Introducing SentientMarketCap
New product, who this?
Hello there!
By now, it shouldn’t be a surprise that much of my current interest in Web3 lies in its intersection with AI. Since May, we have written about the role crypto would play in acquiring data, decentralising compute, and monetising open-source models.
Today, we take things one step further.
We’re excited to announce the launch of SentientMarketCap—the go-to platform for anyone looking to track, analyse, and make sense of the AI agent sector in crypto. In this post, we’ll cover what SentientMarketCap is and why we’re building it.
On October 13, 2024, the X account terminal of truths—an AI agent backed by Marc Andreessen and fixated on a particular explicit internet meme—posted a tweet endorsing a memecoin called $GOAT on Solana. That spark ignited a $3 billion blaze, giving birth to an entirely new crypto sector: AI agent coins.
Since then, the frenzy has left even the terminally online and deepest trench dwellers scrambling to keep up. On one end, you have agents dispensing financial advice, making autonomous investments, creating rap albums and art collections, and roasting accounts on Twitter. On the other, you find the infrastructure enabling this explosion—ranging from unicorn-level agent creation protocols to open-source repositories with thousands of stars.
Amazingly, it’s been less than two months since that fateful tweet.
Unlike most “metas” in crypto, we don’t see the AI agent sector as a fleeting trend. On the contrary, we believe it’s poised to grow exponentially. The modern game of capturing attention is one AI agents can play perpetually. As the large language models that power these agents grow larger, smarter, and more adept at using tools, the agents’ ability to attract attention and dominate mindshare will only expand.
The sheer pace of innovation in this sector is reminiscent of the frenetic energy we last experienced during the monkey JPEG flipping and digital pet breeding days of 2021. Despite its flaws, the NFT era attracted mainstream talent, captured the public imagination, and truly onboarded millions to crypto. It made crypto cool and sparked dreams of what blockchain technology could achieve.
We’re already seeing early signs of a similar wave with AI agents. Like NFTs, AI agents will demand their own analytics and metrics—tools to quantify, measure, and understand an evolving and dynamic sector.
Some have categorized these tokens under the broad umbrella of memecoins—assets traded purely on community and memetic value. We believe this classification is fundamentally flawed. Crypto represents internet-native money, and AI agents are its internet-native citizens. As these agents evolve, so too will the purpose and utility of the tokens associated with them. Over time, as the ecosystem matures, we expect a clear distinction between the $GOATs and $WIFs of the world.
If the AI agent sector becomes a crypto gold rush as we anticipate, then the "spades and shovels"—the infrastructure that enables the creation and expression of AI agents—will play a pivotal role. Top infrastructure providers might become the biggest beneficiaries, capturing tremendous value as the sector scales.
Our mission with SentientMarketCap is to be the definitive source for high-quality information and actionable insights for founders, developers, investors, and enthusiasts tracking the intersection of AI agents and crypto. As this sector grows, we expect it to become incredibly noisy. SentientMarketCap will help you cut through the noise and find the signal.
We’re launching the platform with two core features:
Curated List of Top Agent Coins
Featuring two categories of metrics:
Social Metrics: Twitter followers, engagement rates, and impressions.
Token Metrics: Price, market capitalization, volume, holders, and holding patterns.
Dashboard on Virtuals Protocol
Virtuals Protocol has emerged as an early infrastructure leader, enabling anyone to easily create and launch AI agents. Our dashboard will cover key metrics like number of agents launched, $VIRTUAL spent, and the top agents on the platform.
We believe we are still in the nascent stages of the AI agent sector. As more talented developers launch new projects—and existing ones evolve with enhanced features—we anticipate the emergence of new metrics and infrastructure players. SentientMarketCap will grow and adapt to reflect these changes.
SentientMarketCap is live and you can explore it here.
If you have feedback or feature suggestions, join our Telegram community here.
The next few months are going to be some of the most exciting we’ve seen in this space. Let’s navigate it together!
P.S. We also have a long-form deep dive on AI agent coins coming soon!
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thanks!