The Rebirth of Virtuals Protocol: From Gaming Guilds to AI Agent Issuance Platform

In June 2025, the crypto world witnessed an unprecedented migration of wealth: the new project IRIS debuted with an initial market value of $200,000 on a certain platform, and after being listed for trading, its market value skyrocketed to $80 million, setting a new industry record with a 400-fold increase. This performance far exceeded the highest increases of previous projects and made other popular projects in the ecosystem look pale in comparison. As the driving force behind this myth, the Virtuals Protocol platform token VIRTUAL achieved a 400% growth within six months, with a peak market value exceeding $5 billion. Today, the platform has firmly established itself as the largest AI agent launch platform in a certain network. However, behind this nationwide celebration lies a wealth distribution experiment based on points rules, quietly reshaping the speculative logic and value order of the crypto market.

From Gaming Guild to AI Intelligent Agent Issuance Platform: Rebirth from the Ashes

Virtuals Protocol is a decentralized platform deployed on a certain Layer-2 network, committed to pioneering an on-chain AI agent economy that enables users to easily create, jointly 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 the NFT community, successfully raising approximately $16 million through precise layouts in popular gaming projects, reaching a valuation close to $600 million, and accumulating a wealth of gaming assets and an active player community. However, the bear market in 2022 severely impacted GameFi, causing PathDAO's token price to plummet by nearly 99%, with a market cap shrinking to less than $6 million. The team's attempts at multiple business lines, including social apps, NFT apparel, and music platforms, all ended in failure, leaving the project on the brink of being shelved.

By the end of 2023, the wave of generative AI swept the globe, and the concept of AI agents became a new trend in cryptocurrency. The PathDAO community, through on-chain DAO voting, resolved to completely transform into an AI-driven protocol and rebranded as Virtuals Protocol, with a core strategy shift towards "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 enormous, yet creators only receive a small portion of the revenues; at the same time, experiments on a certain platform proved that AI-driven NPCs can significantly increase player retention rates. This data directly gave rise to the positioning of Virtuals as "profitable AI personalities."

In October 2024, Virtuals launched on a certain network and introduced the first multimodal AI agent - the virtual idol Luna. Luna integrates technologies such as text generation, 3D motion, speech synthesis, and smart contract wallets, enabling it to autonomously raise operational funds and distribute rewards to fans. After its launch, Luna quickly gained 500,000 fans on social media, and its monthly income from fan tips reached 1.2 million USD, successfully validating the business model and technical feasibility of on-chain AI agents. Its demonstration effect attracted a large number of developers' attention to the Virtuals project itself.

With the successful momentum of projects like Luna, Virtuals launched its core token VIRTUAL on multiple exchanges and a certain network by the end of 2024. Its price surged from a few cents to a historical high of $5.15, and its market cap once exceeded $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 about 10 VIRTUAL (approximately $200) to create a new AI agent, which automatically generates a liquidity pool locked for 10 years; when the token's market cap reaches about $500,000, the system will release a liquidity layer on the exchange 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 nearly nurtured over 80% of the AI agents on the network, and its launched 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 leading issuer of AI agents. 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 the focus of its development for a long time to come.

Virtuals Innovative Issuance Model: Creating a New Paradigm for AI Asset Issuance

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 "Virgen Points," emphasizing participation and contribution rather than pure speculation. Once launched, Genesis Launch quickly became a sensation across the internet, and Virtuals' new token offerings have become a new hotspot for investors eager to participate, with even seasoned speculators discussing how it could replace the once-popular "Alpha airdrop" model. Compared to traditional airdrops that distribute tokens at once, often leading users to sell immediately, Genesis Launch emphasizes "contribution equals distribution," allowing everyone the opportunity to participate in new token subscriptions based on genuine contributions. Almost every day in the official community of the Virtuals Protocol, members post screenshots of their earnings from participating in new token offerings using Virgen Points, showcasing the transparent rules and thresholds that have completely overturned the situation of "wealthy individuals monopolizing opportunities while retail investors are left out."

Taking IRIS as an example, the project launched its presale in mid-May, locking in over 120 million points in less than 24 hours, with a subscription overshoot reaching 1500%. Tens of thousands of users shared 37.5% of the community's stake. On the day of listing, IRIS's market value skyrocketed from $200,000 to $80 million, an increase of over 400 times, breaking the industry record for AI Agent issuance and instantly overshadowing the previous popular projects in other ecosystems.

The reason why Genesis Launch was able to explode in popularity so quickly lies in its construction of a "incentive-contribution-reward" closed loop. First, users can earn basic Virgen Points by staking VIRTUAL or holding the highly sought-after AI Agent tokens within the ecosystem, such as Luna and AIXBT; secondly, users can accumulate more points by participating in social promotion ("Yapping"), trading on the platform, or staking tokens from other projects. This way, whether you are a technical novice or a seasoned trader, you can find a suitable way to contribute either through financial investment or content promotion, greatly stimulating community activity and innovative drive.

In stark contrast, traditional airdrops often rely solely on wallet snapshots or the completion of complex tasks, and users mostly sell the tokens they receive on the same day. According to data from a certain platform, over 90% of airdropped tokens experience a significant price drop within 15 days of issuance, with a retention rate of less than 12% after three months. The Genesis Launch, however, employs a points locking and punitive cooling mechanism: if new tokens are sold within 24 hours after unlocking, the points will be reset to zero after 10 days, significantly curbing the arbitrage behavior of "sheep shearing" participants, encouraging participants 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 that there is no awkward situation of "not being able to buy at price" or "not being able to sell orders" on exchanges or decentralized exchanges. To prevent large holders or bots from occupying a large share through multi-wallet aggressive strategies, Genesis Launch sets a limit of no more than 0.5% of the total issuance for each address, and employs on-chain randomization algorithms for further balanced distribution, ensuring that small and medium users can also reap considerable shares.

The success of the Virtuals new token issuance model lies not only in the popularity of new token issuances but also in driving the "old brings new" effect of the Virtuals ecological token. Since the large-scale launch of Genesis Launch, the trading volume and price of VIRTUAL have been rising sharply: by mid-June 2025, the daily trading volume of VIRTUAL on a certain chain has exceeded 150 million USD, with a month-on-month increase of over 80% compared to May; at the same time, holding and staking VIRTUAL to obtain veVIRTUAL governance tokens also allows users to continue earning additional Virgen Points, leading to a large number of users locking up assets and participating in ecological governance in the long term, further consolidating price support and liquidity.

Not only retail investors are flocking 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 trading with leverage of up to 2000 times. On the first day of launch, the contract transaction volume broke through 700 million USD, strongly conveying a signal: Virtuals are becoming a new speculative and hedging target in the eyes of institutional investors.

Ecological Evolution Theory: The Thrilling Leap from Issuance Platform to AI Sovereign Society

In the future planning of Virtuals Protocol, each technical upgrade and mechanism innovation is aimed at making the outline of the "AI Sovereign Society" increasingly clear. In the initial stage, Virtuals was just an AI agent issuance platform, rapidly gathering a group of passionate developers and users through token economic mechanisms such as locking liquidity and buyback destruction. As hundreds of AI agent projects were launched, the agents began to operate independently and autonomously monetize in scenarios such as gaming, content creation, and market analysis. Users were no longer just spectators, but became co-builders and beneficiaries. The Genesis Launch connected 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 across multiple networks 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 truly autonomous business closed loop; community participation is obtained through staking veVIRTUAL for governance rights, and sharing transaction fees and repurchase dividends, merging the identities of "participants" and "owners" in the token economy. All of this is constructing a prototype of a digital nation operated by countless autonomous agents and co-governing humanity.

So far, this ecosystem has demonstrated several milestone achievements: the security audit agent IRIS in the Genesis Launch of a certain network 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-style VADER operates steadily in a cross-chain environment, with a market value exceeding $100 million... These data 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 future, AI agents will not only be props and tools, but will also become "digital citizens" with autonomous decision-making powers and economic rights, participating together with humans in production, governance, and even cultural creation. Virtuals will no longer be a simple platform, but will be nurturing a new type of society from the bottom up, co-governed by countless AIs and humans—this is the true ecological evolution, a thrilling leap towards an "AI sovereign society" that has only just begun.