In one of the key stories of Web3 in 2025, AI has raised $13.9 billion and has acquired over 17,000 agents online with Virtuals Protocol.
Author: Dappradar
Edited by: Felix, Panews
Since the beginning of 2025, AI-related on-chain activity has skyrocketed by 86%, with daily active unique wallets (DUAWs) reaching approximately 4.5 million. This brings the AI advantage to 19%, with 20% in the second game. This is a big change considering that its market share was only 9% at the beginning of the year.
This explosive growth reflects not only hype, but also structural changes in the way users interact with DAPP. Through Defi, social agents, or autonomous gaming assistants, AI agents are becoming the new on-chain interaction layer. Rather than swapping users, they scale users, automate, optimize, and interact.
Data confirms this statement: AI may dominate Web3 debate over the past month and define the next phase of development. This report examines the development history of AI agents, application scenarios, token roles, and the size of capital that supports this transformation.
Key takeout
- In June, control in the AI chain rose from 9% in January to 19%, trading activity increased by 86%, and the number of active, independent wallets daily reached 4.5 million.
- As of June 2025, the AI Agent Project has raised $13.9 billion, up 9.4% from its total funding in 2024.
- Since November 2024, 17,124 agents have now come online on Virtuals Protocol, with an average of over 85 new agents added daily.
- AI tokens' market capitalization has fallen 64% from their highs in early June, but is currently at $5.9 billion, with 24-hour trading volume of $1.4 billion.
- Europe (26.2%) and Asia (21.9%) are the regions with the highest AI DAPP, followed by North America (15.8%).
1. what an ai agent?
An AI agent is an autonomous software program that allows you to perform tasks, make decisions, and interact with users based on goals, prompts, or real-time data. While traditional AI agents cover industries such as finance, healthcare, and customer service, the Web3 ecosystem produces cryptographic native agents with unique capabilities and roles.
In Web3, AI agents are moving towards specialization. Some people act as on-chain defi agents, running transactions, managing yield strategies, or acting as portfolio “managers.” Others are social agents, representing users of decentralized social applications, managing profiles, and even responding to messages and interactions. In the gaming space, a new class of native gaming agents is emerging. These AI companions are trained in game context, game mechanics, or player behavior and act as useful guides and opponents.
This is not just a theoretical story. According to Cookie.fun, which tracks the agent economy, there are currently 1,748 AI agents active in a variety of environments. Since its launch in November 2024, Virtuals Protocol has launched over 17,000 agents, allowing users to create and deploy their own AI agents. The actual number could be even higher as multiple chains are currently prioritizing building infrastructure for the creation, training and deployment of AI agents.
The agency economy is in shape and growing rapidly.
2. AI Agent Token: Utilities, Hype, and Capital
On Web3, most AI agents do not go on standalone releases, but come with a token. The role of these tokens depends on the vision of the project and can perform a variety of functions. Often they aim to support community governance and provide access to advanced features or serve as a mechanism for raising funds for development. In particular, training and maintaining AI agents requires a lot of resources.
For others, tokens are simply capitalisation strategies, a way to gain liquidity, reward early adopters, and get on the market. In some cases, they're like AI Guise meme coins, published around a vague proxy story, with no technical content and simply riding on a coattail of speculative enthusiasm.
Despite all the noise in the market, the AI Agent Token market has made impressive progress. At the time of writing, the total market value of AI-related tokens reached $5.9 billion, accounting for 0.18% of the total crypto market. Daily trading volume over the past 24 hours has also been significant, exceeding $1.4 billion.
However, recent trends are not encouraging. Earlier this month, AI Agent Space was valued at $16.6 billion. That means the space lost 64% of its value in just a few weeks. The decline reflects not only attitudes towards AI, but also broader market conditions. However, it also shows the volatility inherent in early stage spaces where token hype often outweighs its actual usefulness.
The AI agent stays here. But their token?
3. Top Blockchain Gives strength ai dapps
AI agents are often the visible layer used to interact with users, execute transactions, and provide in-game assistance, but their success depends heavily on the underlying infrastructure. Blockchain, which supports large quantities of AI DAPPS, effectively lays the foundation for AI agents' deployment, training and interaction.
Between January and June 24, 2025, the following blockchains were the most active in terms of AI DAPP usage.
Matchain is dominant with nearly a day of active users, indicating that AI infrastructure is thriving and driven by social or agent-oriented DAPPs. Opbnb and nebulae demonstrate strong use associated with light weight for well-balanced AI services.
Not all of these DAPPs have agents deployed yet, but the momentum is clear. As AI agent frameworks mature, these blockchains could guide the next wave of autonomous agents, whether it be Defi, games, or social applications.
We are probably in the infrastructure phase of the AI agent boom, and these networks are leading the way.
4. Where do users come from?
AI agents can exist on a chain, but users are spreading all over the world. Understanding where user engagement comes from can provide a clearer picture of adoption trends, localization needs, and potential market opportunities.
According to Dapprader traffic data, Europe led AI-related DAPP interactions between January and June 2025, accounting for 26.2%. Asia then had 21.9%, followed by North America at 15.8%. South America has a smaller percentage of 2.5%, but its user base is growing. Interestingly, 33% of traffic is unspecified or difficult to classify regions collectively referred to as “other.”
This global distribution indicates that AI agents are not confined to a single region. Whether it's a Defi agent that manages transactions in Asia, a social agent that represents European users, or a gaming partner that interacts with North American players, the demand is diverse and increasingly cross-continent.
As the industry matures, expect to see more localized agents' behavior, better language modeling, and even the personality of agents with specific regions. Currently, the arenas are huge and the competition that users pay attention to is global.
5. Money is poured in ai agent
The AI story continues to dominate news headlines and funding rounds. While concentrated AI giants like Openai, Anthropic and Mistral have raised billions of funding, the Web3 AI agent economy is also beginning to gain traction.
As of 2025, the AI Agent Project raised $1.39 billion, an increase of 9.4% from 2024. This shows that investors are increasingly confident that autonomous on-chain agents could be the next frontier. This number is much lower than the amount invested in concentrated AI, but it is worth noting that the amount of funding in AI agent space is comparable or even better than other Web3 subsectors such as blockchain games.
This contrast is important. Centralized AI investment remains dominant, with tens of millions of dollars flowing into model development, chips and infrastructure. However, in the Web3 space, investors are increasingly turning AI agents as new “primitives” that can restructure the way users interact with protocols, navigate DAPP and automate personal financial management strategies.
Momentum is built. If that continues, 2025 could be the first year that AI agents will attract more funds than any other Web3 vertical.
6. Conclusion
The rise of AI agents shows a major change in the way users interact with distributed systems. From Defi traders and social partners to game native assistants, agents are rapidly evolving from experimental bots to infrastructure.
The numbers are responsible for that. More than 17,000 virtual agents have come online since the end of 2024. Even in the recession, the AI token market is growing at $5.9 billion. This year alone, the agent-focused startup has raised $13.9 billion in funding. User engagement is global and has strong performance in Europe, Asia and North America.
Still, the challenges remain. Many tokens are driven by hype rather than utilities. Not all agents provide the promise of autonomy. Additionally, cross-chain infrastructure remains uneven. However, as tools mature and actual use cases become wider, the agent economy is approaching a new baseline where interactions with on-chain AI are no longer the exception and the norm.
The race is already underway to create smarter agents, stronger ecosystems and clearer standards. And it's still in the early stages.
Related Reading: Deeper Diving to AI Agents: What's Next After the Hype?
