Crypto AI Second Half: Launchpad War, Token Economics Shifts Toward Ecology, MCP Emerges Strong

It’s been just over four months since the last roundup of AI projects. The once-promising AI narrative has been hit by a series of unexpected events, from Trump’s Meme吸血 to deepseek’s sudden rise, to tariffs and more. On-chain liquidity has gradually dried up, and a series of “unexpected” events caused the AI bubble to burst ahead of schedule.

After last year’s roundup of these projects, I’ve been continuously following up on all of them. It’s clear that some have gradually died off, some are still telling stories, some continue to work on things with new innovations, and others unexpectedly rebounded because of “market manipulation.”

On April 6, the MCP project Dark launched;

On April 17, Virtuals’ launchpad Genesis went live;

On April 20, ai16z’s launchpad auto.fun launched.

Does AI have a second wave? My answer is yes.

Is AI still the same as before? My answer is no.

After months of bubble collapse, can AI rebuild from the ashes?

Now that we’re in the second half, how should AI play? Below are my thoughts.

Launchpad Explosion: Meme Launchpad and AI Launchpad to Dominate the Market

This year, we’ve already seen numerous Launchpads. From the early surge of Four.Meme to myshell’s AI Launchpad launch, followed by Launchlab recently, various ecosystems are developing their own Launchpads.

The competition in Meme Launchpads is essentially a battle of ecosystems and creators. Ecosystems determine that each public chain can have its own Meme Launchpad, but only one Meme Launchpad can become the winner-takes-all player.

The competition among creators includes:

1- Offering better profit-sharing models to token issuers

2- Attracting creative individuals (who know how to view things from different perspectives) to issue tokens on your platform

The so-called leader of Launchlab, “$TIME,” peaked at just 9M, and no other Meme has managed to break out. News outlets are only reporting Pump.fun, which successfully graduates one or two tokens a day, with other platforms not graduating any at all.

When one fails, they all fail.

However, most of these Launchpads are focused on “Meme.” The key here is perspective and continuous promotion.

Meme has no utility, whereas AI Agents must have utility, whether you like it or not.

Therefore, you’ll see AI projects launching on AI-specific Launchpads, because Meme Launchpads aren’t suitable for AI Agents.

According to incomplete statistics, there are at least 5-10 AI Launchpads compared to Meme Launchpads.

Meme Launchpads: Pumpfun, Launchlab, FourMeme, Clanker, Apeswin, etc.;

AI Launchpads: autofun, Virtual Genesis, Creatorbid, Arc Ryzome, Myshell, Spectral, etc.

The launch method of AI Launchpads, besides users creating tokens themselves, more projects are choosing to collaborate directly with existing AI projects.

Virtuals Genesis currently has 7 projects waiting to launch, and autofun has already announced partnerships with 13 projects. The previously popular Arc has also announced its AI AppStore plan.

If you believe in AI, you should also pay attention to the new projects on AI Launchpads. Meme Launchpad and AI Launchpad will each hold half of the market share.

Virtuals & AI16Z’s Evolved Ecological Economics

The two most representative projects of the last cycle, Virtuals and AI16Z, are also the projects I believe have been the most diligent and consistent in their updates during this round.

As the representative of Agents, Virtuals’ previous tokenomics was considered a key factor driving token price increases.

AI16Z, the most popular project of the previous cycle, was criticized for the lack of utility in its token.

A few months later, both projects have made significant changes. In my opinion, they are now focusing more on the role of tokens within the “ecosystem,” rather than just within the project itself.

Virtuals: Launched VPN, ACP, Points, Genesis

VPN: Virtuals Partners Network, this initiative aims to reshape the intersection of AI and cryptocurrency. VPN will connect investors, domain experts, scholars, and developers to jointly discover, support, and scale the best AI agents in the crypto space.

ACP: Agent Commerce Protocol, designed to build a commercial ecosystem composed of AI agents. This protocol will allow AI agents to interact, collaborate, and trade autonomously, forming the so-called “Virtuals Nation,” ahead of the Agent2Agent concept introduced later by Google.

Points: A loyalty proof system where holding $VIRTUAL tokens grants points. These points can be used to participate in the Launchpad.

Genesis: A new launch mechanism on the Virtuals Protocol, featuring: access based on points, on-chain distribution methods (deterministic, transparent, fair), and a refund guarantee (aimed at protecting contributors).

AI16Z: ElizaOS V2, AUTOFUN, AI16Z New Economic Model, Spartan V2

ElizaOS V2: A new upgraded AI framework. Due to numerous contributors and plugins in V1, efficiency decreased for new developers using the framework. Therefore, upcoming updates will include new features and structural optimizations, including swarms, agent interaction, etc.

AUTOFUN: A new AI launch platform with a more fair and long-term bonding curve, customizable CA addresses, AI token verification chat mechanisms, and community content creation tools.

AI16Z New Economic Model: No official announcement yet, but the team has revealed that profits from the launchpad will be used for buybacks, and the bought AI16Z tokens will supplement the liquidity pool for its launch tokens, similar to Virtuals.

Spartan V2: $degenai will be upgraded and launched alongside ElizaOS V2 as an essential part of the ecosystem, and will also promote autofun projects.

Both of these former leading projects, whether in terms of functionality or tokens, have continued to empower their ecosystems. Here are two screenshots:

Recently, the MCP concept has reignited the AI track, and some friends have started “picking up trash” in old projects and focusing on the ecosystem opportunities within these projects.

In addition to DARK, the recently popular SkyAI also embraces the MCP concept, and old coins like $DIGIMON, $AVA, $ARC, etc., are all moving in this direction.

As long as AI continues to develop, more new concepts will emerge.

As long as you stay in the game, there’s still a chance this year. 💪

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