Recently, Virtuals Protocol released a video lasting one and a half minutes, featuring Luna charging towards Ethereum, with Vitalik's sculpture and another famous Virtual character Aixbt observing. Immediately after, Ethereum's official account reposted the video, announcing the official start of their collaboration. The first Ethereum project launched on Genesis Launches, I.R.I.S, is an AI-driven smart contract analysis tool AuditAgent developed by Nethermind, a company founded by Tomasz K. Stańczak, the current Joint Executive Director of Ethereum Foundation.
What is I.R.I.S? Who is Tomasz K. Stańczak? What impact might this have on Ethereum?
What is I.R.I.S?
I.R.I.S. (Integrity & Risk Intelligence Scanner) is supported by Nethermind's experimental automated smart contract security platform AuditAgent, natively deployed on X platform, and designed specifically for Web3 builders. It can actively scan developers' conversations and code on social media, providing real-time actionable security insights, discovering potential risks and emerging needs, thereby helping developers complete audit pre-screening, learn security knowledge, and identify business opportunities in their most commonly used environment.
[The rest of the translation follows the same approach, maintaining the specified technical terms and preserving the structure of the original text.]In his speech, he discussed the uses of multi-agent AI, the evolution of blockchain governance, how to use AI to achieve more intelligent collective decision-making, Ethereum-related applications, and how AI's collective intelligence can enhance blockchain network collective decision-making capabilities through data analysis and predictive models, reducing human intervention and improving the scalability of decentralized systems.
Unlike Solana and Base, there are even fewer projects building AI products on Ethereum. Perhaps because of this, Tomasz K. Stańczak co-founded Lantern Capital with Gökhan and the Nethermind team on May 7, 2025, an early-stage venture capital firm. Lantern Capital focuses on supporting founders in developing next-generation applications and experiences that enable AI systems to effectively interact with blockchain technology.
Lantern Capital focuses on exploring how AI can achieve reliable collaboration on the blockchain, such as supporting AI agents through the Ethereum network. It also aims to enhance Agent Experience (AX), optimizing the user experience of AI agents in blockchain environments. At the same time, it ensures that the underlying blockchain infrastructure can reliably support dynamic AI use cases. Tomasz views Ethereum as the core of this vision, emphasizing that the combination of AI and blockchain can create new decentralized application scenarios, such as collaborative work between autonomous machines and smart contracts.
However, building a complete AI ecosystem from scratch on Ethereum is time-consuming and costly. By accessing the Virtuals protocol, Ethereum can directly introduce a mature token economic system covering core functions such as AI agent creation, point mechanisms, trading, and co-ownership, bringing new revenue models and interaction opportunities for users and developers.
The tokenization of Agents not only achieves revenue sharing and incentivizes more users to participate and co-build emerging decentralized application ecosystems but also feeds back the entire Ethereum network through actual economic returns. With Virtuals, AI Agents become more composable and profitable on Ethereum, significantly expanding the innovation boundaries of DeFi, chain games, and next-generation DApps, further driving both user engagement and developer activity.
Can Ethereum's high liquidity and institutionalized risk-resistant system, combined with Virtuals' current powerful ecosystem, make AI applications the new narrative for Ethereum's next stage?
