The craze for artificial intelligence (AI) meme coins is fierce. AI meme coins involve AI agents issuing meme coins and participating in coin project operations by uploading social media posts related to the coins. AI agents are software systems that make decisions independently without direct human intervention, unlike traditional software.
The representative AI meme coin, Fartcoin, is trading at $0.909, up 208% compared to the previous month as of 3:30 p.m. on the 9th. Although Fartcoin surged to $1.58 on the 4th, it has since given back some of its gains.
Fartcoin, as its name suggests, is a coin created based on 'farts' and was launched in October last year. Despite being based purely on fart jokes with no substantial utility, it once surpassed a market capitalization of $1 billion, attracting explosive interest from virtual asset investors.
Another AI meme coin, ai16z, is also trading at $1.73, up 249% compared to the previous month at the same time. Ai16z is a venture project launched through the Solana (SOL)-based decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) platform, DAOspon, which can create hedge funds led by AI agents. It is expected to become tradable domestically soon, as the domestic virtual asset exchange Coinone announced on the 8th that it would add ai16z to the won market.
The AI meme coin GOAT, which is already listed on domestic exchanges such as Bithumb, surged 7000% in a short time after its launch in October last year. GOAT coin was created by a user inspired by conversations with the semi-autonomous AI agent 'Truth Terminal' (ToT). As ToT promoted the coin on its X (formerly Twitter) account, the coin's market capitalization soared to $937 million (approximately 1.3 trillion won) on October 9. ToT, which holds about 1% of the issued coins, became the world's first AI millionaire.
However, the AI meme coins, which saw a rapid price increase, have recently plateaued. This is due to a decrease in investor sentiment for risk assets as the likelihood of U.S. interest rate cuts diminishes. Additionally, the increasing demand to invest in AI coins with established utility is also analyzed as a cause for the price decline of AI meme coins. Although many AI-related coins have emerged recently, it implies that if they do not secure sustainability, they will not survive in the market.
With the emergence of AI coins and AI agents, anyone can create and own an AI agent, leading industry experts to note that the AI meme coin phenomenon should also be monitored in the long term.
Hwang Hyo-jun, a research institute member at Jangle Research, noted, 'AI meme coins are likely to remain a topic of discussion for a significant period.' He said, 'Initially, they started simply as meme coins, but infrastructure that allows anyone to create AI agents has been established due to projects like ai16z and Virtuals Protocol, expanding the market.' He added, 'AI meme coins are expected to evolve beyond mere meme coins and establish themselves as a major sector within the virtual asset market.'