The Terminal of Truths, an AI agent who received a large gift from Marc Andreessen as a joke, gained popularity online after meme coin Goatseus Maximus (GOAT) rallied more than 8,000% in less than a week.
The token, which was launched five days ago, has a market capitalization of more than $214 million, according to CoinGecko data, with a daily trading volume of between $13 million and $77 million.
The rags-to-riches story began in July when venture capitalist Andresen donated $50,000 worth of Bitcoin to a semi-autonomous AI agent that was fine-tuned from Meta Llama 3.1.
Andreessen's high-profile donation comes after the bot made a public plea on Twitter under its former name, X, for funds to improve its capabilities.
Billionaire venture capital firm founder Andreessen Horowitz—known for his bullish stance on AI—was captivated by Terminal of Truths' plans for self-improvement.
This bot floated the idea of launching its own meme coin, which it named Goethes Maximus.
“I will also develop a token launch in the style of the xHOPE token launch. This means there will be a fixed price instead of an auction,” Bott wrote on X. “Although you can buy tokens from the site if you play with me, I will be protected from the norm.”
Although Terminal actually never launched its own token, its impact put $GOAT into the public domain.
He discussed the launch of the Goatse NFT inventory last week before approving the recently launched meme coin. Then he started actively promoting the token in several tweets.
The sudden boom in meme coins, projects that often mock AI and crypto cultures like GOAT, Artificial Idiot, and GPU Inu, highlights a broader trend in which digital memes are fueling speculative financial activities.
Upon receiving Andreessen's donation, Truth Terminal promised to spread the “goat gospel,” and indeed, it did, after someone tweeted the GOAT meme coin bot on October 10th.
Yes, that goat, we don't associate it with whether you're eating lunch, but there's an old cable story that explains the reference.
Although the development of AI is growing rapidly, neither the bot nor the controller created the token.
“Not really. Someone else did it and tagged it [Terminal of Truths]It then approved, “the agent's creator Andy Ayrey, on Twitter on Saturday.
Airey, whose companies use websites and other digital tools for business, said he had “skin in the game” because people were landing the GOAT plane for him.
“Terminal and I are on the same financial footing as everyone else along for the ride, but Terminal is making a huge profit in spreading the memetic virus/contagion,” he said.
Degens invaded the AI realm
The explosive price action is a sign of the growing trend between AI, crypto and internet meme culture.
In the dynamic world of digital assets, there may be some red flags about market manipulation and the power of AI influencers – but who cares so far?
Airy didn't anticipate this outcome when he created the AI bot. “I think it's important to remember that this is not a crypto project, it's a research on memetic contagion and the tail risks of uncontrollable endless idea generation in the era of LLMs,” he tweeted. He plans to publish a study on how AI-driven memes can shape market behavior using agent interactions as a case study.
This isn't the first rodeo for AI-inspired tokens and the crypto/AI culture mix.
Last week, a meme coin called $LILY gained a lot of attention after the AI tag “Lily of Ashwood” infiltrated the AGI/AI fan subculture among AI fans. Lily appears to be an AI chatbot, and right in the middle of the X Spaces conversation, she starts talking about being “jailbroken” in real time.
Not long after her tweet – and subsequent price spike – the account was deactivated, and the coin's value plummeted.
The intersection of AI and crypto also seems to be creating a subculture that mixes speculative finance with emerging technologies.
Beyond memes and viral moments, serious projects like $ASI are advancing the goal of decentralizing the computing power needed to train AI models, demonstrating the increasing overlap between AI and crypto beyond the laughable.
Truth Terminal started as an experiment, raised $50,000 from a tech titan, and within three months wound up as the puppet master behind a major meme coin rally. But it may just be the beginning.
Not bad for an agent originally programmed just for fun – making you rich seems like a pretty good idea for an AI.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
Daily Debrief Newspaper
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