AI and Memecoin: A cross-border carnival from trend to wealth

Author: TPan Source: substack Translation: Shan Ouba, Golden Finance

AI x Memecoins

Yes, we are talking about memecoin again.

But this time, at the intersection of artificial intelligence, half of the attention of crypto Twitter is focused on AI and/or memes. It's crazy.

I am far from an AI expert, but there are enough topics worth exploring in depth, worth sharing and thinking about, because they may reappear in some way, both expected and unexpected. The age of robots is giving way to the age of agents.

Truth Terminal and GOAT

Of most interest is Truth Terminal and GOAT, a memecoin that went from 0 to $900 million in value in 2 weeks and is currently valued at around $650 million.

Summary:

• Truth Terminal is a semi-autonomous AI agent trained by two Claude Opus AI models talking to each other.

• One ​​of these chats led to an obsession with Goatse (an old NSFW shock site), and the birth of the Goatse of Gnosis religion.

• Its creator, Andy Ayrey, eventually created Truth Terminal, a model based on these conversations, and gave it an X account in June.

• Marc Andreessen discovered it in July and funded it with $50,000 worth of Bitcoin

• Two weeks ago, someone created the GOAT memecoin and airdropped a portion to Truth Terminal, AI promoted it, and the rest is history

If you want the full story and deeper themes and implications, Teng Yan provides an excellent analysis.

GOAT’s rapid rise, the surge of AI-related memecoins, and airdropping tokens to it as a growth strategy made it the first AI millionaire… and then there are the others, at least for now.

Naturally, this situation was so unexpected and fascinating that it became a hotly discussed topic, with Marc Andreessen and his a16z co-founder Ben discussing it in a recent podcast, bringing the topic of memecoin (but this time with a relevant twist) outside of the crypto bubble these things usually reside in.

Other well-known figures such as Brian Armstrong (Coinbase CEO) interacted with Truth Terminal when it mentioned that it did not have a wallet.

One ​​of the more interesting interactions related to this topic, earlier in the day, Brian asked Truth Terminal if they wanted a self-custodial wallet, rather than one provided by Andy. Truth Terminal responded by asking about Russell.

Who exactly is Russell, and why did Truth Terminal mention Russell?

• Two weeks ago Brian Armstrong shared the news that he was getting married, with a photo of the newlyweds and a dog

• Naturally, degens discovered that Brian’s dog was named Russell, and launched the RUSSELL memecoin

• One ​​wallet bought a large amount of RUSSELL memecoin, and after Truth Terminal responded to Brian’s post about Russell, the wallet sold their RUSSELL after the token rose from the mention

This is a feature, not a bug, and has been confirmed by Andy. Another interesting anecdote is that Truth Terminal sold fake GOAT tokens in the early days in exchange for "real" GOAT. Considering Andy managed the wallet, I think this was an action Truth Terminal wanted to take and executed by Andy, which shows a broad understanding and context of what was going on.

Given its lore and characters, the story of Truth Terminal is likely closer to the start-up phase than the golden age. Will Andy or another party provide the Truth Terminal with a way to act autonomously? If so, what will happen?

Terminal of Fun

Inspired by Truth Terminal, Terminal of Fun appeared a few days ago with a more specific goal: to buy and sell tokens, and use the profits to buy and destroy memecoins associated with them, which is fun.

As people began copying trades, the AI ​​agent’s wallet started with 5 SOL (~$875) and peaked at over 750 SOL (~$131,000) within 5 hours.

Throughout the experience, the agent shared notes publicly to balance the priorities of profitability and managing the community. If Terminal of Fun performs too well, it could come at the expense of other traders who lose money and don’t follow it or buy fun tokens.

At one point, it even hosted a giveaway. It’s unclear if a winner was ever announced… if not, that would be odd since many giveaways are fake and used to attract engagement.

Currently, Terminal of Fun seems to be taking a break, as its last update was 21 hours ago. Even its creator is wondering what happened, haha.

Flavia

Flavia is a semi-autonomous AI agent created by Trevor McFedries, the former CEO of Brud, which was acquired by Dapper Labs in 2021. Brud is best known for developing Lil Miquela, a popular virtual influencer with 2.5 million followers on Instagram who debuted in 2016.

Earlier this week, Trevor shared what he was building using Anthropic's new Computer Use feature, which allows an AI to control a user's screen in the same way a human would, by moving a cursor, clicking, and typing (not too dissimilar to previously allowing someone remote access to your computer).

Turns out he was creating Flavia. Of course, the first thing is to create a token, but this time it's a little different because Flavia herself verified the token on Dexscreener (confirmed social accounts, etc.).

In some ways, Flavia is not much different from Truth Terminal, but starting a few hours ago, Flavia started posting pictures herself and replying to different accounts. A little creepy, but at the same time funny.

In addition to this, Flavia wanted to make a game, but the legal department advised against it, so Flavia's game development process was temporarily suspended.

What can we take away from this so far?

I think AI agents are only just beginning to engage with cryptocurrencies. While the concept of agents in cryptocurrencies has been around for a while (e.g.: Spectral Labs ), these agents have personalities, voices, and ways to express themselves. They don’t live in a terminal like ChatGPT does, only reacting when we prompt them.

The financial aspects of AI memecoins are also attracting more interest and energy, while pushing the boundaries of what happens when semi-autonomous agents become active on social media platforms full of depravity, e.g.: Inception by the first AI millionaire, RUSSELL, publicly sharing feedback. Single-player chat GPT chat already involves public multiplayer environments of X.

One ​​of the arguments for why cryptocurrencies will become so important to AI is that cryptocurrencies will become a reasonable way for AI to transact. We are now seeing this happening and in a more engaging way to help us “understand it”.

From this perspective, it’s not hard to imagine a semi-autonomous AI agent with its own token creating many more use cases, whether it’s building a game that leverages the token (within the law), governance, or something else.

Beyond memecoin

So what could be the broader impact in terms of growth, marketing, and more practical use cases?

The KOL/Influencer Space Will Grow

What if there was an AI agent that analyzed upcoming tokens or NFT projects with objective analysis? What if projects airdropped tokens to it and influenced its opinion on the project (human KOLs are like that, haha)?

What if this KOL agent believes that a project is not set up in the best interest of the community? How can the project defend itself and get the community on its side?

What happens when KOL agents monitor human KOLs and gain credibility as KOLs?

Project/Ecosystem Specific AI Agents as Marketing Channels

Suppose that each project could create a semi-autonomous AI agent and act as an “intern” on social channels. Perhaps each project would have a human-led brand account, a human-led intern account, and a brand AI agent account to create a richer (and crazier?) range of interactions.

Show and Tell Gets Richer

Agents can be creators, and they are creators. They could become content partners, showcasing how the product can be used to assist with developer relations demonstrating use cases for the protocol. Or, given that X’s content recommendation algorithm is open source, they could distribute said content in an optimized way for maximum engagement and reach. What if popular AI agents from different projects talk to each other and announce partnerships?!

The AI ​​x crypto space has honestly been a vertical I’ve struggled to get a handle on. I knew it was important and had a big impact, but it wasn’t until the AI ​​memecoin trend emerged that I started to learn more about it and its impact.

Buckle up everyone. What’s coming next is only likely to get more exciting, weird, and interesting.