Gate Research Institute: AI Agent zone leads the New Year market, Musk's name change promotes related Memecoin big pump

Summary

• The main support level for BTC this week is around $92,500, and the market is in a wait-and-see and game stage.
• ETH is trading in a narrow range between $3,300 and $3,400, with overall trading volume declining.
• The AI Agent sector has performed well in the New Year market, with AI16Z rising by about 136.5% in the past 7 days.
• Elon Musk briefly changed his own X platform account name to "Kekius Maximus", and has since changed the account back to its original name within 48 hours.
• Shiba Inu will launch the TREAT token in early 2025.
• Base chain's daily trading volume reached a new high, with a trading volume of over 13.3 million on January 1st.

Market Interpretation

Market Review

• BTC Market Review - Last week, Bitcoin entered a consolidation phase after testing the $91,500 support level for the third time. This week, it has shown a range-bound consolidation pattern with gradually decreasing volatility. Currently, the main resistance level is around $99,000, and the support level is around $92,500. In the short term, the $92,500 support has shown some resilience. However, if the price fails to hold this support, the market may further test lower price ranges. Conversely, if it breaks through $99,000 and holds steady, it could boost market confidence and open up further upward potential. Currently, the market is at a critical stage of observation and speculation. Investors are advised to closely monitor the dynamics between the resistance and support levels and wait for clear signals of a breakthrough direction. [1]

**ETH Quotes – **ETH price volatility has been small this week, and the overall trading volume has decreased. The short-term pressure level is concentrated at $3,430, which becomes a key threshold for bulls to break. At present, the market is in a state of range consolidation, and the price is under upward pressure, if it can successfully break through the pressure level and stand firm, it may drive the market confidence to rebound and push the price to a higher level; However, if the price goes down, you need to pay attention to the support strength around $3,300, the market may continue to play long and short games in the range, investors are advised to pay close attention to the subsequent volume changes and market trend development. 【2】

• **Shanzhai Coin - **In the past 7 days, Shanzhai Coin experienced a relatively large decline around December 26th, but the performance was relatively differentiated. Among the strong Shanzhai Coins, there was a normal pullback and a significant rebound recently. Sectors such as Virtuals Protocol ecosystem, AI Agent Launchpad, and AI Meme performed relatively well, with many related concept tokens seeing significant increases, and some coins even doubling in value. [3]
• Futures Market —— In the options market, large expirations have no significant impact, and spot prices maintain sideways fluctuations. The current options open interest is $32.55 billion, up about 144.36%. Of this, the notional amount of January 31 rights was $5.605 billion. If volatility can remain stable after BTC breaks through $100,000, altcoins may be able to catch up. 【4】 \
• Macroeconomic Data - On the evening of December 30th, the US released the December Chicago OMI data, which was lower than expected. The data indicates that the economic situation is not optimistic. The recent data has led to stabilization in the price of gold.【5】
• Stablecoin —— In the past 7 days, the total market value of stablecoins has declined by 0.39%, falling to $203.993 billion. This short-term decline is mainly due to weakened market demand during the holiday period.【6】
• Gas Fee —— The average Gas Fee of Ethereum in the past 7 days has risen to 8.5 Gwei, a significant increase compared to last week, indicating increased network activity. It was previously as high as 26.3 gwei due to the impact of the Bitmappunks project.【7】

Hot Concepts

This week, the price of Bitcoin fluctuated between approximately $91,500 and $99,960, and the performance of various altcoin sectors varied. According to Coingecko data, the top-performing sectors this week were Contract Derivatives, Virtuals Protocol Ecosystem, AI Agent Launchpad, and AI Meme, with increases of approximately 56.4%, 44.4%, and 48.5% respectively in the past seven days. [8]

Virtuals Protocol Ecosystem - Virtuals Protocol is a brand new decentralized platform that provides a new economic model for creators and users in the virtual world through blockchain technology and tokenization, making virtual assets investable, tradable, and with long-term value as digital products. Influenced by factors such as the overall market activity and its own trading advantages, the sector has seen a significant rise in the past seven days, with an overall increase of more than 31.8% as of 00:00 (UTC+0) on December 26th.

Among them, the currencies in the category: FREYA rose 2,053.7% in the past 7 days, and WAI rose 1,873.8% in the past 7 days. [9]

**AI Agent Launchpad —— **AI Agent is a brain-driven system with a large language model as its core, capable of independently understanding, perceiving, planning, remembering, and using tools, and capable of automating the completion of complex tasks. AI Agent is different from traditional artificial intelligence in that it has the ability to gradually achieve given goals through independent thinking and calling tools.

Among them, the currencies in the section, SNAI, VVAIFU, and VIRTUAL, rose by 826.0%, 116.2%, and 40.9% respectively in the past 7 days. [10]

AI Meme - AI Meme refers to meme tokens related to AI, including GOAT, Fartcoin, CHAOS, ANON, etc.

Among them, the currencies in the sector are as follows: KEKIUS rose by 5,566.1% in the past 7 days, MOSS rose by 1,765.4% in the past 7 days, and AVA1 rose by 300.7% in the past 7 days. [11]

Hot Currencies

According to CoinGecko data, the popular currencies in the past 7 days are as follows: [12]

AI16Z (Adventure Gold) - 7-day increase of about 136.5%, with a circulation market value of 22.87 billion US dollars. ai16z simulates Marc Andreessen's venture capital role, making investment decisions through AI and community interaction, and it has an autonomous operating wallet. The developers have also created a pure chatbot called degenai as an auxiliary chatbot to provide advice, responsible for providing investment advice to Marc in ai16z's Telegram and Discord groups.

AI16Z officially released its 2025 outlook, covering the development plan of Eliza V2, the token economic model, and support for the DeFi space, which attracted the attention of investors. As a result, the AI16Z token price has risen sharply, with an increase of 136.5% in 7 days, and a circulating market capitalization of $2.287 billion. 【13】

ZEREBRO (Zerebro Protocol) - A 7-day increase of about 104.5%, with a circulating market value of $760 million. Zerebro is an autonomous artificial intelligence system designed to create, distribute, and analyze content across decentralized and social platforms such as X, Warpcast, and Telegram. The project utilizes advanced Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology combined with high-entropy human data to avoid the common issue of 'model collapse' in AI content models and to maintain content diversity. Its native token, ZEREBRO, is deployed on the Solana chain, while digital artwork is minted on Polygon.

Zerebro founder Jeffy Yu announced the development of Zentients, a consumer AI agent starter board designed to integrate with existing platforms to enhance user experience. In addition, ZEREBRO tokens have also been listed on multiple exchanges. These positive product developments and market activities are driving the price up.

VIRTUAL (Virtuals Protocol) - The 7-day increase is about 41.2%, with a circulating market value of $4.379 billion. Virtuals Protocol is an artificial intelligence protocol designed for creating artificial intelligence characters in virtual worlds (such as games or online spaces) that can interact with users through text, voice, and actions. The protocol incentivizes the creation and monetization of artificial intelligence characters in a decentralized manner, suitable for games, metaverses, and other virtual interactive scenes.

VIRTUAL Questflow announced a deep cooperation with the top decentralized application platform Virtuals to jointly build the Base Agents ecosystem, which is expected to have a positive impact on the ecosystem's development. At the same time, more than 200 projects built using GAME in the VIRTUAL ecosystem have a total market value of over five hundred million, with a weekly growth of 200%. More projects have attracted more investor attention, leading to price increases.

Focus of the Week

Hotspot Review

Elon Musk briefly changed the name of the X platform account to "Kekius Maximus" and has changed the account back to the original name within 48 hours On Tuesday, US time, Tesla CEO Elon Musk changed his account name on the social media platform X to "Kekius Maximus", sparking widespread speculation. The new name is a mixture of alt-right symbols, memes and the names of the main characters in the movie "Gladiator." HE ALSO REPLACED HIS AVATAR WITH PEPE, WHICH SHOWS PEPE WEARING AN ANCIENT ROMAN COSTUME AND HOLDING A VIDEO GAME JOYSTICK. Musk did not provide an explanation for the new username and avatar, but the move immediately set off a ripple effect in the crypto market, sending the value of the eponymous meme token soaring. The price of Kekius M (KM) on the Solana chain increased by up to 126 times, and the market capitalization exceeded $45 million in a short period of time. Within 48 hours, Musk changed the name of his account back to "Elon Musk", and his profile picture was changed from a PEPE-related picture to a personal photo.

Musk's name change once again proves the important role of social media in today's crypto market. Social media platforms have become an important channel for information dissemination and opinion expression, and individual words and actions can have a huge impact on the market. 【16】

Swiss Bitcoin Referendum Proposal Requires 100,000 Signatures Within 18 Months Dennis Porter, founder of the Satoshi Action Fund, stated on social media platform X that Swiss legislator Samuel Kullmann is pushing to include Bitcoin in the Swiss constitution. This effort requires collecting 100,000 signatures within 18 months to facilitate voting by each state to pass Bitcoin as part of the Swiss constitution. Prior to this news, the Swiss Federal Government has officially begun reviewing a nationwide referendum proposal called the "Building a Strong and Responsible Swiss Financial System (Bitcoin Initiative)". The proposal has been published in the Federal Gazette and is now in the stage of collecting signatures, aiming to incorporate Bitcoin into the Swiss national financial system through a constitutional amendment. The Swiss Bitcoin constitutional proposal is a groundbreaking attempt, and if successful, will have a profound impact on the global cryptocurrency industry. [17]

Shiba Inu will launch TREAT token in early 2025 Shytoshi Kusama, Lead Developer of Shiba Inu (SHIB), shared the progress of the upcoming TREAT on X. TREAT is the fourth and final official token in the Shiba Inu ecosystem. With SHIB: The Metaverse opening its early access phase on December 25, Kusama's recent comments suggest that TREAT is poised to be the central focus of Shiba Inu's roadmap in early 2025. More than just another tradable asset in the Shiba Inu ecosystem, TREAT is a multifaceted token designed to incentivize participation, grant access to advanced features, and nurture so-called network state. The launch of TREAT will bring more possibilities to the Shiba Inu ecosystem and attract more users and developers. 【18】

Security incidents

Multi-chain DeFi protocol FEG project attacked, loss of about $1 million On December 29th, Cyvers Alerts posted on X platform that multiple suspicious transactions involving the DeFi protocol FEG (Feed Every Gorilla) were detected on the Ethereum, Base, and other blockchains. The attacker deployed a malicious contract about 19 hours ago, causing losses exceeding $1 million, including: 712 BNB lost on the BSC chain; 71 ETH lost on the Base chain; and 96 ETH lost on the Ethereum chain.

According to blockchain security firm PeckShield, the root cause of the FEG hack appears to be a composability issue when integrated with the underlying Wormhole bridge used for cross-chain messaging/token transfers. The hackers created a fake deposit message (via an unanticipated Wormhole repeater interface, which is not supported by the audited FEG SmartBridge), which was then delivered to another chain and received by the FEG SmartBridge (now disabled) to withdraw the FEG tokens. Please note that the SmartDeFi code has not been affected in any way. At the same time, the Wormhole Foundation stated: "The FEG security incident has nothing to do with Wormhole. All Wormhole contracts are completely unaffected and have nothing to do with this issue. ”【19】【20】

Project Attention

3A Chain Game Seraph 'Dark Blaze Seraph' TGE is about to launch Seraph announced the official establishment of its foundation on X. As a 3A-level chain game that integrates game, blockchain, and AI technology, Seraph brings immersive interaction to players through decentralized economic models and dynamic game experiences. Seraph has stated that the TGE is entering the countdown phase, which will further promote the innovation and development of the Web3 game ecosystem. 'Seraph' is a blockchain-based ARPG loot game developed by Seraph Studio. Inspired by classic works such as 'Diablo' and 'Doom', these games have set the benchmark in the dark style and action RPG field. Players can explore treasures and craft equipment. Since its launch on the Steam gaming platform in November 2023, 'Seraph' has received active participation from a large number of gamers.

Highlighted Data

Base Daily Trading Volume Hits New High, Exceeding 13.3 Million According to BaseScan data, the Base chain hit a new high in trading volume on January 1, 2025, exceeding 13.3 million, with about 600,000 new active addresses added on that day, showing the continuous influx of new users, with a total of 200 million active addresses, showing the vitality and attractiveness of its ecosystem, and the new high trading volume shows the rapid growth of its ecosystem, further consolidating its position in the Layer 2 market in Ethereum. Challenges and opportunities coexist in the future, but its rapid growth trend provides important enlightenment for the entire blockchain industry. 【23】

The total amount of HYPE staking has exceeded 373 million According to Hyperliquid data, since Hyperliquid opened staking on December 30, the total amount of HYPE staking has exceeded 373 million, and currently stands at 373,056,690, or about $9 billion. This data is important for assessing the decentralization and security of the Hyperliquid network. In a PoS (Proof of Stake) network, the amount of staking is a key indicator to measure the network's decentralization and resistance to attacks. A higher stake volume means that the network has more validators involved in the creation of blocks and the validation of transactions, which enhances the security and censorship resistance of the network. At the same time, it also shows that the Hyperliquid network has strong community support, which is essential for the sustainability of any blockchain project. 【24】

SafePal's global user base has exceeded 20 million, with a growth of over 90% this year Web3 wallet brand SafePal's 2024 annual report shows that SafePal has exceeded 20 million global users, with a growth of over 90% this year. In 2025, SafePal will focus on optimizing cross-chain transaction experience by aggregating CeFi and DeFi services. It also plans to strengthen its token economy by increasing SFPlus staking pool rewards, deepening partnerships, and expanding SFP application scenarios. Additionally, the report mentions that SafePal's banking gateway has expanded its services to mainland China and added Mastercard services. The activity of commission-free account opening has been upgraded to a long-term exemption plan. These initiatives collectively demonstrate SafePal's commitment to providing more comprehensive and convenient financial services to meet the needs of global users.

Market Opportunity

Airdrop Project

This week's airdrop projects are: OpenLoop

OpenLoop is a decentralized wireless network designed to enhance internet service delivery. OpenLoop allows users to transform idle internet bandwidth into a powerful global network. In December 2024, OpenLoop completed a $15 million financing round, led by the IPN Foundation. The IPN Foundation is a venture capital fund focused on advancing AI and decentralized personal identity network (DePIN) technology. With the increasing demand for secure, scalable, and fast connectivity solutions, OpenLoop has unique advantages in addressing resource sharing, decentralized connectivity, and AI-driven optimization. This funding will play a crucial role in driving the development of advanced technology architecture and next-generation infrastructure.

How to Participate

Users can participate in the OpenLoop airdrop program in multiple ways:

1. Download Chrome browser extension
2. Create an account
3. Complete social tasks to earn points
4. Keep the plugin open and share network bandwidth.

Prompt: Airdrop plans and participation methods may be updated at any time. It is recommended that users follow OpenLoop's official channels for the latest information. At the same time, users should participate with caution, pay attention to risks, and conduct sufficient research before participating. Gate.io does not guarantee the subsequent distribution of airdrop rewards.

Financing Weekly Report

Several projects have successfully completed financing this week, involving a wide range of applications in infrastructure, DeFi, games, and other fields. According to RootData statistics, between December 27th and January 3rd, a total of 5 projects announced financing, exceeding $10.8 million. 【27】

The following are the top three financing sizes:

Nodepay completed a $7 million financing on December 27, with investors including IDG Capital, Mythos, Elevate Ventures, etc. Nodepay is a decentralized network infrastructure that provides bandwidth for artificial intelligence training. By connecting to the Nodepay network, users will be able to sell their unused internet to artificial intelligence companies, enabling efficient transmission of public training data, labels, model sharing, and remote distributed training.

Accountable completed a $2.3 million seed round of financing on December 30th, led by MitonC and Zee Prime Capital. Accountable is building a privacy-centric data platform that provides real-time verification of borrowers' assets, liabilities, and transaction risks. Users connect their custodial accounts, exchange accounts, and other relevant accounts to a dashboard, which can generate credit risk reports for them to decide whether to share with lenders themselves.

DataDance closed a multi-million dollar funding round on December 30, led by Hash Global. DataDance is an Ethereum-based Layer 2 network focused on protecting user privacy in the AI era while enabling smooth and secure transactions of user assets. By utilizing advanced encryption technology and privacy protection mechanisms, DataDance ensures the confidentiality of user data and transaction information. The completion of this round of financing marks the beginning of DataDance's efforts to build the world's largest decentralized data asset service and trading platform in Web3, and co-create a Web3 business ecosystem with Hash Global.

Attention Next Week

Token Unlock

According to the data of Token Unlocks, several important token unlocking events will take place in the market next week (2025.01.04-2025.01.10). The total unlocking value exceeds 1.13 billion US dollars. [28]

!

The situation before unlocking next week is as follows:

MOVE plans to unlock about 50 million tokens on January 9, 2025 at 12 AM UTC+0 time, accounting for 2% of its circulating supply. 22%, with a value of approximately $45.26 million. The recent average daily trading volume of MOVE is around $347 million, and this unlock has little impact on the token price.

KAS plans to unlock approximately 182 million tokens at 12:00 AM UTC+0 on January 6, 2025, accounting for 0.72% of its circulating supply, with a value of approximately $21.78 million. The recent average daily trading volume of KAS is around $87 million, and this unlock will have minimal impact on the token price.

ENA plans to unlock approximately 12.86 million tokens, or 0.42% of its circulating supply, at 7 AM UTC+0 time on January 8, 2025, worth approximately $12.82 million. Recently, the average daily trading volume of ENA is around $269 million, and this unlocking has little impact on the token price.

Crypto Calendar

Next week (2025.01.04-2025.01.10) will usher in a series of important events that will have a profound impact on the cryptocurrency market, the global economy, and the energy market [29]. The Unichain mainnet will enable permissionless proof-of-stake functionality starting on January 6, 2025 [30]. On January 8, 2025, the US will release the API crude oil inventories (10,000 barrels) for the week ending January 3 [31]. On January 9, 2025, the US will release the initial jobless claims (in thousands) for the week ending January 4 [31]. Initial jobless claims are one of the indicators used to assess the employment situation and reflect the economic activity in the US labor market. Generally, an increase in initial jobless claims indicates a weakening of economic activity, a tight labor market, and an increased demand for safe-haven assets such as gold in the market.

1. Gate.io, https://www.gate.io/trade/BTC_USDT
2. Gate.io, https://www.gate.io/trade/ETH_USDT
3. Gate.io, https://www.gate.io/bigdata/estimate
4. Coinglass, https://www.coinglass.com/zh/pro/options/OIExpiry
5. CryptoCraft, https://www.cryptocraft.com/#detail=136202
6. Defillama, https://defillama.com/stablecoins
7. Etherscan, https://etherscan.io/gastracker
8. Coingecko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories
9. Coingecko, https://www.coingecko.com/zh/categories/virtuals-protocol-ecosystem
10. Coingecko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/ai-agent-launchpad
11. Coingecko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/ai-meme-coins
12. Coingedcko, https://www.coingecko.com
13. Gate.io, https://www.gate.io/zh/trade/AI16Z_USDT
14. Gate.io, https://www.gate.io/zh/trade/ZEREBRO_USDT
15. Gate.io, https://www.gate.io/zh/trade/
16. Jin10，https://flash.jin10.com/detail/20250101200523072800
17. X, https://x.com/Dennis_Porter_/status/1874578360304541803
18. X，https://x.com/ShytoshiKusama/status/1874045427718512725
19. X, https://x.com/peckshield/status/1873786831868756036
20. X, https://x.com/CyversAlerts/status/1873322518594900130
21. X, https://x.com/Seraph_Fdn/status/1874244154982600748
22. Mirror.xyz, https://mirror.xyz/dason.eth/iYVVPgQYhHRv6pXC5NfZ36BqmVIHeGnjmwrjrAb_nSI
23. BaseScan, https://basescan.org/chart/tx
24. Hyperliquid, https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/staking
25. Safepal，https://www.safepal.com/safepal_2024_annual_report_cn
26. OpenLoop, https://openloop.so/
27. RootData, https://www.rootdata.com/Fundraising
28. Tokenomist，https://tokenomist.ai/unlocks
29. Gate.io, https://www.gate.io/calendar
30. Unichain，https://www.unichain.org/blog/wen-unichain-mainnet
31. Jin10, https://rili.jin10.com/day/2024-01-01

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