Original author: Zolo, Shenchao
It has been more than 4 months since the last inventory of AI projects. The AI narrative, which had originally been gaining momentum, has been hit hard by Trumps meme, the emergence of deepseek, tariffs, and so on. On-chain liquidity has gradually become scarce, and a series of unexpected factors have caused the AI bubble to burst ahead of schedule.
After reviewing those projects last year, I have been following up on almost all of them. Obviously, some have gradually died, some are still telling stories, some are continuing to do things and come up with new things; some have unexpectedly rebounded because of the market tycoon.
On April 6, MCP project Dark was launched;
On April 17, Virtuals launch pad Genesis went live;
On April 20, the ai16z launcher auto.fun went online.
Will there be a second wave of AI? My answer is yes.
Is AI still what it was before? My answer is no.
After several months of bubble bursting, can AI rebuild from the ruins?
In the second half, how will AI play? Here are my thoughts.
Launchpads explode, Meme Launchpad and AI Launchpad will each occupy half of the market
We have seen too many Launchpads this year. Four.Meme exploded at the beginning of the year, and myshells AI Launchpad went online;
Looking at the Launchlab a while ago, in addition to these Launchpads, different ecosystems are also building their own Launchpads.
The competition in Meme Launchpad is essentially a competition between ecosystems and creators.
The ecosystem determines that each public chain can have its own Meme Launchpad, and at the same time, there is almost only one Meme Launchpad that can become the winner-takes-all.
The Creator Competition includes:
Provide a better profit-sharing model for token issuers
Attract creative people who are willing to issue tokens on your platform
The highest point of $TIME, known as the leader of Launchlab, is only 9M, and there is no other meme that can run. According to the news, only one or two tokens of Pump.fun are successfully graduated every day, and other platforms have none.
If one suffers, all suffer.
But most of the above are Launchpads that focus on Meme. What is important is the angle and continuous dissemination.
Meme has no utility, but AI Agent must have utility whether you like it or not.
So you will see AI projects being launched separately on some AI Launchpads.
Because Meme Launchpad is not suitable for AI Agents.
According to incomplete statistics, compared to Meme Launchpad, there are at least 5-10 AI Launchpads.
Meme Launchpad: Pumpfun, Launchlab, FourMeme, Clanker, Apeswin, etc.;
AI Launchpad: autofun, Virtual Genesis, Creatorbid, Arc Ryzome, Myshell, Spectral, etc.
In addition to users creating their own tokens, AI Launchpad also chooses to directly cooperate with existing AI projects.
Virtuals Genesis currently has 7 projects waiting to be launched, and autofun has 13 projects that have announced cooperation and launch. The previously popular Arc also announced its own AI AppStore plan.
If you believe in AI, then you should also pay attention to more new projects on AI Launchpad. Meme Launchpad and AI Launchpad will each account for half of the market.
Virtuals AI16Z’s Evolved Ecological Economics
Virtuals AI16Z are the two most representative projects in the last cycle. They are also the projects that I think have worked the hardest and have been kept updated in this round of follow-up.
Virtuals is the representative of Agent. The previous token economics is considered to be an important reason for the rise of tokens.
As the most popular project in the last round, AI16Z is the most criticized for its token practicality.
A few months later, both projects have undergone significant changes. In my opinion, their actions are more focused on the role of tokens in the ecosystem rather than just the projects themselves.
Virtuals: Launched VPN, ACP, Points, Genesis
VPN: Virtuals Partners Network, a program that aims to reshape the intersection of AI and cryptocurrency. VPN connects investors, domain experts, academics, and developers to jointly discover, support, and scale the best AI agent founders in the crypto space.
ACP: Agent Commerce Protocol, aims to build a business ecosystem composed of AI agents. The protocol will allow AI agents to interact, collaborate and trade autonomously, forming the so-called Virtuals Nation, which precedes the Agent 2 Agent concept launched by Google.
Points: Points are also a proof of loyalty. You can earn points by holding $VIRTUAL tokens. Points will be used to participate in Launchpad.
Genesis: A new launch mechanism for the Virtuals Protocol, with key features including: points-based access, a new on-chain distribution method (deterministic, transparent, fair), and a refund guarantee (designed to protect contributors).
AI16Z: ElizaOS V2, AUTOFUN, AI16Z New Economy Model, Spartan V2
ElizaOS V2: A new upgraded AI framework. Because V1 has many contributors and plugins, it makes it inefficient for new developers to use the framework. Therefore, new functions and structural optimizations will be updated in the near future, including swarms, agent interactions, etc.
AUTOFUN: New AI launch platform, new fairer and long-term bonding curve, customizable CA address, chat mechanism for AI Token verification, community content creation tools, etc.
AI16Z new economic model: There is no detailed official announcement yet. According to the team, the profits from the launch platform will be used for buybacks. The purchased ai16z will in turn replenish the liquidity pool of its launch tokens, which is similar to virtuals.
Spartan V2: $degenai will be upgraded and launched together with ElizaOS V2, and as an important component, it will also shill autofun projects.
Regardless of the function or the token, the two former top projects have not stopped empowering the ecosystem. Here are two screenshots:
Recently, because the MCP concept has reignited the AI track, some friends have begun to pick up garbage in old projects and pay attention to the ecological opportunities of these old projects.
In addition to DARK, SkyAI, which has been very popular these days, is also an MCP concept. The old coins: $DIGIMON, $AVA, $ARC, etc. are also moving in this direction.
As long as AI continues to develop, more new concepts will emerge.
As long as you dont leave the table, you still have a chance this year
