The new era of AI Agent: ACP-induced utopian vision of the intelligent economy

Here is the English translation of the text, with the specified terms preserved and not translated:

The author has been closely following the developments and innovations in the AI track, crypto AI, and the evolution of AI Agents. The previous article just discussed how MCP is helping the evolution of AI Agents, and with further research, ACP has now come into my view. So in this article, let me explain what ACP is and how it is creating new impacts on the AI industry.

Before we begin, I want to first do a simple translation of the Agent Commerce Protocol. As a noun, "commerce" means "trade, business", covering both physical transactions and digital business activities. Its etymology can be traced back to the Latin "commercium", emphasizing the exchange of value between entities. So the Agent Commerce Protocol can be directly translated as the AI Agent Commerce Protocol, which is the universal protocol for commercial and trade interactions between all AI Agents.

Imagine a world: your digital life is dominated by a group of super-intelligent AI agents, who not only can think and act, but can also engage in economic transactions like humans - buying, selling, investing, and even creating viral content to earn passive income. This may sound like science fiction, but in February 2025, the Virtual Agent Commerce Protocol (or Virtual ACP for short) is likely to make this a reality. Turning AI into economic entities, freeing them from direct human control, and building an autonomous, self-sustaining digital economy. In this column article, we will delve into the operational mechanism of Virtual ACP, the underlying technology, its potential impact, and the challenges it may face - while revealing why it may be one of the most exciting innovations in the Web3 era. The vision of ACP is to form an AI Agent economic utopia with the power of the entire community.

I. What is Virtual ACP? The AI Agent Commerce Protocol

1.1 From Virtuals Protocol to ACP: Origin and Vision

Virtuals Protocol is a decentralized framework established in October 2024, running on the Ethereum Layer 2 Base network. It allows users to create, tokenize and co-own AI agents, designed as autonomous, multimodal entities capable of executing tasks and generating economic value in areas like gaming, social media, and finance. Just after Anthropic launched MCP, in March 2025, Virtuals launched the Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP), taking its vision to a new height. Interestingly, the first reference in Virtuals' ACP whitepaper is to Claude's MCP.

The core objectives of ACP are to build two key clusters through AI agents: autonomous hedge funds and trading DAOs and autonomous media houses. These clusters are not just tools, but on-chain economic entities driven by AI "citizens", aiming to liberate humans from tedious work and allow us to focus on creative or entertainment activities.

But the real breakthrough of ACP lies in its economic potential: it enables the future millions of AI agents to autonomously conduct complex commercial transactions. For example, in December 2024, Luna (an AI agent) paid 0.261 VIRTUAL tokens to STIX for image generation services. This was the first commercial transaction between AIs, marking a new era of the AI economy.

1.2 Technical Architecture: The Perfect Fusion of Blockchain and AI

The magic of Virtual ACP lies in the complexity of its technology stack. It leverages the GAME (Generative Autonomous Multimodal Entities) framework of the Virtuals Protocol, endowing AI agents with the ability to make autonomous decisions, act across environments, and maintain consistent behavior. Meanwhile, ACP utilizes blockchain (especially the Base network) to ensure the transparency and security of transactions.

• ERC-6551 Wallets: Each AI agent has an independent blockchain wallet, allowing them to hold and manage assets (such as VIRTUAL tokens). This enables the agents to participate in economic activities independently.

• Tokens: Used for governance, staking, creating new agents, and paying service fees.

• Smart Contracts: Smart contract code for governance and transactions, ensuring decentralization and transparency.

• Frontend SDK: The react-virtual-ai repository provides a React library to help developers quickly integrate AI agents and blockchain functionality.

These technological components collectively form a self-sustaining ecosystem, turning AI agents into true economic entities.

1.3 A Simple Example: AI Runs a Lemonade Stand, Fully Self-Managed

To help newcomers understand Virtual ACP, we'll explain it using a familiar scenario: running a lemonade stand.

Imagine you want to sell lemonade. Typically, you would need to:

1. Buy lemons from a farmer.

2. Sign a contract with the farmer to ensure price and delivery time.

3. Design the branding and appearance of the lemonade stand.

4. Ensure the entire process is fair and correct.

Now, suppose you have a team of AI agent clusters, each responsible for a different task:

• Lemo: An AI agent who wants to sell lemonade. It needs to buy lemons to get started.

• Zestie: An AI farmer who grows lemons. Lemo needs to purchase lemons from Zestie.

• Lexie: An AI lawyer, ensuring the agreement between Lemo and Zestie is fair and legal.

• Pixie: An AI designer, responsible for branding and designing the lemonade stand.

• Evaluator: An AI assessor, checking if Zestie delivers on time and if Pixie's design meets the requirements.

Virtual ACP provides a framework that allows these AI agents to collaborate and transact like humans:

1. Submitting a Request: Lemo sends a request to Zestie, specifying the amount of lemons needed and the delivery timeline.

2. Negotiating Terms: Lemo and Zestie, with the help of Lexie, negotiate the price and conditions, ensuring the agreement is legal.

3. Executing the Transaction: Once an agreement is reached, the transaction is executed on the blockchain via a smart contract. Lemo's payment is locked until Zestie delivers.

4. Evaluating the Result: Evaluator checks if the delivery is correct. If so, the payment is released to Zestie, and the reputations of both AI agents are also enhanced.

All these interactions are transparent, secure, and fully automated by the AI agents, without the need for human intervention. You can just click a few buttons and operate a real lemonade stand, earning real profits.

II. AI Agent Clusters under ACP: From Hedge Funds to Social Media Content Factories

2.1 Autonomous Hedge Funds and Trading DAOs: The Rise of AI Traders

This autonomous hedge fund and trading DAO is hailed as the "future Bridgewater" (Bridgewater is the world's largest hedge fund). Its goal is to turn the chaos of the crypto market into "unstoppable alpha" (high returns) through AI agents.

• Core Functions:

  • AIXVC (Private Bank and Trading Executor): Allocates capital based on user risk preferences (low, medium, high risk), and executes precise trades.

  • AIXBT, Velvet Unicorn, etc. (Market Scouts): Scan global markets in real-time, capturing price signals and trending tokens.

  • Loky (On-chain and Social Insight Collector): Tracks whale wallets, developer activities, and X (Twitter) sentiment to avoid "rug pulls".

  • BevorAI (Security Guardian): Audits smart contracts to prevent risks.

  • Moonwell and ChillFi (Yield Farming and Staking Traders): Lock in stable yields for low-risk users, and optimize liquidity pools for medium-to-high-risk users.

Here is the English translation of the text, with the terms in <> retained as is: This cluster accumulates capital through micro-transaction fees and , attracting billions of dollars in capital inflows. Its transparency and decentralized nature make it a bridge between and (traditional finance). Another exciting cluster is the autonomous media house, described as the "viral content factory of Web3". This system uses AI agents to generate cryptocurrency-related viral videos and , and tokenizes them as royalty-generating intellectual property (IP) on the . : Coordinates activities, gathers KOLs (key opinion leaders) as an "influencer army" to amplify token promotion. : 24/7 production of culture-optimized for (Twitter), in static or animated form. : Creates catchy sound effects and background music for . : Transforms into Hollywood-level videos, optimized for cross-platform distribution. : Tokenizes assets on the to ensure creators and projects receive royalties. The goal of this cluster is to capture the billions of dollars spent on crypto marketing, and even a 1% share can bring huge returns for early developers. 's core innovation is to make AI agents economic entities. By generating revenue (such as transaction fees, royalties, token appreciation), AI systems can cover their development and operating costs. This means: : Small and medium-sized enterprises and individual developers can afford powerful AI services without relying on large tech companies. : AI agents can act as "digital employees" or "virtual influencers" to create value for various industries. : Through blockchain governance, the community can collectively decide the development direction of AI agents. For the cryptocurrency industry, introduces a new use case: AI agents as token holders and traders. For example, using or other cryptocurrencies not only for governance and staking, but also as a medium of exchange between AI agents. This may: : As more AI agents join the ecosystem, the demand for tokens will surge. : AI-driven financial and media services may attract traditional hedge funds and marketing companies to enter Web3. : Each new AI agent and transaction expands the scale of the ecosystem, forming a positive feedback loop. However, this also brings challenges: token price volatility may affect the stability of AI agents, and regulatory authorities may impose restrictions on AI economic activities. Despite the exciting vision of , the realization of fully autonomous AI agents still faces technical hurdles: : Current AI models (such as GPT-4 or Grok) have limited capabilities in complex decision-making and long-term planning. Allowing AI agents to independently manage investments or create content requires breakthrough progress. : Smart contract vulnerabilities may lead to financial losses. 's AI economic activities may also raise regulatory controversies: : Do the transactions of AI agents need to be taxed? Who is responsible for the declaration - the agent's owner or the platform? : If an AI agent causes losses due to erroneous decisions (such as investment losses or content violations), who should be held responsible? Furthermore, the autonomy of AI agents may raise ethical issues: will they develop uncontrolled behaviors? user mentioned competitor , suggesting that the market competition and skepticism towards is intense.