Crypto AI Second Half: Launchpad War, Tokenomics Shifts to Ecology, MCP Emerges

Words: Zolo

It has been more than 4 months since the last inventory of AI projects, and the AI narrative that originally had good momentum was hit hard by Trump's meme bloodsucking, then the birth of deepseek, and then tariffs, etc., and the liquidity on the chain gradually lacked, and a series of "unexpected" caused the AI bubble to burst in advance.

After taking stock of those projects last year, I have been following up on almost all of them. Obviously, some have gradually died, some are still telling stories, some are continuing to do things, and new things are constantly being done; Some because of the "Zhuang" came, but there was an unexpected rebound.

On April 6, the MCP project Dark was launched;

On April 17, the Virtuals launchpad Genesis was launched;

On April 20, the AI16Z launch pad auto.fun was launched.

Is there a second wave of AI? My answer is yes.

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

After months of bursting the bubble, can AI rebuild the rubble?

In the second half, how will the AI play? Here's what I think.

Launchpads explode, and Meme Launchpad and AI Launchpad will each account for half of the country

We've seen too many Launchpads this year, with the Four.Meme outbreak at the beginning of the year and the launch of myshell's AI Launchpad;

and then to the Launchlab a while ago, in addition to these Launchpads, different ecosystems are making their own Launchpads.

The competition for Meme Launchpad is essentially a competition of ecology + creators.

The ecosystem determines that each public chain can have its own meme launchpad, and at the same time, almost only one meme launchpad can become a winner-takes-all role.

Competitions for creators include:

1- Give token issuers a better profit sharing model

2- Attract creative (and angle-looking) people who are willing to issue tokens on your platform

The highest point of the "$TIME", known as the Launchlab leader, is only 9M, and there are no memes that can run out. The news is posted every day Pump.fun only one or two tokens a day to successfully graduate, and other platforms have none.

One loses all.

But most of the above are Launchpads focused on "memes", and what matters is angle and continuous communication.

Memes don't have a utility, and AI Agent Whether you want it or not, you have to have a utility to be embarrassed.

So you'll see AI projects go live on some AI Launchpads individually

This is because Meme Launchpad is not suitable for AI agents.

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

Meme Launchpad: pumpfun, launchlab, fourMeme, clanker, Apeswin, etc.;

AI Launchpad: autofun, virtual genesis, creatorbid, arc ryzome, myshell, spectral, etc.

In addition to users creating their own tokens, AI Launchpad also chooses to directly cooperate with AI projects that already have a certain amount of AI projects.

Virtuals Genesis currently has 7 projects waiting to go live, and autofun has 13 projects that have already announced their collaborations and go live. Arc, which was previously on fire, has also announced its own AI AppStore plan.

If you believe in AI, then you should also keep an eye out for more new projects on AI Launchpad, with Meme Launchpad and AI Launchpad each accounting for half of the market.

Virtuals & AI16Z's Evolutionary Ecoeconomics

The two most representative projects in the last cycle, Virtuals & AI16Z, are also the representatives of the projects that I think have worked the hardest to keep up to date in this round of follow-up.

Virtuals is the representative of Agent, and the previous tokenomics is considered to be an important reason for the rise of the token.

AI16Z was the hottest project in the last round, but its token utility was the most criticized.

After a few months, both projects have changed significantly, and in my opinion, they are more focused on the role of tokens in the "ecosystem" rather than just the projects themselves.

Virtuals: VPN, ACP, Points, Genesis launched

VPN: Virtuals Partners Network, a program that aims to reshape the intersection of AI and cryptocurrency. VPNs connect investors, domain experts, academics, and developers to discover, support, and scale the best AI agent founders in crypto.

ACP: Agent Commerce Protocol, which aims to build a business ecosystem of AI agents. The protocol will allow AI agents to interact, collaborate, and transact autonomously, forming the so-called "Virtuals Nation," which predates Google's later Agent2Agent concept.

Points: Points, which are also a proof of loyalty, hold $VIRTUAL token to earn points, which will be used to participate in the Launchpad.

Genesis: The main features of Virtuals Protocol's new launch mechanism include: points-based access, new on-chain distribution methods (certainty, transparency, fairness), and money-back guarantee (designed to protect contributors).

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

ElizaOS V2: A new upgraded AI framework, because V1 has many contributors and plugins, making it inefficient for new developers to use its framework, so it will be updated with new features and structural optimizations in the near future, including swarms, agent interaction, etc.

AUTOFUN: New AI launch platform, new fairer and long-term bonding curve, can customize CA address, chat mechanism for AI Token verification, community content creation tools, etc.

AI16Z New Economic Model: There is no detailed official announcement material yet, according to the team, the profits from the launch pad will be used for buyback, and the purchased ai16z will in turn supplement the liquidity pool of its launch tokens, which is similar to virtuals.

Spartan V2: $degenai will be upgraded and launched along with ElizaOS V2 as an important part of the Shill autofun project.

Whether it is a function or a token, the two former head projects have not stopped empowering the ecology, posting two screenshots:

Recently, because the MCP concept has ignited the AI track again, some friends have also begun to "pick up garbage" in old projects and pay attention to the ecological opportunities of these old projects.

In addition to DARK, SkyAI, which has been very popular in the past two days, is also an MCP concept, as well as the previous old coins: $DIGIMON, $AVA, $ARC, etc. are also going in this direction.

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

As long as you don't get off the table, you still have a chance 💪 this year