Senior Player's Agent Investment Review: The most distant opportunity is not missing out on a hundredfold return, but rather the one right in front o

Source: Tomb X Account

Author: Tomb

Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Key Points of This Post

• Review the developments of agents and AI over the past few months;

• Review some obvious investment opportunities in the market;

• Take a short break during the New Year to observe many things from a bystander's perspective and reflect deeply on past successes and failures;

• Next, I will try to share all my thoughts as clearly as possible;

Review of Agents and AI Developments Over the Past Few Months

AI Agent Review

• Very satisfied with the performance at the end of last year.

• From September to early October, we entered many narratives about AI, agents, and infrastructure very early.

• Instead of overcomplicating the analysis of these trends, it was clear to see that these are the next phase of the AI supercycle (there will be more important catalysts in the future).

• This mature judgment comes from long-term experience in capturing narratives in the market. When you can identify these trends, you can quickly invest without too much hesitation.

• Even now, I still see some people arguing about trivial issues such as the encapsulated applications of ChatGPT, specific functions of certain agents, or a protocol not responding in time.

• But are these really important? We are here to make money, not to prove ourselves right.

• The key is to be clear about the stage of the market cycle you are in. Every cycle has its unique rules and strategies.

• This is also why many people hold onto old projects for too long, missing out on some "simple patterns" of trending opportunities. What I mean by "old" is not old in the literal sense, but rather "relatively outdated" compared to the rapid pace of industry development.

• Remember, new hotspots emerge every day, and the speed of capital flow is increasing------if a team cannot clearly communicate their ideas or present a clear roadmap, capital will flow to those protocols that can communicate better and execute projects quickly.

• When I first encountered Goat, I realized its potential and focused on it very early------what surprised me was that others took so long to migrate to Base via cross-chain bridges or start exploring agents on Sol.

• This phenomenon is largely due to the "Mid Curve Effect" (referring to an overly complicated way of thinking) and market panic. If you only realize these issues now, you need to reflect seriously on the reasons.

• I am very grateful for the past few months because I did not experience too many serious losses.

• I seized the opportunity with ai16z at a market cap of 30 million, also entered at aixbt with a 30 million market cap, and found some gaming and conversational projects when their market caps were below 10 million.

• Of course, there were also some missed opportunities, such as Zerebro, Fartcoin, Snai, and Swarm Node. But that's okay; it's impossible to catch every opportunity. What's important is to reflect on why you missed them and why they succeeded.

Quality

As always, quality is the key determinant of success:

• High-level developers;

• Excellent branding;

• Innovative ideas or unique technologies with competitive advantages;

• A cohesive, high-quality community;

• Clear and valuable information and communication;

These are the core elements we have always focused on. If two or more of the above are missing, there is a risk. Why? Because there will always be other teams that can do better.

For example, in the current environment of Virtuals, as long as a high-quality team launches AI agents or related infrastructure, I will quickly invest early (i.e., "go all in"). The developers are doxxed, they have been deeply involved in this field for over 5 years, and they have participated in multiple protocols------as long as I discover such teams early, I will decisively enter.

• In fact, you don't even need to invest too much capital to achieve considerable returns. For example, I discovered the GEKKO project when it just started, and its market cap was only 4 million dollars. Because it was developed by the Axal team and received investment from a16z------that was enough for me, so I decisively invested. As a result, it rose from a 4 million market cap to 40 million, yielding very considerable returns. I believe it will continue to grow further. Turning 4,000 dollars into 40,000 dollars is a year's salary for some people. Sometimes, you don't need to invest huge amounts; 2,000 or 4,000 dollars can bring considerable returns. Don't underestimate the potential of these funds.

• Another project I have been laying out is Acolyt, which has a very strong team and a narrative similar to GEKKO. I mentioned before that if there are 100 different AI agents that can provide high-quality market intelligence (alpha), then the only things that can distinguish them are identity, user interface (UI), branding, developer level, etc.------this is no different from other fields in life.

This is what I have been looking for: teams that have been focused on building for a long time------those passionate top developers who continuously tweet and keep launching new products. They are the only destination for my funds; I won't consider other places.

Things to Avoid

• Avoid solo developer teams with undisclosed identities, especially when building speculative agent projects, as this carries high risks.

• Another thing to be wary of is agent projects initiated by individual "influencers." These projects are often abandoned shortly after being announced because the developers realize the responsibilities exceed expectations.

Struggling Narratives

• I have to admit that there are some narratives that I personally have high hopes for, but their development has indeed encountered some difficulties. This does not mean these projects are bad, but rather that their progress is relatively slow.

Investing in a seemingly promising project only to find its performance underwhelming while other projects around it achieve 2-3 times growth in a short time can indeed be frustrating.

• These projects often belong to the "slow burn" category or ultimately become "experimental products" for other projects.

• A few examples include $GRIFT + $REALIS + $OMEGA . I still hold some of these, but in hindsight, I should have cut losses earlier and shifted funds to stronger AI infrastructure projects like REI and ARC. The potential of these projects is more evident, and their performance is more stable.

• At that time, I invested about 100,000 to 120,000 dollars in these "experimental" projects, originally expecting them to capture a larger market share. But looking back, projects like Griffain, which has Solana support, are clearly stronger, while projects like Realis need more time to mature, possibly because their ideas are too ahead of their time or their team is smaller.

• Reflecting on this, when you achieve 20-30 times returns on projects like $GAME, you might feel you have enough capital to "test the waters" or take risks, so you don't mind putting funds into a slow-progressing project. But in reality, as a trader or investor, we should not treat our funds this way.

In the coming weeks, I will continue to share observations about agents and market operations while also looking for the next possible market rotation opportunity. We all know that no narrative can last forever. This does not necessarily mean the narrative of agents has ended, but they may be entering a new phase of development.

Remember, the market is changing very quickly now, almost accelerating in all directions. If you slack off, you may be eliminated. Pay attention to market dynamics every day because "hot potatoes" are becoming increasingly hot.

Review of Some Obvious Investment Opportunities in the Market

Some market opportunities are very obvious to some people but not necessarily to others. I won't list all the examples, but I will share some main cases and how I grasped these narratives.

VIRTUALS

When I first saw the GOAT project take off, I was deeply attracted to it. Realizing its potential, I immediately invested. But then, I completely missed the $ZEREBRO and $BULLY projects, which have performed very well to this day. This made me more eager to find the next possible opportunity.

At this moment, I discovered aixbt . When I learned about its functions and positioning, I immediately realized this was the next project worth paying attention to, especially after seeing discussions about $GOAT, $ZEREBRO, and $BULLY in the community. I noticed the market was gradually shifting from entertainment projects to practical projects. This shift is precisely why I began to focus on projects like Base, Virtuals, $GAME, and $CONVO.

In fact, it was Jeff 's article on how Virtuals could become a billion-dollar protocol that convinced me. The tokenomics, branding, and ecological advantages of the Base chain mentioned in the article further convinced me of Virtuals' immense potential.

By studying $GAME, I was finally able to correctly understand the concept of "frameworks." This knowledge allowed me to seize many excellent investment opportunities in the following weeks. Although I am not a tech geek and cannot fully understand all the details, I am very interested in this field and willing to learn as much as possible.

Interestingly, when the market cap of Virtuals reached 5-6 million dollars, I did not invest in it.

I believe that when you confirm the potential of a certain ecosystem, such as its potential to grow to 5 billion, 10 billion, or even 20 billion dollars, you need to focus on two key points: first, the "pioneers," and second, those agents that continuously occupy users' minds.

For example, $LUNA is a typical pioneer, while $VADER is the first DAO/ALPHA project.

In this ecosystem, there are many projects worth paying attention to. For me, the team is the most critical factor, followed by the concept and practicality, and finally branding and identity. These three constitute the "holy trinity."

Here are some excellent projects worth researching:

> $WAI ；

> $ACOLYT ；

> $SEKOIA ；

> $GEKKO ；

These projects are all worth paying attention to, especially those that belong to the Agentstarter ecosystem.

AI16z

It may sound a bit casual, but when I first encountered and promoted daos.fun , I almost invested in AI16z just because of the name. After delving into projects like Truth Terminal funded by Marc, I was convinced this was a project worth paying attention to.

When I learned that the AI16z DAO was attracting top developers from around the world and was committed to accelerating the construction of its ecosystem and framework, I became even more convinced of its immense potential. The activity on GitHub is continuously rising, and the momentum of the entire project is rapidly accumulating, which is definitely not something that "mid-curve thinking" can explain.

Despite some FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) during this period, their test projects in the agent ecosystem, $ELIZA and $DEGENAI, are both very promising. For example, Eliza's market cap has reached 160 million dollars, while @degenspartanai has reached 100 million dollars. With the continued expansion of AI16z, these two projects are expected to grow further------these are very obvious investment opportunities.

Other Ecosystems

In Agentic Outlook One, I analyzed each major Launchpad/protocol and its Alpha agents or Beta projects in detail:

• Creator.Bid | $BID (potential dark horse)

• Algo | grew from a market cap of 2-3 million to 25 million (an obvious opportunity)

• Holoworld AI | $AVA

• AVA | grew from about 25 million to 150 million

• vvaifu.fun | $VVAIFU

• @dasha | grew from 15 million to 150 million

The following ecosystems are also worth paying attention to:

• $UOS

• $AIMONICA

• $STOIC

• Moemate | $MATES (coming soon)

• We also covered Nebula | $MOE early, growing from 5 million to 25 million.

Other ecosystems worth paying attention to:

• ALCHEMIST AI | $ALCH

• FXN | $FXN

• arc | $ARC

• griffain | $GRIFFAIN

• Top Hat 🎩 AI | $HAT

• Empyreal | $EMP

• Spectral | $SPEC

• 3σ | $TRISIG

Many of these projects have already achieved several times growth.

For a complete analysis, you can check here: link

This list can go on, and the potential of these projects will be even higher------they are all very obvious investment opportunities.

However, I still hold some other projects that I believe have potential, such as $GRIFT and $REALIS. I believe they just need more time and some adjustments to perform well.

Here are some projects I haven't had time to analyze in depth, but they are also worth paying attention to:

• $REI | REI Network

• $SERV | OpenServ

• $HEU | Heurist

Among these projects, especially $REI, deserves extra attention.

Outside of on-chain ecosystems, I am very optimistic about the combination of decentralized finance (DEFI) and agents:

• $MODE | Mode , which I believe will be a very promising project.

• Another one to look forward to is the further development of Uomi .

Stick to choosing projects with excellent teams, strong infrastructure ( Infra ) and high attention/popularity/mindshare, and you won't go wrong.

For me, the lifecycle of agents is usually short because most projects struggle to maintain market relevance for long periods. But in my view, AIXBT and GOAT are exemplary benchmarks for success in the agent field.

Why reflect on these?

Because it can help you discover the next worthy investment opportunity.

Points to Note

• Pay attention to some early projects like $GNON, $PROJECT89, $AVB, etc.

• The market cap of $OPUS has dropped by 85%, and many early AI projects may have hit bottom.

• We need to monitor whether these projects are still actively developing, while also remembering that the potential of AI infrastructure (Infra) and agents is enormous.

• New ideas and concepts emerge every week, and these new projects often have stronger teams and better branding, so we need to continuously scan the entire market.

• I am not saying these projects are bad, but I want to emphasize that the speed of market changes is very fast------many traders who have experienced 80-100 times returns will quickly take profits and then turn to the next more attractive opportunity, whether in swarm intelligence (Swarms), decentralized science (DeSci), or DEFI agents.

• Excellent teams always find ways to keep themselves relevant in the market.

Finally, here are some trends worth paying attention to:

• Currently, many hackathons are taking place, which are generating some very interesting ideas and projects. Participating in these events can not only help you expand your horizons but also give you a better understanding of future technological trends.

Data Sources for AI Agents:

• Cookie DAO | $COOKIE ；

• Alphanomics ；

• Decentralised.Co , in collaboration with Sentient Market；

In the coming days, we can discuss the future development direction of the agent field together, so that when market narratives change, we can seize the opportunity.