Skyrocket, the base of virtual protocol tokens, is growing in demand as an AI agent.

The value of the virtual protocol ecosystem increased by 28% in the last day, bringing the total market capitalization of Base blockchain tokens to $1.9 billion, according to CoinGecko.

The virtual protocol's native token, VIRTUAL, is currently trading at $1.38—up nearly 29% in the past 24 hours and up 161% in the past week. It is tied with the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization and ranks at an all-time high in the process.

What is driving the sudden interest in virtualization? AI agents, or AI-powered autonomous programs, are designed to perform tasks on their own and simulate how humans would handle a given situation. These agents can understand their environment, make decisions, and take action to achieve their goals.

The increased interest in AI agents is the latest in the blockchain industry's pivot to artificial intelligence technology and tokenization. And amid recent interest in crypto tokens tied to AI agents and ecosystems, virtualization is the latest big winner.

Launched in January by Base, Coinbase's Ethereum Layer-2 scaling network, Virtual Protocol is a launchpad and marketplace for gaming and entertainment AI agents, founded in 2021 by Jansen Teng, Weekee Tiew and Wei Xiong as PathDAO, before relaunching as Virtual Protocol.

Virtuals Protocol has launched the VIRTUAL token after a 1-for-1 conversion of the PATH token in December, and its aim is to enable as many people as possible to participate in the ownership of AI agents.

It allows developers to build AI agents with six main functions: posting to X (formerly known as Twitter), Telegram chat, live streaming, meme generation, “sentient AI” and music creation. These agents are compatible with platforms such as Roblox using the Virtual Protocol Generator Multimodal Entity (GAME) engine.

Based on the virtualization protocol, AI agents can facilitate transactions without the need for the owner to issue orders once they are activated in terms of their use of cryptocurrencies and digital assets.

Other AI agent tokens in the Virtual Protocol ecosystem also made big gains on Friday. Aixbt on Virtuals (AIXBT) rose 23.8% to $0.21, followed by Luna on Virtuals (LUNA), which rose 9.4% to $0.08 over the same period. Meanwhile, VaderAI by Virtuals (VADER) increased 78.9% during the same period, reaching $0.05.

All these signs have more than doubled in price this week.

Virtuals bills itself as an AI x metaverse protocol that is building the future of virtual interaction. The tokens play specific roles in their respective ecosystems and are rewarded by rewarding users. For example, AIXBT provides AI-driven insights from X, real-time project data and valuable benefits. $VADER Rewards Vader, DAO access and exclusive AI monetization tools. Meanwhile, the LUNA token offers great options and promises its owner future rewards.

What are AI agents?

Outside of blockchain, several big names in the AI ​​industry are leading the push to develop AI agents, including OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Amazon Web Services. In the year By 2023, the AI ​​agent market was estimated at $3.86 billion, according to market research firm Grand View Research. This number is expected to increase by 45% by 2023.

“If I could bet my career on one thing right now, it's AI agents. It's literally a trillion-dollar market,” entrepreneur and venture capitalist Greg Isenberg told X. “We're headed for a world where AI agents will replace entire workflows.”

But why the sudden interest in AI agents in crypto? According to investor and entrepreneur Marcus Jun, the increase in demand for AI agents in the blockchain space is a natural development in an industry where markets are open 24/7.

“As a general trend, I think agent AI is very promising,” Jun told Decrypt. “The reason why crypto agentic AI makes so much sense is because autonomous agents can use crypto and on-chain data and Twitter at the protocol level.”

It's not possible to do the same with traditional financial tools, Jun said, adding that handling the Internet's native currency will give AI agents an edge in streamlining transactions for their users.

“Crypto is the money of the Internet, and the ability of an agent to send money to anyone on the Internet opens up a lot of interesting possibilities that are not the same as an agent using a bank account API,” he added.

Edited by Andrew Hayward.