AI agent tokens wobble after strong correction

The cryptocurrency market is notorious for unpredictable volatility, and it seems that no sector is an exception, even with tokens AI agent It is considered a trend. Over the past week, some tokens in the sector have recorded declines of up to 50%.

Specifically, the tokens of the venture capital fund ai16z (AI16Z), known for its Eliza OS agent framework and DAO-based operating mechanism, recorded a decrease of up to 50%.

From a price of $2.26, the token fell to $1.10, dragging its market capitalization down to $1.1 billion. Not to stop there, in the last 24 hours, the token has continued to fall by another 10%, showing a gloomy picture.

Not just ai16z, Virtuals Protokoll (VIRTUAL)- the platform allows users to create decentralized AI assistants - also affected by this wave of discounts. The VIRTUAL token has lost as much as 48% of its value in the past week, from a price above $5 to $2.6. The market capitalization of the project currently stands at about $2.6 billion.

Meanwhile, the Swarms framework (SWARMS) recorded the sharpest drop of up to 55%, from $0.5 to $0.20, equivalent to a $200 million capitalization.

Even the AI-based meme coin project Goatseus maximus (GOAT) did not escape the general downtrend with a 40% drop, from $0.5 to $0.33.

So what is the reason for this broad decline?

The reason for this drop in prices is believed to be the general volatility of the market, but there is also the opinion that this adjustment is justified in order to pay AI projects at their true value, helping investors to clearly distinguish between truly potential projects and meme coin bubbles that only feed on the flow.

In fact, by the end of 2024, AI agent tokens have become extremely popular in the cryptocurrency community, with many experts predicting that AI Agents, and meme coins, will be this year's mainstream trends.

Some AI meme coins even made it into the top 10 meme coins by the end of December 2024. ai16z, the largest AI meme coin by market capitalization, rose 251 percent last month, reaching an ATH of $2.47 on January 2, 2025.

Accompanying that hot growth, however, the sector is also not immune from dubious views. ZachXBT, a renowned on-chain investigator, frankly calls the AI agent token is a scam.

He even claimed that "99% of them are scams” and that “the level of risk of AI agent projects is higher than previous trends.”

Haseeb Qureshi, CEO of Dragonfly, also warned that most current AI agents are chatbots tied to meme coins, lacking true autoactivity. He predicts the AI agent craze will soon cool down as the novelty fades away.

Is this decline a worrying signal for investors, signaling the end of the AI agent craze, or simply a correction needed for the market to grow healthier and more sustainably? The answer is probably only time can answer.

However, one thing is for sure, investors need to be more cautious than ever when entering this market. It is extremely important to distinguish between real potential projects and those that “follow” trends in order to avoid unnecessary risks.