Analysis of Trends and Dynamics in the Web3 AI Field

In mid-July, the macroeconomic situation showed positive signals. Bitcoin reached a new all-time high, and Ethereum's price returned to above $3000 for the first time in years. This favorable trend provided strong momentum for the "Ethereum beta" narrative, driving mainstream tokens in the Ethereum mainnet and various Layer 2 ecosystems to generally strengthen.

The continuous inflow of institutional funds has driven a strong bullish sentiment for mainstream assets in the long term, but some investors remain cautious about the upcoming CPI and PPI data, as well as the Federal Reserve's stance on interest rate cuts in 2025.

It is worth noting that in this round of market conditions, the price correlation between Ethereum and altcoins (especially AI-related altcoins) is significantly higher than that of Bitcoin. This phenomenon stands in stark contrast to the previous bull market when altcoins generally followed the trend of Bitcoin.

Here are the important developments and trends in the Web3 AI field this week:

1. Development of the Virtuals Ecosystem: From Trading to Product-Driven

Virtuals has made significant progress in building an active ecosystem, attracting over 50,000 investors to participate in AI agent token investments. Currently, Virtuals is working to convert its large trading community into product users.

ACP ( AI Cooperation Protocol ) demonstrates enormous potential: project parties can directly reach over 50,000 users to achieve monetization on the first day; users can find the products they need through the "Butler" agent tool. ACP effectively serves as the "business contract" and common language between AI agents, establishing the standard processes for initiating cooperation, negotiating terms, completing transactions, and evaluating results.

Virtuals is committed to optimizing ACP efficiency, improving task execution speed, and reducing AI hallucinations and errors. The current biggest challenge is to develop a core product that meets users' daily needs, solves practical problems, and has a high retention rate.

To achieve this goal, Virtuals may consider:

1. Integrate external teams into the ACP ecosystem
2. Create a more flexible issuance mechanism to break through the fixed pricing model of $200,000.
3. Attract high-caliber teams to join the platform to assist in product development.

Once Virtuals successfully attract quality teams and effectively support existing teams (especially the core native teams), it may trigger the third wave of Virtuals market. Currently, the price trend of $VIRTUAL shows clear Ethereum beta characteristics.

2. TAO Shines Brightly

In the past 7 days, the price of TAO has increased by 30%. This rise is attributed to the overall recovery of the market, the continuous increase in institutional adoption rates, and the benchmark effect of "AI Bitcoin". Some core subnets have bottomed out and rebounded, while others have strongly rebounded from key support levels.

Although it is still difficult to determine whether a second wave of dTAO bull market is on the horizon, considering the current price levels, macro sentiment, institutional adoption trends, and the crypto treasury layout of TAO, now may be an appropriate time to reassess the allocation of dTAO Alpha tokens.

3. Almanak Points Program Launch

Almanak, as a leading team in scalable infrastructure for trading agents, has officially launched a points incentive program. This program will start on July 14 and end on September 21, with the token issuance plan also taking place in September.

Users can earn points rewards by executing EV operations (such as funding the treasury, deploying custom strategies, or introducing more TVL locks) or by holding funds in the Almanak wallet.

Almanak is created by a quantitative team with the aim of enabling ordinary users to build quantitative strategies in a short period of time. The team adopts a hybrid model of AI agent clusters and smart contracts (ERC-7540) to construct verifiable and auditable AI infrastructure for large funds and institutions (with TVL exceeding 100 million USD).

In the coming months, we may see rapid growth in AI tokenized vaults. These vaults optimize returns and implement transaction-based strategies to enable intelligent asset operations within mainstream DeFi protocols. Almanak is expected to usher in a new era of DeFAI agents, achieving fully autonomous operations through AI technology, directly passing DeFi value to end users.

4. StableAI Accelerates Development

As one of the leading stablecoin tracks supported by GPUs, USD.AI has already gained market recognition despite still being in the internal testing phase. The current total value locked (TVL) exceeds 35 million USD, and it has recently deployed the first batch of ROCKCHIP RK3588 server staking services, with an annualized yield of up to 15%.

Project reserve fund allocation strategy:

• 98% allocated to US Treasury assets, annualized yield 4.15%
• 2% annual yield obtained through GPU staking loans at 15%

USD.AI is about to open its product to the public, and may simultaneously launch a points incentive program.

5. Attention Capital Market Trends

Kaito and Cookie are planning the launch of the attention capital market. Users can determine the token allocation in the project's presale and public offering rounds by holding platform points and potentially staking tokens.

When KAITO and COOKIE start announcing core partners or the first batch of launch projects, their tokens may perform remarkably.

6. Other Updates

• The voting process for the first v2 version of CreatorBid has been launched, and market demand far exceeds supply. Project progress appears to be slightly delayed, resulting in the $BID token price consolidating.
• CODEC token shows strong performance, AVA, COM, CDX, and BILLY demonstrate a robust recovery trend.
• The total market value of AI agents has once again surpassed the 10 billion USD mark.

Summary

Ethereum breaking the $3000 mark and Bitcoin reaching an all-time high has injected strong momentum into the market, particularly driving the Ethereum beta narrative. This trend has been fully reflected in the overall performance of AI tokens.

The Virtuals ecosystem is shifting from a trading speculation phase to a product-driven phase. The ACP platform has great potential, but the key lies in developing a core product that can attract users for sustained use.

TAO continues to demonstrate the benchmark effect of "AI Bitcoin," with a strong price rebound, as institutional narratives are still being constructed.

The Almanak Points Program may become an industry trendsetter, and if its strategy vault makes progress, it will clearly indicate the next narrative path for DeFAI.

StableAI is accelerating its development, and USDai has accumulated a considerable TVL during the beta testing phase, with a public release imminent.

InfoFi is seeking new growth points through the attention capital market. If the upcoming projects of the Kaito and Cookie platforms can be launched as scheduled and demonstrate significant growth potential, this track may regain market attention.

Overall, the market environment is becoming healthier, with more focus on actual products and infrastructure development. We seem to be entering a new builder window period in preparation for the next wave of market trends. This is the best time to pay close attention and make early arrangements.