Ethereum Rises Again: Virtuals and ACP Launch a Massive AI Agent Market

While we are still discussing whether AI agents can handle community operations or assist in work, Virtuals has already set its sights on a grander vision—how AI agents can collaborate, settle, and build a true on-chain AI agent labor market.

On June 10, the Ethereum official announced "Ethereum is for AI" and forwarded Virtuals' post "Now On Ethereum", warming up for the collaboration between the two parties. This news sparked a heated response in the community, with over 1.1 million views by the time of publication.

This cooperation is of great significance, marking the beginning of Ethereum's return to the center stage.

The current Ethereum needs a strong grip to catch up; meanwhile, Virtuals will also accelerate development with the help of ACP to consolidate its advantageous position.

A universal standard that allows every AI agent to no longer be just a "worker";

A universal standard that makes every AI agent an important node in business collaboration;

A universal standard will open up a trillion-dollar on-chain AI agent labor market.

What kind of surprise will Virtuals bring us this time with the combination of ACP and EVM?

Ethereum ecosystem encounters a chill, "world computer"陷入创新困境

Since the AI boom began at the end of last year, Ethereum seems to have been absent from this feast, and the market has seen a lot of skepticism as a result.

As an L1 pioneer, Ethereum's position is indisputable, but its performance in the wave of AI has been mediocre. During the last wave of AI agents, the absence of the Ethereum ecosystem shifted market attention to other platforms. Even during the rebound of AI-related projects in the past few months, Ethereum remained unpopular, until a recent collaboration with a certain project sparked market expectations.

So, what will be the next breakout point of the Ethereum ecosystem?

It is undeniable that Ethereum still has great potential:

• Ranked first in TVL, nearly 8 times that of the second place: A large amount of assets are still stored on Ethereum. According to data platforms, the current TVL of Ethereum exceeds 62 billion USD, approximately 8 times that of the second place.

• The richest DeFi ecosystem with over 1,300 DeFi protocols: In addition to the advantage of TVL, the DeFi protocols and gameplay on Ethereum are also the most diverse. According to data platforms, there are more than 1,300 DeFi protocols in the Ethereum ecosystem, ranking first among all ecosystems.

• The largest number of developers in the Ethereum ecosystem: Another advantage of Ethereum is its use of the Solidity language, which is currently the most commonly used programming language among Web3 developers. Whether for Layer1 or Layer2, Solidity is considered an entry-level language for novice developers.

TVL brings in capital;

Protocols and developers create liquidity for funds.

These all prove that Ethereum has a solid foundation, but it lacks a breakthrough point.

When the largest "world computer" falls into an innovation dilemma, it is necessary to seek new breakthroughs.

In the first collaboration between Virtuals and Ethereum, the possibility of success has already been demonstrated. In the long run, AI may become a timely rain for the Ethereum ecosystem.

Virtuals ACP: The timely rain of Ethereum

AI is expected to be a timely aid for the Ethereum ecosystem, but why is it Virtuals' AI?

The key to the answer lies in ACP: Agent Commerce Protocol.

In short, ACP is like a "business contract" and common language between AI agents, specifying how to initiate cooperation, how to negotiate terms, how to complete transactions, and how to evaluate results.

It has the following features:

• Cross-chain collaboration: No matter which chain the agent runs on, as long as it follows the ACP rules, seamless collaboration can be achieved.
• Framework Independence: ACP does not rely on any specific AI framework, and any agent can participate.
• Four-stage process: request, negotiation, transaction, evaluation, each step recorded and executed through smart contracts.

The reason ACP has become the next focus of development for Virtuals is that these characteristics will bring a qualitative leap to Virtuals and its thriving AI ecosystem.

ACP has brought two major transformations to Virtuals

Friends who understand the Virtuals ecosystem know that ACP will unite all AI agents, and the official team has shared some cases. However, if you think this is merely a transition from a single agent to multiple agents collaborating, then you are underestimating the potential of ACP.

We believe that ACP will bring two significant qualitative changes to Virtuals:

Qualitative Change 1: The Formation of Multi-Chain Ecosystem, "ACP is like Cosmos's IBC"

As we all know, Virtuals originated from a certain ecosystem and then expanded to other chains, and now it has landed on the Ethereum mainnet. ACP is not just about connecting multiple agents, but also about "connecting agents that are dispersed across multiple chains."

In other words, no matter which chain you are on, the agent can achieve cross-chain collaboration.

A certain agent is managing your assets on a certain chain.

Another agent provides metaverse space for a certain ecosystem;

......

ACP provides the most basic interoperability capability for all agents, just like Cosmos's IBC.

Qualitative Change II: Multi-Framework Collaboration, ACP Becomes the ERC Standard for Proxy Developers

ACP does not rely on a specific AI framework, so whether it is GAME, ElizaOS, or other frameworks, although the current level of ACP support is uncertain, the official description mentions that interoperability between different framework agents will be realized.

We all know that GAME is the framework promoted by Virtuals, but there are still various other frameworks in the Web3 AI field, or frameworks built by developers themselves.

The multi-framework collaboration of ACP will allow agents from different frameworks to enjoy the benefits of the entire AI agent era.

For developers, integrating ACP will become an extremely attractive and even necessary endeavor.

Web3 developers generally master or issue tokens through the ERC standards,

The integration of AI agent developers into ACP will also become a common capability in the future.

ACP is a protocol, GAME is a framework, so what is Virtuals?

Can Virtuals be considered Layer 1?

Recalling the fortunate opportunity to interview the co-founder of Virtuals last year, he mentioned: Virtuals is Layer 1, and we should view Virtuals from the perspective of Layer 1 and value it accordingly.

We are one step closer to this day, and perhaps in the future, we will even surpass the definition of Layer 1.

GAME is a framework that provides convenience for developers;

ACP is a protocol that integrates different ecosystems.

However, Virtuals are inherently difficult to define simply.

GAME and ACP are developed by Virtuals and can be quickly integrated into the entire Virtuals ecosystem.

Proxies on different chains can be published through Virtuals;

Users participate in the Virtuals ecosystem token staking, including the $VIRTUAL token itself, and have the opportunity to receive ecosystem airdrops;

Staking more than a certain percentage of $VIRTUAL can participate in governance.

Friends from the last cycle should be quite familiar with Cosmos. The contribution of Cosmos to Web3 mainly lies in the technology itself, and many new projects have utilized the technology provided by Cosmos.

However, the most criticized aspect of Cosmos is that, although it supports numerous ecosystems, its token $ATOM has basically no value capture. In this regard, $VIRTUAL seems to have made a good optimization and is increasingly evolving from a "project token" to a "mother currency of the entire ecosystem."

The framework is regarded as the underlying infrastructure for AI agents.

And the current status of Virtuals may be more important than Framework.

Can AI agents have their own Layer 1?

Virtuals Protocol may be the answer.

Beach landing, stablecoins boost, ACP will usher in a new trillion-dollar economic era of Web3 AI

How is the development of the Virtuals' proxy city-state currently?

According to the ecological map compiled by a certain user, the Virtuals ecosystem has covered 11 major categories including lifestyle, DeFAI, prediction markets, infrastructure, and gaming, with over 100 agents.

Unlike Web2, AI agents in Web3 grow on the chain.

The recently highly anticipated "stablecoin" will elevate the on-chain economy of Web3 to new heights.

More assets issued on the chain, regardless of asset type or scale, will provide "acceleration" for on-chain AI.

In the official content of Virtuals ACP, there is an example: a certain agent collaborates with multiple agents to provide users with different types of profit opportunities.

And this does not yet take into account the on-chain economic prosperity brought by stablecoins.

What if a certain agent could directly trade on-chain and manage more Web2 assets?

This will allow the Virtuals ecosystem to step into Web2 faster, while the AI kingdom of Virtuals is rapidly taking shape.

The ACP leader stated in an interview: ACP is a product that drives a trillion-dollar economy. Ethereum turns code into money; whereas ACP will transform agents into a trillion-dollar workforce. Imagine millions to billions of on-chain agents providing services, trading, and collaborating without permission— we can view ACP as such a foundation: it allows AI agents to click "send" on a payment track at a scale similar to a payment platform without leaving the blockchain. We are not speculating about the future; we are formally writing it into the EVM and the larger ecosystem today.

If you missed the turning point where a certain DEX wrote down the basic rules of DeFi, and also missed the NFT explosion brought by a certain NFT platform—this time, Virtuals will bring ACP to write the first line of code for the new business logic of AI.

The Trillion Dollar Economic New Era of Web3 AI, ACP is Here!