Original | Odaily Planet Daily

Author | Wenser

At the CES 2025 in the United States on January 7, Jensen Huang, the founder of Nvidia and a leading figure in the AI industry, stated: “AI Agents are expected to become the next robotics industry, with a market scale reaching trillions of dollars.” Although the audience at the event reacted lukewarmly to this bold claim, the crypto industry has long been buying into AI Agents—tokens related to AI Agents such as VIRTUAL, ai16z, and swarms have become some of the few focal points of attention in the recent market, and their price trends have performed notably well compared to the broader market; in contrast, many established AI concept projects, such as FET, WLD, and ARKM, have recently appeared somewhat desolate, with their price performance significantly down from their peaks.

Odaily Planet Daily will compare and analyze new and old AI concept tokens in this article, providing a glimpse into market trends.

Status of New and Old AI Concept Tokens: AI Agent Tokens in High Demand, AI Concept Tokens Cooling Off

From a market perspective, AI Agent tokens represented by VIRTUAL, ai16z, and swarms are undoubtedly the most eye-catching projects at present. Compared to AI concept tokens like FET, WLD, and ARKM, the former not only integrates the AI concept but also offers a more grand narrative, lower participation thresholds, and greater expected returns. Upon closer examination, I believe the reasons mainly include the following aspects:

Market Inertia of Favoring New Over Old: New Cars Attract More Attention, Old Cars Are Too Heavy

As an industry that operates 24/7, the cryptocurrency market's enthusiasm for new hotspots and technologies can be considered a common trait, leading to the practice of “favoring new tokens over old ones”: for market retail investors and the crypto community, compared to the “old AI coins” that have a larger number of buyers, concentrated chip distribution, and a wide range of trapped groups, the new coins related to AI Agents are undoubtedly more attractive—lower entry barriers, whether from the price of a single token or the overall market capitalization, provide more opportunities to get involved with AI Agent tokens.

More Attractive Narratives: AI Agents Are Far More Appealing Than Just “Riding the AI Wave”

From the narrative perspective, which is the most discussed in the cryptocurrency industry, events such as launching tokens, trading tokens, and interacting with fans on social media related to AI Agents are undoubtedly more interesting, fun, and engaging than trying to create a serious project that merely “rides the AI wave.”

With the emergence of Truth Terminal (GOAT), the cryptocurrency industry has essentially opened a Pandora's box for AI Agents, liberating the power of AI in ways that many had not previously anticipated, endowing cryptocurrency with a stronger technological attribute, futuristic quality, and a narrative with greater imaginative space—the things that AI Agents can do in the crypto field go beyond merely helping humans produce content; they also have the potential to directly participate in human social and economic activities and currency transactions.

Differences in Project Roadmaps: Teams, Technologies, and Development Directions Vary Significantly

In terms of project development paths, the current AI Agent and token projects exhibit certain differences compared to the older AI concept token projects.

On the team level, AI Agent and token projects are often backed by independent developers in their early stages. On one hand, AI and AI Agents provide developers and even ordinary people with a lower-cost, lower-threshold development path; on the other hand, relatively independent developers can respond more quickly to market hotspots and adjust project directions based on market feedback, with lower decision-making and optimization iteration costs—simply put, they align more with the “grassroots” positioning. In contrast, older AI concept projects often start with mature teams that have grand mission visions, aiming to attract high-value investments through grand narratives, with project development timelines measured in years, and are relatively more accountable to investors rather than originating from the community. For example, FET (Fetch.ai) is a typical case, having raised $5 million in March 2021 and $40 million in March 2023, and being the second crowdfunding project launched through Binance's IEO, which can be seen as a product of top-tier resources.

On the technology level, previous AI concept token projects often viewed technology as a tool and packaging, emphasizing practical use cases and user scenarios, but the actual business implementation was far from AI, creating a strong sense of distance from users; whereas the current AI Agent and token projects are relatively more straightforward, with their technological origins rooted in the AI technology that has emerged after a technological explosion, making the understanding threshold relatively low, and the technology's extensibility stronger, allowing users to personally engage in practical operations, with user education on technology being more direct and in-depth.

In terms of development direction, older AI concept token projects emphasize building the future digital economy with AI, which sounds more like “pie in the sky,” with limited relevance to the interests of the market and users; while AI Agent and token projects not only have specific visual images for users to interact with, but also offer more direct token trading, whether for speculative trading or social media interaction, better meeting market demands.

In summary, AI Agent token projects, including VIRTUAL, ai16z, and swarms, resemble meme coins dressed in AI clothing; while AI concept tokens, including FET, WLD, and ARKM, are closer to the “VC coin” concept, being more distant from the community, with meme attributes that are worlds apart from the former, making it difficult to compare their discussion topics with the new hot trends of AI Agents and their underlying tokens and developers, naturally drifting further away from value discovery.

Overview of Established AI Concept Tokens: Projects Progressing Steadily, Token Deflation, Dumping, and Unlocking Vary

Despite the relatively flat market performance, various established AI concept token projects have recently made varying degrees of progress. Here are the specific updates:

FET: 5 Million Tokens to Be Burned on January 10

The project behind FET, Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, previously announced on January 5 that it plans to burn 5 million FET tokens on January 10, creating deflationary pressure in its ecosystem. This milestone is also part of its roadmap's ASI Train model.

Perhaps the heat in the AI sector makes it difficult for FET to remain indifferent, needing to brainstorm to gain more market attention for token performance and project development.

WLD: Project Progressing Steadily, Token Transfers Ongoing

Worldcoin previously launched Worldchain and introduced the new World ID Passport Credential in November of last year, currently piloting in countries such as Chile, Colombia, Malaysia, and South Korea. The World ID credential allows individuals to connect valid forms of ID (starting with NFC-enabled passports) to their World ID without sharing any information with TFH, the World Foundation, or any other third party. Meanwhile, the World Foundation is providing WLD tokens to individuals holding valid World ID passport certificates.

Additionally, according to an email update from Worldcoin to users, the number of participants in the Worldcoin community has reached 20 million. As for the tokens, in early December last year, Pionex monitoring indicated that an Alameda-marked address had transferred approximately 5 million WLD (valued at about $16 million) to addresses 0xd9C4 and 0xEF90.

ARKM: Platform Functionality Updates, Derivatives Exchange Promotion Ongoing

Once gaining significant attention from numerous crypto KOLs in the Chinese community for its “previous indifference, now unattainable” stance, Arkham continues to cultivate its blockchain data analysis platform. On January 6, according to an official announcement, Arkham announced the addition of a Market Data page, supporting users in tracking important token data for spot, futures, and options products across multiple CEXs.

In November of last year, Arkham officially announced the launch of the derivatives exchange ARKHAM PERPETUALS EXCHANGE, and subsequently introduced the exchange points system (ARKHAM EXCHANGE POINTS) to encourage users to trade and earn points. The official account has also engaged in various promotional activities on multiple X platform tweets, but the results so far appear minimal.

For the platform, attracting new users remains the top priority.

Market Overview: Established AI Tokens Have Experienced Historical Declines of Up to 81%

As of the time of writing, the market performance of representative “established AI concept tokens” is as follows—

FET is currently priced at $1.35, with a 24-hour decline of 13.11%, a historical high of $3.48, and a historical decline of approximately 61.5%; the market capitalization is currently reported at $3.54 billion;

WLD is currently priced at $2.27, with a 24-hour decline of 13.21%, a historical high of $11.96, and a historical decline of approximately 81%; the market capitalization is currently reported at $1.96 billion;

ARKM is currently priced at $1.40, with a 24-hour decline of 15.98%, a historical high of $2.70, and a historical decline of approximately 48%; the market capitalization is currently reported at $468 million.

Meanwhile, the market capitalization of AI Agent-related tokens has been rising steadily, currently stabilizing at a key node. According to Coingecko data:

VIRTUAL is currently priced at $3.59, with a market capitalization of $3.59 billion;

ai16z is currently priced at $1.83, with a market capitalization of around $2 billion;

swarms is currently priced at $0.35, with a market capitalization of around $350 million.

To some extent, in terms of market performance and discussion, AI Agent-related token projects are already quite competitive.

Conclusion: Can Old Trees Bloom Again? It Depends on the Response of Established Projects

In conclusion, we can only make a provisional judgment that established AI concept token projects are currently lagging behind the latest hot AI Agent token projects; whether these established projects can rejuvenate, find new growth points, and regain market attention will largely depend on their ability to follow up and iterate on new technologies, new paths, and new hotspots.

If they remain indifferent, everything will naturally come to an end; if they strive to catch up, perhaps there will be different results and answers.

Attached token unlocking query website:

FET——https://tokenomist.ai/fetch-ai, the next large unlocking will begin on January 28, 2025, with an unlocking quantity of 3.34 million tokens;

WLD——https://tokenomist.ai/worldcoin-wld, the next large unlocking will begin on June 24, 2026.

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