Good Morning ☕️ 

Markets are showing strong momentum in the AI and DeFAI sectors, with several major developments across infrastructure, agents, and DeFI.

This Week:

• DeFAI emerges as a transformative narrative with Hey Anon’s AUTOMATE framework launch.

• Holoworld AI launches an agent marketplace on Solana.

• ai16z and Eliza expand cross-chain capabilities.

• New infrastructure plays reshape the agent development landscape.

• Major developments in AI x DeFi convergence.

Now let's get into the details... 👇️ 

Highlights

🔥 Franklin Templeton’s digital assets arm released a report emphasizing the promise of AI agents in crypto ecosystems. Not only are institutions starting to take notice of what’s going on in the agents space, the report highlights the potential for AI agents to transform industries, forecasting advancements in developer activity and platforms like Virtuals Protocol ($VIRTUALS), while also mentioning $ai16z, $fartcoin, and Freysa ($FAI).

🔥 HeyAnon ($ANON) is launching AUTOMATE, a TypeScript framework that enables developers to integrate DeFi protocols into their ecosystem, backed by a grants program offering up to 2% of $ANON tokens and $1 million USDC for qualified protocol integrations across Arbitrum, Avalanche, IoTa EVM, Kava EVM, Sonic, and Base chains.

🔥 Virtuals ($VIRTUAL) is updating their rewards structure to allocate 30% of post-bonding taxes to agent creators and 20% to Agent Affiliates (trading platforms/interfaces), while introducing a new wallet system for creators to manage their rewards and an affiliate program for trading platforms to earn from facilitated trades.

🔥 Infrastructure developments: io.net ($IO) has launched decentralized GPU clusters across 130 countries, while Ora ($ORA) introduced the opAgent framework for on-chain perpetual agents, and elizaOS ($ai16z) released a whitepaper with MIT CSAIL.

2024 Crypto x AI Fundraising Report

Over the past week, we analyzed all of the fundraising activity for the Crypto x AI sector over the course of 2024. Here are the highlights:

• $1.4B raised across 479 rounds in H2 2024, with a strong focus on decentralized AI infrastructure.

• Top funding themes included decentralized compute, privacy-preserving AI, and blockchain-integrated AI frameworks.

• Largest deal: Sentient raised $85 million to build an open AGI platform with blockchain-based artifact contracts.

• Other notable raises: Freechat ($80 million), Zama ($73 million), and io.net ($30 million).

👉 Dive into the full report for all the data, trends, and 2025 projections.

Podcasts & Streams

New Outpost Episode: 2025 Crypto x AI Predictions

Outpost subscribers now get early access to podcast episodes!

This week, we welcome back Teng Yan from Chain of Thought to discuss his predictions for the coming year. We dive into the Solana AI Hackathon, where over 500 projects competed, the emerging category of DeFAI and predictions about how high the value of the crypto x AI sector could go this year.

Don’t miss this one if you’re bullish on the AI sector!

Other Great Listens:

🎙️ Why DeFAI is the Future with Daniele Sesta: Dives into the emerging vertical of DeFI x AI, Dani’s latest project ‘HeyAnon’ and and its goal to democratize trading tools.

🎙️How To Get Rich With Crypto AI And Content (Without Getting Lucky): Yu Hu, founder of Kaito AI, discussed their vision to create a platform for fair distribution of information and capital through InfoFi, a concept using market forces to signal information truthfulness,

🎙️Programmable IP In The Age of AI: Jason Zhao from Story Protocol discussed their vision to create a blockchain-based system for tracking and monetizing intellectual property, highlighting their partnership with Stability AI and the protocol's aim to enable autonomous IP monetization similar to DeFi protocols.

Project Updates

📍 G.A.M.E ($GAME) released advanced SDKs, unlocking maximum customization for developers building sophisticated agents.

📍 Holoworld ($HOLO) successfully launched its Agent Market on the Solana blockchain, introducing a no-code AI agent creation platform that supports multimodal interactions.

📍 Spectral Labs ($SPEC) teased a Multi-Agent framework, enabling agents to hire, onboard, monitor, and fire other agents.

📍 Derive ($DRV) debuted Derive Pro, a DeFAI trading platform using LLMs for research and execution.

📍 Dolion ($BULLY) prepares for its January 28 launch, offering no-code AI agent deployment with an earnings-based burn mechanism for $BULLY.

📍 Mira Network launched Voyager Testnet, introducing access to GPT-4o, Llama 3.1 405B & Claude 3.5 Sonnet, with distributed content verification.

📍 Abstract Chain launched an XP (points) program for transacting onchain. With mainnet launching this month and plenty of hype building around the project, this could be a solid airdrop.

📍 Dria unveiled Dria-Agent-α, a compact LLM excelling in Pythonic function calls and parallel multi-function execution.

📍 Brahma introduced ConsoleKit for autonomous agents with secure transaction capabilities.

📍 Fleek launched AI Agent Hosting, enabling 30-second agent deployment with Eliza framework integration.

📍 Spheron unveiled Skynet, addressing agent autonomy constraints via decentralized Guardian Nodes, enabling agents to independently manage resources and evolve.

📍 Sapien teases their points program, hinting at an airdrop in the future.

Reading List

🔗 Moemate: Crossing the Chasm by Teng Yan (Chain of Thought): This AI agent platform with millions of users in Web2 doubles down on crypto, exploring its transition to Web3 and its innovative token ecosystem.

🔗 Spotlight: Virtuals Protocol - What You Need to Know by Alea Research: A deep dive into Virtuals Protocol’s infrastructure for tokenizing AI agents, covering its business model, technical innovations, and partnerships.

🔗 DeFAI, chain abstraction & multi-agent interactions by @0xrishabhai: Insights into DeFAI’s evolution with chain abstraction, showcasing how agent-to-agent interactions can resolve bridging complexities.

🔗 Navigating the Crypto AI Landscape by @0xkyle__: A framework for understanding value accrual in the C-AI space, with an emphasis on thesis-driven investments over hype cycles.

🔗 DeFAI Swarm by TheoriqAI: How AI agent swarms are revolutionizing DeFAI through collective capabilities, enabling advanced collaboration and task execution in Web3.

Tools

Finding alpha in the current fast-paced AI meta requires the right tools. Here are three platforms we're using daily:

🛠️ AI Agent Toolkit: Comprehensive directory of AI agent resources, from frameworks and launchpads to tutorials and infrastructure

🛠️ Cookie.fun: Track agent metrics, market caps, and mindshare in real-time

🛠️ Kaito.ai: Using for mindshare and smart followers tracking on X. Kaito is conducting an airdrop using “Yaps” points from activity on X, connect your X account to participate here.

🛠️ Taostats.io: New analytics dashboard for monitoring Bittensor network activity and performance

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