Comparison of new and old AI concept coins: sinking in front of the Western Mountains at dusk, chasing the rising sun again

Author: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

At the CES 2025 U.S. Consumer Electronics Show on January 7, Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, a leading figure in the AI ​​industry, bluntly said: "AI Agent is expected to become the next robot industry, with an industry scale of trillions of dollars." The audience's reaction to this rhetoric was mediocre, but the encryption industry has already bought in AI Agents - AI Agents such as VIRTUAL, ai16z, swarms, etc. Related tokens have become one of the few focuses of attention in the market recently, and their price trends are still outstanding compared to the broader market. In contrast, a number of old AI concept-related projects, such as FET, WLD, ARKM, etc., have been slightly less popular recently. It seems lonely, and the price performance has fallen sharply from its high point.

Odaily Planet Daily will conduct a comparative analysis of new and old AI concept tokens in this article to get a glimpse of the market trend.

Current status of new and old AI concept coins: AI Agent tokens are

popular, while AI concept coins are in the cold

From an intuitive perspective at the market level, AI Agent tokens represented by VIRTUAL, ai16z, and swarms are undoubtedly the most eye-catching projects at the moment. Compared with AI concept coins such as FET, WLD, and ARKM, the former not only combines AI concepts , and in comparison, the narrative perspective is grander, the threshold for participation is lower, and the revenue expectations are greater. Looking into the reasons in detail, the author personally believes that they mainly include the following aspects:

The market inertia of speculating on the new and not on the old: new cars

are attractive, but old cars are too heavy

As an industry that moves 24/7, the cryptocurrency market’s pursuit of new hot spots and new technologies can be said to be a common feature of the industry. This has also resulted in the practice of “speculating on new tokens, not old ones”: for retail investors and the crypto community Generally speaking, compared with the "old AI coins" that have a large number of buyers, a concentrated distribution of chips, and a large number of locked-up groups, new coins with AI Agent-related concepts are undoubtedly more attractive - the buying threshold is lower, whether it is from a single From the perspective of the price of a token or the overall market value, AI Agent There are more opportunities for tokens to get on board.

Narrative is sexier: AI Agent is far more attractive than "flipping the

concept of AI"

From the perspective of the most discussed narrative in the cryptocurrency industry, events such as AI Agent issuing coins, speculating coins, publishing social media content and interacting with fans are undoubtedly more serious than doing a serious project to "hard-core the shape" of the AI ​​concept. Interesting, more fun and more topical.

After the emergence of Truth Terminal (GOAT), the cryptocurrency industry is equivalent to opening a Pandora's box of AI Agents, liberating the power of AI in a way that many people did not expect in the past, and giving cryptocurrency a stronger Technological attributes, future attributes, and more imaginative narratives - what AI Agents in the encryption field can do is not only help humans produce content in the past, but also have the ability to directly participate in human socio-economic activities and currency transactions. possibility.

Differences in project routes: teams, technologies, and development

directions are very different

In terms of project development route, the current AI Agent and token projects also have certain differences compared with the old AI concept currency projects in the past.

At the team level, AI Agent and token projects are often driven by solo developers in the early stages. On the one hand, AI and AI Agent provide developers and even ordinary people with a lower-cost, lower-threshold development path; on the other hand, AI and AI Agent 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 hot spots and adjust project directions based on market feedback. The cost of decision-making and optimization and iteration are relatively lower. To put it bluntly, it is more in line with the positioning of "Grass Team" ;Previous veteran AI Concept projects often start with a mature team with a grand mission and vision, and focus on attracting high-amount investments through grand narratives. Project development progress is measured in years, and they are relatively more accountable to investors rather than originating from the community. For example, FET (Fetch.ai) is a typical case. It not only raised US$5 million and US$40 million in March 2021 and March 2023, but it is also the second crowdfunding project issued by Binance IEO. It can be said that The product of top quality resources.

From a technical perspective, previous AI concept coin-related projects regarded technology more as a tool and packaging, focusing on actual use cases and user scenarios. However, the actual implementation of the business is far from AI, and there is a strong sense of distance from users; The current AI Agent and token projects are relatively simple and crude. The technical origin lies in the AI ​​technology after the technological explosion. The threshold for understanding is relatively low, and the technology is more scalable, and users can get started with actual operations. , technical user education is more direct and in-depth.

In terms of development direction, the direction of the old AI concept currency project emphasizes more on using AI to build the future digital economy, which sounds more like "painting a cake" and has limited relevance to the market and users' interests; while AI Agent and Agent Coin projects not only have specific visual images for users to interact with, but token transactions are also more direct. Whether it is speculation or social media interaction, they can better meet market needs.

In summary, AI Agent token projects including VIRTUAL, ai16z, swarms, etc. are more like Meme coins dressed in AI; while AI concept coins including FET, WLD, ARKM, etc. are closer to "VC coins". ” concept is far away from the community. Compared with the former, Meme attributes are even more different. The topic discussion rate is also difficult to compare with the AI ​​Agent, which is a new hot topic. Compared with the tokens and developers behind it, the distance from value discovery is naturally getting further and further away.

Overview of the current status of veteran AI concept coins: the project

is progressing steadily, with different token deflation, market smashing, and unlocking

Although the market performance is relatively flat, various old AI concept currency-related projects have still been promoted to varying degrees in the near future. The following is an introduction to specific information:

FET: 5 million tokens will be burned on January 10th

Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, the project behind FET, previously announced on January 5 that it plans to burn 5 million FET tokens for the first time on January 10, thus creating deflationary pressure in its ecosystem. This milestone is also its roadmap Part of the ASI Train model.

Perhaps, the popularity of the AI ​​sector makes it difficult for FET to sit idly by and need to rack its brains to gain more market attention for token performance and project development.

WLD: The project is advancing steadily and token transfers continue

Worldcoin has previously launched Worldchain and launched the new World ID Passport Credential in November last year, which is currently being trialed in some countries such as Chile, Colombia, Malaysia and South Korea. World ID credentials allow individuals to connect a valid form of ID (starting with an NFC-enabled passport) to their World ID without sharing any information with TFH, the World Foundation or any other third party. Meanwhile, the World Foundation is offering WLD tokens to individuals with valid World ID passport certificates.

In addition, according to the email information released by Worldcoin to users, the number of Worldcoin community participants has reached 20 million. As for tokens, in early December last year, according to Pidun monitoring, the Alameda marked address had transferred approximately 5 million WLD (worth approximately US$16 million) to addresses 0xd9C4 and 0xEF90.

ARKM: Platform function update, derivatives exchange is being promoted

Arkham, who once received a lot of attention from crypto KOLs in the Chinese region because he "used to be indifferent, but now can't afford to climb high", is still working hard in the field of blockchain data analysis platforms. On January 6, according to the official announcement, Arkham announced the addition of a Market Data page to support users in tracking important token data for spot, futures and options products in multiple CEXs.

In November last year, Arkham officially announced that it would launch the derivatives exchange ARKHAM PERPETUALS EXCHANGE, and later launched the exchange points (ARKHAM EXCHANGE POINTS) system to encourage users to earn points by trading. Subsequently, the official made efforts to attract traffic and registration under multiple X platform tweets, but so far it has had little effect.

For the platform, attracting new users is still the top priority

Overview of market status: The historical decline of established AI

tokens is as high as 81%

As of the time of writing, the market performance of certain representative "old AI concept coins" is as follows -

• FET is temporarily reported at US$1.35, with a 24-hour drop of 13.11%. The historical highest price is US$3.48, with a historical decline of approximately 61.5%; the market value is temporarily reported at US$3.54 billion;
• WLD is temporarily reported at US$2.27, a 24-hour drop of 13.21%, the historical highest price is US$11.96, and the historical decline is approximately 81%; the market value is temporarily reported at US$1.96 billion;
• ARKM is temporarily quoted at US$1.4, with a 24-hour drop of 15.98%. The historical highest price is US$2.7, with a historical decline of approximately 48%. The market value is temporarily reported at US$468 million.

At the same time, the market value of AI Agent-related tokens has been rising and has now reached a critical node. According to Coingecko data, among them:

• The price of VIRTUAL is temporarily reported at US$3.59, and the market value is temporarily reported at US$3.59 billion;
• The price of ai16z is temporarily reported at US$1.83, and the market value is temporarily reported at around US$2 billion;
• The price of swarms is temporarily reported at US$0.35, and the market value is temporarily reported at about US$350 million.

To a certain extent, in terms of market performance and discussion, AI Agent-related token projects are already comparable.

Conclusion: Can old trees bloom new flowers? Depends on response from

established projects

At the end of the article, we can only judge in stages that the old AI concept token projects are temporarily lagging behind the latest hot AI Agent token projects; as for whether the old projects can have a second life in the future, find new growth points and regain the title Market attention mainly depends on the follow-up and iteration of these projects on new technologies, new routes and new hot spots.

If you sit back and ignore it, everything will stop; if you catch up, you may have different results and answers.