AI, as one of the key narratives of Web3 in 2025, has raised $1.39 billion and has over 17,000 agents launched on the Virtuals Protocol.

Author: Dappradar

Compiled by: Felix, PANews

Since the beginning of 2025, on-chain activities related to AI have surged by 86%, with the number of daily active unique wallets (dUAW) reaching approximately 4.5 million. This has brought AI's dominance to 19%, second only to gaming at 20%. Considering its market share was only 9% at the beginning of the year, this is a significant change.

This explosive growth is not just due to hype; it reflects a structural change in how users interact with dApps. Whether through DeFi, social agents, or autonomous gaming assistants, AI agents are becoming a new layer of on-chain interaction. They do not replace users but expand their capabilities, enabling automation, optimization, and representation in interactions.

Data supports this claim: AI has dominated discussions in Web3 over the past month and is likely to define the direction of its next phase of development. This report explores the development history of AI agents, their application scenarios, the role of tokens, and the scale of capital supporting this shift.

Key Points

• In June, AI's on-chain dominance rose from 9% in January to 19%, with trading activity increasing by 86% and daily active unique wallets reaching 4.5 million.

• As of June 2025, AI agent projects have raised $1.39 billion, a 9.4% increase compared to the total funding for all of 2024.

• Since November 2024, 17,124 agents have been launched on the Virtuals Protocol, with an average of over 85 new agents added daily.

• Although the market capitalization of AI tokens has decreased by 64% from the peak in early June, it still stands at $5.9 billion, with a 24-hour trading volume of $1.4 billion.

• Europe (26.2%) and Asia (21.9%) are the regions with the highest usage of AI dApps, followed by North America (15.8%).

1. What are AI Agents?

AI agents are autonomous software programs capable of performing tasks, making decisions, or interacting with users based on goals, prompts, or real-time data. Traditional AI agents cover industries such as finance, healthcare, or customer service, while the Web3 ecosystem is giving rise to crypto-native agents with unique capabilities and roles.

In Web3, AI agents are evolving towards specialization. Some act as on-chain DeFi agents, executing trades, managing yield strategies, or serving as portfolio "managers." Others are social agents, representing users in decentralized social applications, managing profiles, and even responding to messages and interactions. In the gaming sector, a new class of native gaming agents has emerged, trained on game backgrounds, mechanics, or player behaviors, serving as helpful guides or even opponents.

This is not just theoretical. According to cookie.fun data tracking the agent economy, there are currently 1,748 AI agents active in various environments. Since the launch of the Virtuals Protocol in November 2024, which allows users to create and deploy their own AI agents, over 17,000 agents have gone live. The actual number may be even higher, as multiple chains are currently prioritizing the infrastructure for creating, training, and deploying AI agents.

The agent economy is taking shape and developing rapidly.

2. AI Agent Tokens: Utility, Hype, and Capital

In Web3, most AI agents are not launched independently but come with tokens. The role of these tokens depends on the project's vision and can serve various functions. In many cases, they are designed to support community governance, provide access to premium features, or act as a fundraising mechanism, especially since training and maintaining AI agents still requires significant resources.

For others, tokens are merely a capitalization strategy, a way to gain liquidity, reward early adopters, or leverage market momentum. In some cases, they resemble meme coins dressed in AI clothing, issued around vague agent narratives, lacking technical substance, and merely riding the wave of speculation.

Despite the noise in the market, the AI agent token market has made remarkable progress. As of this writing, the total market capitalization of AI-related tokens has reached $5.9 billion, accounting for 0.18% of the entire crypto market. The daily trading volume over the past 24 hours is also quite substantial, exceeding $1.4 billion.

However, the recent trend is not optimistic. At the beginning of this month, the market capitalization of the AI agent sector was $16.6 billion, indicating a 64% decline in just a few weeks. This drop reflects broader market conditions rather than just attitudes towards AI. But it also highlights the volatility inherent in early-stage sectors, where token speculation often outweighs actual utility.

AI agents are here to stay. But what about their tokens?

3. Top Blockchains Empowering AI dApps

While AI agents are often the visible layer for interacting with users, executing trades, or providing in-game assistance, their success largely depends on the underlying infrastructure. Blockchains that support high-capacity AI dApps are effectively laying the groundwork for the deployment, training, and interaction of AI agents.

From January 2025 to June 24, the following blockchains have shown the most activity in AI dApp usage:

Matchain leads with nearly 1.9 million daily active users, indicating that AI infrastructure is thriving, driven by social or agent-oriented dApps. opBNB and Nebula follow closely, both showing strong usage rates related to lightweight to gamified AI services.

While not all of these dApps currently deploy agents, the development momentum is evident. As the AI agent framework matures, these blockchains may see the next wave of autonomous agents, whether in DeFi, gaming, or social applications.

We may still be in the infrastructure-building phase of the AI agent boom, and these networks are leading the way.

4. Where Do Users Come From?

AI agents may exist on-chain, but their users are spread across the globe. Understanding the sources of user participation helps clarify adoption trends, localization needs, and potential market opportunities.

From January to June 2025, according to Dappradar traffic data, Europe leads in interactions with AI-related dApps, accounting for 26.2%. Asia follows with 21.9%, and North America comes next with 15.8%. South America has a smaller share at 2.5%, but its user base is steadily growing. Interestingly, 33% of the traffic comes from unspecified or hard-to-categorize regions, collectively referred to as "others."

This global distribution indicates that AI agents are not confined to a specific region. Whether it's DeFi agents managing trades in Asia, social agents representing users in Europe, or gaming partners interacting with players in North America, the demand is diverse and increasingly cross-continental.

As the industry matures, we can expect more localized agent behaviors, improved language modeling, and even agents with region-specific personalities. Currently, the competitive landscape is vast, and the race for user attention is global.

5. Funding Floods into AI Agents

The AI narrative continues to dominate headlines and funding rounds. While centralized AI giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Mistral have raised billions, the AI agent economy in Web3 is also starting to gain attention.

As of 2025, AI agent projects have raised $1.39 billion, a 9.4% increase from 2024. This indicates that investors are increasingly confident that autonomous on-chain agents could become the next frontier. Although this figure is still far below the investment amounts in centralized AI, it is noteworthy that the funding in the AI agent space is now comparable to or even surpasses that of other Web3 segments like blockchain gaming.

This comparison is significant. Centralized AI investment still dominates, with hundreds of billions flowing into model development, chips, and infrastructure. But in the Web3 space, investors are increasingly viewing AI agents as a new "primitive" that can reshape how users interact with protocols, navigate dApps, and even automate personal finance strategies.

This momentum is building. If it continues, 2025 could be the year AI agents attract more funding than any other Web3 vertical.

6. Conclusion

The rise of AI agents marks a profound shift in how users interact with decentralized systems. From DeFi traders and social partners to native gaming assistants, agents are rapidly evolving from experimental bots to infrastructure.

These numbers confirm this assertion. Since the end of 2024, over 17,000 virtual agents have gone live. Even in a market downturn, the AI token market remains at $5.9 billion and continues to grow. Just this year, startups focused on agents have raised $1.39 billion. Moreover, user participation is global, with strong performance in Europe, Asia, and North America.

However, challenges remain. Many tokens are driven more by speculation than by utility. Not all agents can deliver on the promise of autonomy. Additionally, cross-chain infrastructure remains uneven. But as tools mature and practical use cases proliferate, the agent economy is approaching a new baseline where interactions with on-chain AI are no longer exceptions but the norm.

The competition to build smarter agents, more powerful ecosystems, and clearer standards has already begun. And we are still in the early stages.

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