Dialogue with DefiOasis: How to develop AI Agent blue chip hunters

Interviewer: Wu Yue, Xian Ran Interviewee: DefiOasis

This article is a text record of our interview with DefiOasis, an AI Agent blue chip hunter on Twitter on January 26. DefiOasis' main business is the author/analyst of Wu Blockchain. He usually focuses on on-chain data and investment research analysis. He has sniped multiple blue chip targets during the hot period of the AI ​​Agent sector, and grasped ai16z, ACT, PIPPIN, TURBO and other targets with 10 times or even dozens of times. As of the day of the interview, he has achieved an overall return of 7~8 times.

In this interview, DefiOasis briefly popularized its investment experience, investment research methodology, and position building methods in the AI ​​Agent track, and systematically told everyone its valuable experience and insights,which has a strong reference value for investors and even practitioners. Everyone is welcome to read it carefully.

(The picture comes from DefiOasis's tweet)

1. Wu Yue: Can you briefly review when you started investing in AI Agent-related tokens? Defioasis: I am usually interested in this kind of on-chain data analysis and on-chain asset-related gameplay. Since last year, my main focus has actually been on the on-chain. The motivation for studying AI Agent actually comes from my long-term exploration of on-chain assets. I have been observing on-chain assets since last year, but I usually watch more and invest less real money. The main reason is that I feel that on-chain assets, especially memecoin, cannot convince me to invest a lot of money. But the turning point was in late October and early November last year, when a phenomenal project Goat created a narrative like AI coin issuance. $GOAT soared to a market value of several hundred million US dollars in a very short period of time, and then Binance launched its spot and futures. This incident made me rethink the AI-related track. Of course, there were some other things that influenced me before that. One was Worldcoin, whose issuer was Sam Altman, co-founder of OpenAI. Under the narrative of OpenAI's Memecoin, Worldcoin's FDV quickly reached as much as 100 billion US dollars.

The second is $TURBO, a memecoin created by AI, which rose 200~300 times in CEX. From these two things, I felt everyone's strong interest in the AI+Crypto theme, and it also made me sure that the targets related to AI Agent are worth ambush.

So after $GOAT was launched on Binance, I quickly saw the potential of the AI ​​Agent track and felt that Binance had the ability to lead this track, so I began to spend time looking for some AI-related targets. At that time, there were several targets that caught my eye, one was ai16z and the other was ACT.

From now on, ai16z seems to be much more powerful than ACT, but at that time, Shawn, the founder of ai16z, was not very famous, and the way he issued tokens, including the token contract, also had problems. Due to the large volatility of $ai16z and its low popularity, although I also opened a position in ai16z at that time, the position was not large, and $ai16z once fell below the market value of 10 million US dollars, I didn’t dare to buy it later, and finally I heavily invested in ACT, which is more stable and has a larger number of holders.

The first time I bought $ACT was probably in early October last year. It was my first operation to officially open a position in the AI+Crypto track. I bought about 3,000 US dollars. Later, I bought ACT several times after the market value reached 20 million US dollars, with an average price of about 0.022 US dollars, and bought more than 10,000 US dollars before and after. What happened afterwards was quite unexpected. ACT was actually listed on Binance. I remember that I was still attending a conference in Bangkok that day, and I was quite shocked when I heard the news. After $ACT was listed on Binance, the FDV reached as high as 700-800 million US dollars, and I sold a large part of the tokens the day after ACT was listed on Binance, and I still hold the remaining ones.

Later, I did observe that AI Agent can be said to be the only track that has developed from a general-purpose Pump.fun to a vertical scale, and then I began to delve into this track to do some investment research. After ACT, I also gradually grasped some good targets, such as PIPPIN, which I once held heavily and achieved a return of more than 10 times. In the end, my overall investment return in the AI ​​Agent track was about 7-8 times from October to a few days ago. It has retreated after the recent market crash, but it is still about 5 times the return.

2. Wu Yue: So what is your methodology for studying AI Agent? Can you give some specific examples to help everyone understand your investment research methodology?

defioasis:Many AI-related assets today are very different from some previous AI projects. Recently, people are paying more attention to assets based on fair launches such as Pump.fun. The assets held by the project party or the founder may not be as many as some big investors. In this case, it is necessary to pay attention to whether the project party has long-termism and whether its background conditions can support the project. If the founder has no morals, he may abandon the project or open a new one.

Somy methodology for AI Agent is to first examine the project from the perspective of people, to see whether the founder really wants to make the project a success and whether he has the ability to do it well. I can give you an example in this regard. Take PIPPIN just now. In December, Solana and ai16z held an AI hackathon together. I noticed a Japanese man named Nakajima Yohei among the judges of the hackathon. I learned that this person was working on an AI Agent project, namely PIPPIN, which is a child-oriented AI Agent project. I think it is quite interesting because I have never seen an Agent project with the same positioning. On the other hand, Nakajima Yohei himself is also a judge of this hackathon. I think that as a judge, he has to participate in the competition to prove himself. Obviously, this judge has higher gold content.

Later, I further studied Nakajima Yohei and found that he is actually the founder of baby agi. This project has more than 20,000 stars on Github. I searched for some information one after another and found that BABY AGI is quite powerful. As a product of the AGI concept, it has been mentioned by many media and papers. I think this can actually prove the strength of this person. In addition, this person is also a partner of a VC. They have invested in some Web3 projects, some of which have been listed on top exchanges.

So far, I think that from the overall point of view, the founder of PIPPIN is very powerful in technology, capital operation, and backing resources, and is a relatively prestigious person. As a relatively prestigious person, and a real-name person, the probability of him rugging or abandoning the market is much smaller.

At that time, I saw that the market value of PIPPN was about 20 million US dollars, and there were not many people around me paying attention to it. It was a target that had not yet been discovered in value, which was more suitable for me. I prefer to buy tokens in the range of 10 to 20 million US dollars FDV. Later, I spent a total of about 40,000 US dollars to buy 0.2% of the total amount of PIPPIN. Later, PIPPIN's FDV once fell below 10 million US dollars, but I did not abandon the chips because I thought the founder of this project had a good background and technology, the fundamentals were still solid, and short-term price fluctuations would not affect the long-term value of the project itself.

For a long time afterwards, I ignored these holdings. Later, PIPPIN had a turn. It wanted to transform from a single agent to an AI framework, which made its valuation rise sharply. After this news came out, even though there was no mature landing development framework, everyone recognized this founder and the project itself, and soon PIPPIN's FDV soared to 200-300 million US dollars.

Doing AI development framework actually means a split plate in essence. The market pricing for this kind of framework is the highest in the AI ​​track. So I thought this project was good at the time, and I held it with confidence. When the FDV reached 300 million, I sold more than half, and the rest has not been moved until now. I think that when its framework really comes out and forms a split model, it may reach 1 billion US dollars or even higher FDV.

3. Wu Yue: Which AI Agent-related projects do you think are promising? And why?

defioasis: Actually, there are quite a few projects that I think are promising, such as PIPPIN, which I still hold. I usually choose FDV with a target of around 20 million US dollars, and there are other aspects. I used to go to the AI ​​hackathon of the Solana ecosystem to pan for gold, and there are quite a few award-winning projects in it.I have been screening and studying their fundamentals recently. Another one is that Virtual is about to come to the Solana ecosystem, and some interesting projects may be developed later. Virtual has proved its success on the Base chain, so it is worth paying attention to.

Next, let me talk about some projects that came out of the Solana hackathon. I will share one here, but it is not an investment advice. Recently, I have observed a project called Agentipy, which is also an open source AI Agent framework. The core is to use Python to connect AI Agent to Solana's on-chain applications. Its roadmap shows that it may launch an autonomous narrative trading robot in Q1 and LaunchPad in Q2. The most important thing is that Agentipy mentioned that it would use its token APY as a flywheel to participate in it. Then I also studied its token APY and thought the design was pretty good, although it was also based on fair launch.

But the team behind it took 40% of the stake and all of it was linearly unlocked for two years. I think that being able to make such a move shows that the team is still determined. Including Agentipy's co-founder and CEO have been paid attention to by Solana's official Twitter account. In addition, this project came out of the Solana hacker slack, so at least it is endorsed and relatively reliable. Of course, this project as a whole is still in its early stages and there is a lot of uncertainty. I will also pay more attention to projects that are cross-chain to Virtual later, and there are more opportunities in this area.

If you look at it as a whole, the AI+Crypto track has been slowly transitioning to the AI ​​Application stage, which is the AI ​​application stage. After the explosion of various development frameworks, we should pay more attention to AI+application projects. I think AI+defi is also good, which is the native narrative of AI+Crypto and Defi assets and Framework. There may be some good opportunities, but this is still in a very early stage and I don’t see any good targets. I am still waiting and watching. I haven’t bought any new assets recently. This is probably the case.

4. Wu Yue: What do you think of the current AI Agent track and its market status? How long do you think the popularity of AI Agent can last? Has the bubble peaked?

defioasis: It is indeed quite cold recently, but I think the opportunity of AI Agent will not end, because AI-related concepts are a relatively sensible thing. AI products outside the Crypto circle are still iterating rapidly, and are on the rise in terms of technology and capital. I think this is the more important basic foundation. In fact, many AI targets are driven by factors outside Crypto, such as Shawn, the founder of ai16z. He was probably a marginal person in Web2 at the time, and seized the opportunity in Crypto to create ai16z, becoming a leader in the AI+Crypto track. I believe that under the influence of Shawn, more talents from Web2 and traditional industries will enter Crypto to do things in the future.

In addition, I think the AI ​​projects in the Crypto circle themselves lag behind the traditional industries. Many disturbances outside the circle, such as the big moves of AI giants, will be transmitted to the Crypto inside, forming a new narrative and a new sub-track. In addition, AI Agent is currently the only one that has transformed from a general-purpose Pump.fun to a vertical track with scale.

Except for AI Agent, there are actually not many projects that can come out of pure memecoin. Another one that barely came out may be Desci, but it is also very cold now. Apart from this, no other race track can be transformed from a general-purpose to a vertical track, which in itself shows that there is a real demand behind the market hype about AI Agent narratives. Now the overall market of AI Agent has fallen sharply, mainly because it was a bit overheated before, and now single Agents are very rampant, which has forced everyone to roll up development frameworks and gradually become tired. The future may be the era of AI plus applications, AI plus some Crypto native narratives. If my point of view is valid, there will still be some new crazes and new opportunities.

5. Wu Yue: The last question is actually about investment and trading experience, such as your position building and exit skills. Are you willing to tell us about it?

defioasis:We have been talking about investment targets before, but I think position management may be more important, because the selection of targets is nothing more than looking at the technical resources and background of the project. Although it is now based on Pump.fun for fair launch, I think the research ideas are not much different from VC coins, which is nothing more than looking at the technical resource background, team endorsement, chip structure analysis, rat warehouse and blue chip address, etc. I will still focus on the issue of position management later.

Assuming there is a good asset, it will generally go through three stages: PVP, two-stage consolidation, and listing. Most projects will decline in the PVP stage, and may disappear in two or three days. AndMy previous position building style mainly targets assets that have experienced two-stage consolidation. For example, choose targets with FDV in the range of 10 million to 30 million US dollars to layout, which I usually call the "on-chain sweet spot".

I found some good targets before. After the highs in the first two days of birth, most of them will fall back to this position, and then undergo some consolidation and shock. I usually only make some position allocations at this stage, especially those that have experienced one or more 70% retracements, and then stabilized at around 10-20 million US dollars, I will pay special attention to them.

If I see a good asset, I will first add it to the Watchlist, and then make some ratings for these projects. I probably divide them into S-level, A-level or other levels. S-level tokens are those that can form a model disk. For example, as a mother coin ecosystem, it can continuously produce sub-coins to make profits. Sub-coins can continuously create wealth effects. People need to buy mother coins to trade, thereby continuously generating demand for mother coins. This is actually very similar to the mother coin flywheels of Pump.fun, Sol and Virtual.

So most of the S-rated ones are framework-type targets, because they have the opportunity to form an ecosystem or form this kind of model flywheel. Why can PIPPIN rise? It is mainly because the market has high expectations for him to build a framework. As for those projects rated A, they are mainly judged by indicators such as narrative background, technical resources, and team. For example, if the founding team has a good background in the past, has the background of the Solana Foundation, or the founder has made some products that have attracted everyone's attention and may develop into a new track, etc., I may give him an A-level. Anyway, I will add it to the Watchlist for observation first.

Generally speaking, as long as it is an S-level or A-level target, I will build a position, and each time I build a position is about 2,000 to 3,000 US dollars. But I will consider whether to increase or increase my position more carefully. I need to spend more time observing to decide whether to increase my position. I need to go to the project community to see what the developers are doing every day.

After setting such a standard, I also have certain restrictions on the holding of each token. For example, I can only hold a maximum of 0.2% of a single token. If the FDV is around 20 million US dollars, buying 0.2% will cost about 40,000 US dollars. In fact, every time I add a position, I think about the target. If I feel that the target is contrary to the initial purchase logic, I will decisively give up adding positions. Or when the target falls sharply below the range of 10 to 20 million US dollars, I will also decisively give up adding positions.

In principle, I will get at least ten times before selling, which is about 200 to 300 million US dollars in FDV.In fact, in the final analysis, the purpose of building a position is to ensure that you are on the train, add positions cautiously, and gradually increase your position, including why a hard cap of 0.2% is set, all to avoid adding positions all the way due to excessive blind confidence, so that you are trapped in a target.

Of course, as long as I increase my position, I will believe in my judgment of the target. But what I said above are some ideas for building positions in the second stage of consolidation. I feel that everyone in the market is more familiar with the routine of the second stage, but if you want to hold, it is still difficult to play, so I am actually doing some lottery flow play, which is commonly known as PVP, but at this time it is no longer limited to AI, as long as it is an asset on the chain, it will be involved.

In the absence of a big market at the moment, I think this may also be a good choice. To some extent, it is also a preparation for the potential big market in the future. I feel that it is very important to keep this profitable mentality. I am probably in such a situation.

Wu Yue: It sounds like you have gained a lot today. Thank you very much for coming to have this interview with us.