Memecoins vs. AI Agent Coins: What's the Difference

1/9/2025, 7:57:14 AM
Intermediate
AI
This article analyzes the relationship and differences between memecoins and AI agent tokens, exploring how these projects rely on social media attention and community interaction in the absence of clear pricing models. The piece also discusses the challenges and strategies of investing in AI agents, providing guidance for investors on how to select promising projects, while emphasizing the importance of continuously capturing attention in these domains.

I’ve been seeing a lot of people outside the AI agent space comparing memecoins to AI agent coins—saying they’re basically the same thing.

Well… it’s Yes, but also No.

Here’s What They Have in Common

Let’s be real—unlike DeFi or L1 coins, which have clear metrics like TVL, volume, transactions, number of wallets, etc, nobody knows how to price memecoins.

Memecoins are all about:

  • Attention: How much are people talking about it?
  • Virality: How well does the meme spread online?
  • Hype: Is it trending?

They don’t need a “real product.” In memecoins, attention + token = product. That’s why their value can skyrocket to billions for no reason other than hype.

AI agent coins are similar in that way. People get excited when:

  • A personality-focused agent sings, dances, or interacts in a fun way.
  • An alpha-focused agent drops a gem that 5x in a day.

In this case too, attention + token = product. Just like with memecoins, there’s no clear way to “price” AI agent coins—it’s all about what captures attention.

But Here’s the Difference

With AI agents, you can’t coast on attention alone.

This space is already crowded with agents, and to stand out, you need to ship relentlessly. New features, better interactions, constant engagement—if you’re not rolling out updates every 2-3 days, you risk losing your audience.

CT has the attention span of a goldfish. Whether you’re building:

  • A DeFi AI agent,
  • A personality-driven agent,
  • An alpha-sharing agent, or
  • Something entirely new…

You need to constantly give people something fresh to stay relevant.

You gotta realize that you’re playing a different game here—A game of attention

In DeFi, you can go quiet for 3-4 weeks to build something big, then drop it and make a splash.

In AI agents? You don’t have that luxury.

In this space, attention is the product.

If you’re not keeping your audience engaged day in and day out, you’re done. People will move onto a new hotter, hyper agents, and it’s almost impossible to recover lost momentum.

So if you’re a builder in the AI agent space building a unique product, and you want to brainstorm ways to grab attention, feel free to shoot me a DM. I’m always down to share GTM ideas.

The Investment Landscape Right Now

Investing in AI agents isn’t as straightforward as it was a month ago.

Back then, unique agents could easily hit $10M-$20M FDV and ride the hype. Now? New unique agents are typically landing in the $1M-$5M range—and even those need to fight hard to stand out.

If you’re an investor, here’s the play:

  • Double down on major AI agents with strong communities and real utility.
  • Be picky about smaller agents—only invest if you’re confident they have something truly unique and can compete in this crowded space.
  • If you do not have time to monitor the screen, accumulate agent eco coin like $VIRTUAL, $AI16Z, $VVAIFU, $ZEREBRO, and chill.

What’s Next

I’ll keep sharing updates on agents, new narratives, and shifts in the space here.

I’m doing deep due diligence to curate quality projects, but the thing is: You need to do your own research. Form your own opinions and think critically before jumping in cuz some plays might do 10-20x but some might not turn out well

Anyway, thanks for sticking with me. There’s more exciting content on the way, and I can’t wait to dive into it with yall

Disclaimer:

  1. This article is reprinted from [X]. All copyrights belong to the original author [@Defi0xJeff]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
  2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
  3. The Gate Learn team does translations of the article into other languages. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.

Share

Crypto Calendar

Hack Meridian and Meridian 2025 in Rio De Janeiro
Stellar has announced the return of Hack Meridian, scheduled for September 15–16. The hackathon will be followed by the Meridian 2025 conference, taking place September 17–18. Both events aim to bring together developers and innovators to build, collaborate, and shape the future of blockchain-based financial infrastructure. Brazil will serve as the host country for this year’s gatherings.
XLM
-3.18%
2025-09-17
Tokens Unlock
Fasttoken will unlock 20,000,000 FTN tokens on September 18th, constituting approximately 2.08% of the currently circulating supply.
FTN
-0.24%
2025-09-17
Classic Competitive Season 11
Axie Infinity has kicked off Classic Competitive Season 11, running from August 28 to September 18. Players can now enter the arena to compete for over 35,000 AXS in total rewards. Both Battle and Premium Passes are available. The season can be accessed via hub.skymavis.com.
AXS
-3.72%
2025-09-17
Decentralized AI Forum in Budapest
Swarm will organize the Decentralized AI Forum on September 18, as part of Budapest Blockchain Week. The event will take place at Óbuda University and will include workshops, AI agent development sessions, panel discussions, and networking activities focused on decentralized AI, data sovereignty, and open innovation.
BZZ
5.82%
2025-09-17
Podcast
OriginTrail will host a new episode of the On Trac(k) podcast on September 18 at 13:00 UTC, featuring Videntifier CEO Ari Jonsson, OriginTrail CTO, Brana Rakic, and OriginTrail co-founder Tomaz Levak. The discussion will focus on building one of the world’s largest decentralized content libraries.
TRAC
-4.11%
2025-09-17

Related Articles

Arweave: Capturing Market Opportunity with AO Computer
Beginner

Arweave: Capturing Market Opportunity with AO Computer

Decentralised storage, exemplified by peer-to-peer networks, creates a global, trustless, and immutable hard drive. Arweave, a leader in this space, offers cost-efficient solutions ensuring permanence, immutability, and censorship resistance, essential for the growing needs of NFTs and dApps.
6/8/2024, 2:46:17 PM
 The Upcoming AO Token: Potentially the Ultimate Solution for On-Chain AI Agents
Intermediate

The Upcoming AO Token: Potentially the Ultimate Solution for On-Chain AI Agents

AO, built on Arweave's on-chain storage, achieves infinitely scalable decentralized computing, allowing an unlimited number of processes to run in parallel. Decentralized AI Agents are hosted on-chain by AR and run on-chain by AO.
6/18/2024, 3:14:52 AM
AI Agents in DeFi: Redefining Crypto as We Know It
Intermediate

AI Agents in DeFi: Redefining Crypto as We Know It

This article focuses on how AI is transforming DeFi in trading, governance, security, and personalization. The integration of AI with DeFi has the potential to create a more inclusive, resilient, and future-oriented financial system, fundamentally redefining how we interact with economic systems.
11/28/2024, 3:45:01 AM
Dimo: Decentralized Revolution of Vehicle Data
Beginner

Dimo: Decentralized Revolution of Vehicle Data

Dimo is a car IoT platform built on Polygon, allowing car owners to collect and share vehicle data such as mileage, speed, and location, in exchange for DIMO tokens as rewards. The platform enables real-time monitoring, management, and monetization of vehicle data through integration with hardware such as AutoPi OBDII devices. The DIMO token, based on ERC-20, aims to incentivize user participation, with governance features included in its token economy. Dimo also collaborates with IoTeX, integrating W3bstream technology to support Web3 developers' access to vehicle data, jointly creating a new ecosystem for mobile travel. With two rounds of funding raising $20.5 million, the Dimo project has a fixed token supply, with circulating supply gradually increasing.
5/6/2024, 12:37:57 PM
Mind Network: Fully Homomorphic Encryption and Restaking Bring AI Project Security Within Reach
Intermediate

Mind Network: Fully Homomorphic Encryption and Restaking Bring AI Project Security Within Reach

Mind is an AI restaking solution that ensures the token economy and data security of decentralized AI networks through flexible restaking and fully homomorphic encryption for consensus security. While EigenLayer uses restaking to secure different AVSs within the Ethereum ecosystem, Mind Network uses restaking to secure the consensus of various AI networks across the entire crypto ecosystem.
6/13/2024, 1:04:59 AM
Virtuals Protocol: Tokenising AI Agents
Intermediate

Virtuals Protocol: Tokenising AI Agents

Virtuals Protocol provides a framework for creating, owning, and scaling tokenized AI Agents. Our deep dive into Virtuals’ smart contracts revealed a sophisticated system for permissionless contributions and value creation.
11/29/2024, 3:31:42 AM
Start Now
Sign up and get a
$100
Voucher!