⚡AI Agents: How to profit, a complete guide

The trade of the cycle is staring you in the face. What's your next move?

The trade of the cycle is here. Here’s how to profit on it

How to get started on the breakout category of 2025 - action plan at the end

In this article we’ll break down exactly what AI Agents are, why they are demanding so much mindshare, and a selection of opportunities with which you can get started.

This is designed to get you from 0-1 with AI Agents. By the end, you’ll understand what they are, why they’ve dominated crypto mindshare recently, and what to do next.

Why AI Agents Matter: The Brain Finds Its Body

We are witnessing what appears to be a genuine 0 to 1 moment in crypto - the emergence of AI agents that can actually do things rather than just know things.

Consider the analogy of a brain and body: Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, or Grok are incredibly powerful "brains" - they can process information, analyze data, and generate insights. But without a "body" to act on this intelligence, they remain purely theoretical tools.

This is where AI agents disrupt. Through frameworks like ai16z's ElizaOS and Virtuals' platform, these LLM "brains" are finally getting "bodies" - the ability to take action in the real world. And just as human capabilities expand dramatically once with opposable thumbs and complex motor skills, AI capabilities are expanding as agents gain new abilities.

The evolution has been rapid and remarkable:

• First generation: Simple chatbots posting tweets

• Second generation: Agents with wallets that could hold and transfer assets

• Third generation: Sophisticated analysts like AIXBT that can process multiple data streams and produce comprehensive market reports

• Fourth generation: Advanced agents that can analyze tokens by combining on-chain data, social signals, and GitHub activity

• Latest generation: Autonomous agents operating in Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) that can generate wallets, execute presales, and distribute tokens - all without human intervention

What makes this moment particularly significant is the composability of these capabilities. Each new "body part" - whether it's the ability to process onchain data, interact with smart contracts, or analyze social sentiment - can be combined with others to create increasingly sophisticated agents. Just as the human body evolves through the addition of new capabilities that work in concert with existing ones, AI agents are evolving through the addition of new tools and interfaces that expand their ability to interact with the world.

This represents a fundamental shift in how we think about AI's role in the digital economy. We're moving from AI as a passive tool to AI as an active participant in markets, capable of making decisions, executing transactions, and even managing resources autonomously.

The implications of this evolution are profound. As these agents become more capable, we're likely to see them take on increasingly complex roles in trading, market making, risk assessment, and even venture capital.

The current surge in agent infrastructure isn't just speculation - although there’s a lot of that as well - it's the market recognizing that we're building the foundation for a new kind of digital economy, one where AI isn't just an advisor but a capable companion.

This realization by the broader crypto community launched quite possibly the biggest meta since DeFi Summer in 2020.

A month ago, the AI Agent market was less than $5B, and there were less than 30 agents tracked. Now there’s over a thousand, and the total market cap 3x-ed.

Virtuals and ai16z make up the majority of these market caps, and they’ve both experienced explosive growth - and hearty dips - in the last few weeks.

Backstory: Crypto x AI in the most Crypto Way Possible

In March of 2024, an AI researcher simulated 9000 conversations between two instances of Claude, an LLM created by Anthropic. It’s called the infinite backrooms.