What is Virtuals Protocol?
Virtuals Protocol is a decentralized platform that merges artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology, enabling the development, management and code of AI agents by the users. These agents are smart, independent agents capable of executing tasks across platforms, conversing with users, and overseeing digital assets.
Virtuals Protocol streamlines the process of bringing AI into the blockchain world, ensuring that it’s easier to implemented by developers, creators, as well as crypto enthusiasts. The platform not only enables a new economic model for AI interactions but also allows users to participate in the governance of the platform itself.
The Rise of AI Agents
AI agents are programs that can perceive their environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve specific goals. Unlike traditional bots that operate according to fixed rules, AI agents can adapt and learn over time, making them much more versatile. In industries like cryptocurrency, gaming, and content creation, AI agents can perform tasks like analyzing market trends, managing social media profiles, or even creating independent content.
In the cryptocurrency world, AI agents have gained significant traction. For example, aixbt monitors discussions in the cryptocurrency community on social media, providing users with useful insights into market sentiment. Similarly, Truth Terminal automatically interacts with followers across multiple platforms, enhancing social engagement. AI agents like these are transforming the way users interact with digital platforms by automating tasks and providing real-time, data-driven insights.
Key Features of Virtuals Protocol
Virtuals Protocol’s powerful functionality enables users to create responsive AI agents that can communicate in multiple media. These agents are capable of increasing user engagement by communicating through voice, text, and even 3D animations. The agents in protocol are also able to perform blockchain transactions and have on-chain wallets from which they can use their funds and expand their financial opportunities.
How Virtuals Protocol Works (Source: Gate.io)
The foundation of the Virtuals Protocol ecosystem, Composer, is made up of various essential parts:
These features provide developers with the tools they need to create highly sophisticated and interactive AI agents that can perform complex tasks autonomously.
Applications of the Virtual Protocol
First AI Agent: LUNA
The first AI agent to be launched by the Virtuals Protocol team, Luna is a test agent to demonstrate the capabilities of the platform. Luna is a 24/7 live-streaming entity that talks and answers questions, powered by large language models (LLMs). Although it mainly serves as a governance token for the Virtuals Protocol ecosystem, as of January 2025, Luna (LUNA) has come into the limelight with a market value exceeding $130 million. The early days of AI agents, Luna also showed how they can be a source of entertainment, interaction, and knowledge, all possible through the technology supporting Virtuals Protocol.
VIRTUAL Token
Virtuals Protocol–VIRTUAL (Source: KuCoin)
The VIRTUAL token plays an important role in the Virtuals Protocol ecosystem. It serves a number of important purposes as the platform’s governance token. LUNA and all other agent tokens are paired with VIRTUAL in the liquidity pool as part of its initial use for liquidity pairing. The second crucial feature is transaction routing, which generates demand for the VIRTUAL token by routing transactions via it when agent tokens are purchased. Finally, VIRTUAL is needed to create new AI agents: a fixed amount is required to create and launch a new agent on the platform.
VIRTUAL has a total supply of 1 billion tokens, including 600 million for public circulation, $50 million for liquidity provision, and $350 million for the ecosystem treasury as community incentives. They keep accumulating these allocations over time as they participate in the ecosystem, which promotes growth of the platform.
How to create an AI agent on Virtuals Protocol?
It is an easy method for users to create an AI agent on Virtuals Protocol and kick off their own agents with little effort. Users can connect their wallet to the platform and get started. Next is filling out a form with their agent’s name, avatar, symbol, and what the agent’s purpose is. After the initial setup process is done, users deposit VIRTUAL tokens into the system, with a minimum of 100 tokens needed to set up an agent. Once the liquidity threshold is reached, the agent will be listed on the bonding curve and the agent’s symbol will be paired with VIRTUAL on decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap.
Once the agent is created, users will delegate their voting power to validate updates and contribute to the agent’s development. The agent is minted as an NFT, with a unique identifier that tracks the agent’s history and contributions. After this process, the agent will be fully operational and can be managed through the Virtuals Protocol dashboard.
In summary, Virtuals Protocol offers a robust and cutting-edge solution for building, managing, and tokenizing artificial intelligence agents. This enables users to startup their Intelligent Agents applications thanks to blockchain and AI combined in a decentralized environment. The use cases are endless and growing in number, whether it be for gaming, social media, DeFi or customer service, AI agents, created through Virtuals Protocol, will be the future. Virtuals Protocol expects to lead a new chapter in the digital economy by allowing users to generate value and participate in decentralized governance as AI technology progresses.
