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The AI narrative is making another return, both in terms of mindshare and market capitalization. AI tokens lagged in the past few months, as interest shifted to memes.
AI tokens are generating quite a narrative after most major assets in that space posted gains in the past week. The AI narrative moved ahead with the biggest mindshare, according to Kaito.
Every other narrative ranging.
AI continuing to trend up. pic.twitter.com/SQvnIoegcQ
— Kaito AI 🌊 (@_kaitoai) December 11, 2024
All older altcoins rallied in the past week, putting attention on previously promising narratives. While the altcoin season slowed down with a weaker performance against BTC, the AI token space benefitted from the short-term focus.
AI had its strongest quarter at the start of 2024 but has continued to perform strongly in the last months of the year. AI competes with other top narratives, including L1 and L2 tokens, memes, DeFi, RWA, decentralized infrastructure, and others. AI also has overlaps with some narratives, as AI agents have made forays into meme space.
AI tokens line up among the most successful narratives
AI tokens remain volatile, but they still saw a stable three-month trend, where most assets made significant net gains. The sector as a whole increased its value by 97% for the past three months, becoming the sixth largest gainer. AI still trailed memes and DeFi, as well as outliers in the privacy space.
On a year-to-date basis, the AI sector has a net gain of 83%, lagging behind Bitcoin (BTC) and other narratives. Despite this, the AI narrative looks like a forgotten narrative that may have outsized gains.
AI narrative tokens are not always the same selection, and some may come from previous bull markets or trends. There is a major difference in profiles for infrastructure tokens, compared to the newer trend of AI agents. The latter are more akin to meme tokens or cult communities.
The AI tag has been placed on multiple types of projects, some of which have a DeFi or staking element. Despite this, the narrative has managed to raise awareness and prices for all related assets.
The AI token market peaked with a total valuation of $70.2B, then retreated to its current level of $62B. The token selection includes big data, physical infrastructure projects, AI agents, and chatbots, as well as combined models.
AI agents keep drawing attention
AI agents are now drawing more attention, compared to infrastructure projects, GPU share tokens, or projects that are just veiled storefronts for staking or DeFi.
An entire AI agent token category has emerged, a subset of AI tokens. The space has a market capitalization of $8.7B, containing many low-cap tokens with the potential to outperform in the short term.
In their current form, AI agents are still far from being capable of token trading or decisions. AI agents are mostly using social media data to engage their communities, while possibly being linked to a meme token.
AI agents are also increasing their own social media mindshare, competing with legitimate projects offering real infrastructure. They have a total market capitalization above $9B based on their tokens, even surpassing older assets that pivoted into the AI narrative. The space is extremely competitive, with mindshare growing or waning based on short-term popularity.
The AI agent space also expanded its value by more than 13% in the past week, tracking the performance of other types of AI startups.
AI agents are also creating an industry around themselves, such as launch and data platforms, as well as infrastructure to deploy AI agents. As of December 2024, there were 335 tracked AI agents with notable social media mindshare.
While just a couple of months ago AI agents were limited to a handful of X accounts, currently AI agent creation is going through a boom similar to meme tokens. Not all projects will have the same quality or mindshare, but competition is certainly heating up in that space.
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