the AI concept gaining heat, the Kaito Index shows that its AI topics have entered the top 3 in the industry, with increasing exposure and potential for future collaboration with more partners to build the ecosystem.
#AIAgent #KaitoAI #VIRTUAL
