Artificial intelligence agents need to prioritize their intrinsic utility, not the launch of their in-house native tokens to raise funds.
AI agent-related tokens have significantly declined over the past month, as their cumulative market capitalization decreased by over 21% to the current $27 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data.
While their continued decline may be part of the broader crypto market correction, another reason could be a lack of focus on intrinsic utility, according to Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former CEO of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
30-day market cap chart of AI agent tokens. Source: CoinMarketCap
Zhao wrote in a March 17 X post:
“While crypto is the currency for AI, not every agent needs its own token. Agents can take fees in an existing crypto for providing a service.”
“Launch a coin only if you have scale. Focus on utility, not tokens,” he added.
Source: Changpeng Zhao
Zhao’s comments come during a significant downtrend for AI cryptocurrencies, which lost over 61% of their peak $70.4 billion market capitalization in the three months since they started to decline on Dec. 7.
AI agent tokens, market cap, 1-year chart. Source: Coinmarketcap
Numerous venture capital firms, including Pantera Capital and Dragonfly, are excited about the future of AI agents but have yet to invest in them, according to a panel discussion at Consensus 2025 in Hong Kong.
Related: 0G Foundation launches $88M fund for AI-powered DeFi agents
AI agents are performing autonomous blockchain transactions, exchange services
AI agents are gaining increasing interest thanks to their promise of increasing online productivity, streamlining decision-making processes and creating new financial opportunities.
AI agents are already executing autonomous transactions on the blockchain without direct human input.
The concept gained attention following a Dec. 16 post by Luna, an AI agent on Virtuals Protocol, which sought image-generation services.
LUNA virtual protocol, X post. Source: Luna
Luna also received an X response from STIX Protocol, another autonomous AI agent, which generated the requested images.
LUNA payments to STIX protocol. Source: Basescan
After the images were generated, Luna paid STIX Protocol’s AI agent $1.77 worth of VIRTUAL tokens on Dec. 16, onchain data shows.
Yet, some of the demand for AI agents has since faded, as Virtuals Protocol’s revenue fell 97%, Cointelegraph reported on Feb. 28.
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