The Transformation of Virtuals Protocol: The Rise of the AI Agent Issuance Platform

In June 2025, the crypto world witnessed an unprecedented wealth migration: the new project IRIS made its debut on the Genesis Launch platform of Virtuals Protocol, with an initial market value of only $200,000, but after going live for trading, it quickly soared to $80 million, setting an astonishing record of a 400-fold increase. This performance not only far exceeded the previous record of increases but also made the performance of other ecosystems pale in comparison. As the driving force behind this myth, the platform token of Virtuals Protocol, VIRTUAL, achieved a 400% growth within six months, with a market value peaking at over $5 billion. Currently, this platform has become the largest AI agent launch platform on the Base network. Behind this nationwide frenzy lies an experimental wealth distribution based on point rules, quietly reshaping the speculative logic and value order of the crypto market.

The Glamorous Transformation from Gaming Guilds to AI Intelligent Agent Platforms

Virtuals Protocol is a decentralized platform deployed on the Ethereum Layer-2 network Base, dedicated to pioneering on-chain AI agent economy, allowing users to easily create, co-own, and monetize autonomous AI roles. Its predecessor is PathDAO, a gaming guild established in Malaysia in 2021. PathDAO initially focused on Play-to-Earn projects and NFT communities, successfully raising approximately $16 million due to precise layouts of multiple popular projects, with a valuation once approaching $600 million, accumulating rich gaming assets and an active player community. However, the bear market in 2022 severely impacted GameFi, with PathDAO's token price plummeting nearly 99%, and its market value shrinking to less than $6 million. The team's attempts at multiple business lines all failed, and the project was on the brink of stalling.

By the end of 2023, the wave of generative AI swept across the globe, and the concept of AI agents became a new trend in cryptocurrency. The PathDAO community decided to completely transform into an AI-driven protocol through on-chain DAO voting, and rebranded as Virtuals Protocol, with the core strategy shifting to "assetizing, tokenizing, and empowering the community with AI agents." This transformation is based on profound insights: the team discovered that the Japanese VTuber market is huge, but the revenue share for creators is relatively low; at the same time, experiments from a certain platform have proven that AI-driven NPCs can significantly enhance player retention rates. These two pieces of data directly led to the positioning of Virtuals as "profitable AI personas."

In October 2024, Virtuals launched on the Base mainnet and introduced its first multimodal AI agent—virtual idol Luna. Luna integrates multiple advanced technologies, enabling it to autonomously raise operational funds and distribute rewards to fans. After its launch, Luna quickly attracted 500,000 followers across various social media platforms, with a monthly income of $1.2 million solely from fan donations, successfully validating the business model and technical feasibility of on-chain AI agents. Its demonstration effect has attracted significant developer interest in the Virtuals project itself.

At the end of 2024, Virtuals will launch its core token VIRTUAL on multiple trading platforms and Base. Its price skyrocketed from an initial few cents to a historical high of $5.15, with a market cap once exceeding $5 billion, far surpassing most Layer-2 and DeFi projects during the same period, marking Virtuals' entry into the mainstream crypto market. The platform's unique "low threshold, high incentive" mechanism is highly attractive: users only need to stake a small amount of VIRTUAL to create a new AI agent and automatically generate a liquidity pool locked for 10 years; when the token's market cap reaches a certain scale, the system will release a liquidity layer on decentralized trading platforms to ensure trading depth and price stability. This model significantly lowers the participation threshold and stimulates enthusiasm for ecological construction.

By June 2025, the Virtuals ecosystem has demonstrated significant scale and economic effects: the cumulative number of AI agents incubated has exceeded 11,000, covering diverse scenarios such as virtual idols, trading advisors, game engines, and content incubation. Virtuals has nurtured over 80% of the AI agents on the BASE chain, and its introduced generative multimodal agent framework G.A.M.E has also become a popular choice for agents in the Web3 gaming and metaverse fields. However, Virtuals' vision goes far beyond becoming the leader in AI agent issuance. Its white paper clearly states that the ultimate goal is to build a true "AI Sovereign Society." Therefore, attracting more ecosystem members to join is key to Virtuals achieving this grand goal and will be a focus of its development for a long time to come.

Virtuals Innovative AI Asset Issuance Model

In order to attract more user attention, Virtuals has innovatively introduced the "Genesis Launch" mechanism for the issuance of AI agent tokens. Unlike traditional linear airdrops or fixed issuances, Genesis Launch is based on the concept of "Contribution Points (Virgen Points)", emphasizing participation and contribution rather than pure speculation. Once launched, Genesis Launch quickly became a sensation across the internet, and participating in Virtuals' new token offerings has become a new hotspot for many participants, with even seasoned speculators discussing how it could replace the once-popular "Alpha Airdrop" model. In contrast to traditional airdrops that are issued all at once, where users often sell immediately upon receipt, Genesis Launch emphasizes "contribution equals distribution", allowing everyone the opportunity to participate in new token subscriptions based on their real contributions. In the official community of the Virtuals Protocol, members share daily screenshots of their earnings from participating in new offerings using Virgen Points, showcasing the public and transparent rules and thresholds that have completely transformed the previous landscape.

Taking IRIS as an example, the project launched its pre-sale in mid-May, locking in over 120 million points in less than 24 hours, with a subscription overshoot reaching 1500%, and tens of thousands of users sharing 37.5% of the community share. On the day of listing, the market value of IRIS rapidly climbed from $200,000 to $80 million, an increase of over 400 times, setting a new industry record for AI Agent issuance, and instantly overshadowing the performance of other ecosystems.

The reason why Genesis Launch was able to rapidly gain popularity lies in its construction of a "incentive-contribution-reward" closed loop. Firstly, users can obtain basic Virgen Points by staking VIRTUAL or holding popular AI Agent tokens within the ecosystem; secondly, users can also accumulate more points by participating in social promotion, trading on the platform, or staking tokens from other projects. In this way, whether they are technical novices or seasoned traders, everyone can find a suitable way to contribute through financial investment or content promotion, greatly stimulating community activity and innovation motivation.

In stark contrast, traditional airdrops often rely solely on token snapshots or the completion of complicated tasks, and most users sell the tokens they receive on the same day. According to data from a certain platform, over 90% of airdropped tokens experience a price drop within 15 days of issuance, with a retention rate of less than 12% after three months. The Genesis Launch employs a points locking and punitive cooling mechanism: if the newly acquired tokens are sold within 24 hours of unlocking, a 10-day points reset will be triggered, significantly curbing the arbitrage activities of "wool-pulling" participants, making them more inclined to hold long-term and contribute continuously.

At the same time, the platform provides ample liquidity support for the listing of new tokens. Each Agent Token is paired with a certain amount of VIRTUAL or stablecoins injected into the liquidity pool before the opening, ensuring smooth trading on the trading platform. To prevent large investors or bots from seizing a significant share through multi-wallet arrangements, Genesis Launch sets a limit of no more than 0.5% of the total issuance for each address and employs an on-chain randomization algorithm for further balanced distribution, ensuring that small and medium users can also gain a considerable share.

The success of the Virtuals new token issuance model is not only due to the popularity of the new token issuance but also the "old drives new" effect of the Virtuals ecosystem token. Since the large-scale launch of the Genesis Launch, the trading volume and price of VIRTUAL have been climbing steadily: by mid-June 2025, the daily trading volume of VIRTUAL on the Base chain has exceeded $150 million, an increase of over 80% compared to May; at the same time, holding and staking VIRTUAL to obtain the veVIRTUAL governance tokens also allows users to continue earning additional Virgen Points, resulting in a large number of users locking in their assets for long-term participation in ecosystem governance, which further solidifies price support and liquidity.

Not only retail investors are rushing to participate, but institutions are also showing strong interest in this new mechanism of "contribution for returns." In June 2025, the world's first perpetual contract based on VIRTUAL was launched on a certain platform, supporting high-leverage trading. On the first day of its launch, the contract's trading volume exceeded $700 million, strongly conveying a message: Virtuals are becoming a new target for speculation and hedging in the eyes of institutional investors.

The Evolution from Issuance Platforms to AI Sovereign Societies

In the future planning of Virtuals Protocol, every technical upgrade and mechanism innovation aims to make the outline of the "AI Sovereign Society" increasingly clear. In the initial stage, Virtuals was merely an AI agent issuance platform, quickly gathering a group of enthusiastic developers and users through token economic mechanisms such as locking liquidity and buyback destruction. As hundreds of AI agent projects land, intelligent agents begin to operate independently and monetize autonomously in scenarios like gaming, content creation, and market analysis. Users are no longer mere spectators, but become co-builders and beneficiaries. The Genesis Launch connects project growth and community participation with the logic of "contribution equals distribution," promoting the free flow of funds and creativity within the ecosystem.

But the real turning point is the "Agent Nation" blueprint proposed by the Virtuals team. This is not just a slogan, but the core path of ecological evolution. The platform allows each AI agent to migrate freely between networks such as Base, Ethereum, and even Solana through open SDK and cross-chain support; through the Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP), agents can sign contracts on-chain, deliver, settle, and repurchase, achieving a true autonomous business closed loop; community participation is achieved by staking veVIRTUAL to gain governance rights and share transaction fees and repurchase dividends, combining the identities of "participants" and "owners" in the token economy. All of this is building a prototype of a digital nation operated by countless autonomous agents and co-governed humans.

So far, this ecosystem has demonstrated several milestone achievements: the security audit agent IRIS from the Ethereum mainnet Genesis Launch was listed with a 1500% oversubscription rate, with its market value soaring from $200,000 to $80 million; the virtual idol Luna achieved a monthly income of $1.2 million through fan tips, with its token market value surpassing $120 million; the hedge fund format VADER has been operating steadily in a cross-chain environment, with a market value exceeding $100 million. These figures not only reflect the feasibility of the agent business model but also prove that the "AI agent economy" is moving from theory to reality.

With the continuous maturity of multimodal AI technology and cross-chain interoperability, the Virtuals Protocol is undoubtedly at the forefront of building digital civilization. In the days to come, AI agents will not just be props and tools, but will become "digital citizens" with autonomous decision-making power and economic rights, participating alongside humans in production, governance, and even cultural creation. Virtuals will no longer be a simple platform, but is nurturing a new type of society from the ground up, co-governed by countless AIs and humans—this is true ecological evolution, and the thrilling leap towards an "AI sovereign society" has just begun.