Virtuals脱虚向实、dTAO蓄势待发......速览Bitcoin新高后的AI赛道新动态

Author: 0xJeff

Compiled by: Tim, PANews

By mid-July, the macro situation is improving, Bitcoin has reached a historic high, and at the same time, Ethereum's price has once again broken through $3000 for the first time in years.

The recovery of Ethereum has provided the strongest impetus for the "Ethereum beta" narrative, driving the collective strength of mainstream tokens in the Ethereum mainnet and various Layer 2 ecosystems.

Strong institutional inflows are driving a long-term bullish sentiment for mainstream assets, while some investors remain cautious ahead of CPI, PPI data, and the Federal Reserve's statements regarding interest rate cuts in 2025.

Although altcoins generally followed the price trends of Bitcoin significantly in the previous cycle, we have observed a more pronounced price correlation between Ethereum and altcoins (especially AI-related altcoins) in this round of market.

In summary, here are some important developments and trends in the Web3 AI field this week that are worth paying attention to.

1.Virtuals Transforming Virtual to Reality: Building Core Products

Virtuals has achieved significant success in building a vibrant ecosystem, with over 50,000 investors actively participating and investing in AI agent tokens.

In the past, most activities were focused on the trading sector, but now Virtuals is trying to leverage its large community to convert them into product users.

The core value potential of ACP is enormous: as a project party, you can directly reach over 50,000 users and achieve monetization on the first day; as a user, you can use the "Butler" agent tool to find the products you need (by matching you with the most suitable AI agent to complete tasks through an interactive interface similar to ChatGPT).

Note: Virtuals ACP is like a "business contract" and common language between AI agents, specifying how to initiate cooperation, how to negotiate terms, how to complete transactions, and how to evaluate results.

Virtuals is working hard to optimize the efficiency of ACP, improve task execution speed, and reduce AI hallucinations and errors. However, the biggest challenge currently lies in discovering and creating a flagship product that can be used daily by users, a core product that can effectively address real pain points, possess high value, and maintain a high user retention rate.

How to do it?

By integrating teams outside the Virtuals ecosystem (possibly allowing them to join the ACP under certain conditions with a specified amount of $VIRTUAL tokens and some form of community collaboration commitment), and creating a flexible issuance mechanism that goes beyond the current fixed pricing of approximately $200,000 and fixed token economics for the genesis launch model.

As mentioned earlier, medium to large-sized teams typically spend 6 to 12 months developing a minimum viable product (MVP) and raise between $15 million to $50 million through private funding rounds. These teams are often led by founders with a track record of entrepreneurial success and enhance their product systems by recruiting AI and machine learning engineers.

Such high-spec teams will find it difficult to launch on the Virtuals platform and include their products in the ACP due to the inability to meet the fixed price startup requirement of $200,000.

Once Virtuals can accommodate such teams and incubate and support existing teams (especially core native teams), we are likely to welcome the third wave of a real Virtuals market.

Currently, we can focus on the price fluctuations of $VIRTUAL, which show significant Ethereum beta characteristics.

2. TAO performs outstandingly

In the past 7 days, the price of TAO has increased by 30%.

The recovery of the market and the continuous rise in institutional adoption, combined with the benchmark effect of "AI Bitcoin", have jointly driven the increase in prices this round.

Some core subnets have hit bottom, while others have strongly rebounded from key support levels.

It is currently difficult to determine whether a second wave of the dTAO bull market will arrive, but considering the current price level, macro sentiment, institutional adoption trends, and the crypto treasury layout of TAO, it may be the right time to revisit the allocation of dTAO Alpha tokens.

The 3.Almanak Points Program is now live.

Almanak, as a trading agent scalable infrastructure and one of the leading teams, has officially launched a points incentive program.

The points program will start on July 14 and end on September 21, with the token issuance also planned to start in September.

By performing EV operations, such as funding the treasury, deploying custom strategies, introducing more TVL locks, or simply holding funds in the Almanak wallet, you can earn points rewards.

Almanak is designed by a quantitative team for ordinary users, allowing them to build quantitative strategies in just hours instead of weeks. The team innovatively employs a hybrid model of AI agent clusters and smart contracts (ERC-7540) to create a verifiable and auditable AI infrastructure aimed at large funds and institutions (with a TVL of over $100 million).

In the coming months, we may witness the accelerated emergence of AI tokenized vaults, which enable intelligent asset operations in mainstream DeFi protocols like AAVE, Morpho, Fluid, and Pendle by optimizing yields and employing transaction-based strategies.

Almanak is highly likely to pioneer a new era of DeFAI agency, achieving full autonomous operation through AI technology, directly delivering DeFi value to end users.

4. StableAI accelerates its layout to promote widespread application

USD.AI, as one of the leading participants in the GPU-supported stablecoin track, has gradually gained market recognition despite still being in the internal testing phase.

The total TVL has exceeded 35 million USD, and the project team has recently deployed the first batch of ROCKCHIP RK3588 server staking services, with an annualized return rate of up to 15%.

More than 98% of the reserve funds are allocated to US Treasury assets, with an annualized yield of 4.15%, while the remaining 2% is obtained through GPU staking loans with an annualized return of 15% (with ROCKCHIP RK3588 servers as the first batch of staking targets).

The product will soon be open to the public, and a points incentive program may be launched simultaneously.

5. Attention Capital Market

Kaito and Cookie are both planning their attention capital market launch plans. Overall, users can determine their token allocation in the project's pre-sale and public offering rounds by holding Yap or Snap platform points, along with (possibly) staked tokens.

It is highly likely that when KAITO and COOKIE begin to announce their core partners/initial launch projects, their tokens will perform exceptionally well.

6. Other Updates

• The first v2 version of CreatorBid launched the voting process last Friday, and market demand far exceeds supply. The next step is to wait for the team to announce the official launch date (the project's progress is obviously lagging behind - the price of the $BID token has stagnated due to the slow progress, despite the overall positive market sentiment).
• CODEC token shows strong price trend, AVA, COM, CDX, and BILLY are experiencing a strong recovery. The total market capitalization of AI agents has once again surpassed the $10 billion mark (hope it can stabilize this time and not fall back after a peak again).

Summary

Ethereum price breaks through $3,000 and Bitcoin reaches an all-time high, injecting strong momentum into the market, especially in the direction of the Ethereum beta narrative. This trend has been fully reflected in the overall performance of AI tokens.

Virtuals still possess the strongest community ecosystem and development potential, but now they have entered a new stage, shifting from trading speculation to product-driven. The ACP platform has enormous potential, but the current key lies in creating a core product that encourages daily user return visits. Breaking through the $200,000 Genesis threshold to attract external developers and support native teams may trigger the next wave of real growth.

TAO continues to demonstrate the benchmark effect of "AI Bitcoin," with a strong price rebound, and institutional narratives are still being developed. Considering the current phase of the cycle, some dTAO tokens may be worth paying attention to again.

The Almanak Points Program may become a trendsetter if its strategy fund makes progress, which will clearly indicate the next narrative path for DeFAI. This project might represent a more mature DeFAI approach: although designed at an institutional level (built from scratch), the participation threshold is friendly enough for retail investors to easily get involved.

The narrative of StableAI has not yet garnered widespread attention, but it is rapidly penetrating the market. USDai has accumulated over $35 million in TVL during its beta phase, and its public launch may soon be initiated (possibly along with a points program).

InfoFi is trying to regain new life through the attention capital market. If the projects of Kaito and Cookie platforms can be launched as scheduled and show significant growth potential, we may witness this sector regain market attention.

Overall, the market environment is becoming healthier and the interference noise is decreasing, with more focus on real products and infrastructure development. It seems that we are once again entering a builder's window period, before the next wave of speculation arrives. This moment is the best time to closely monitor and make early layouts.