AI Mania Continues with Help from Marc Andreessen
AI Mania Continues with Help from Marc Andreessen
Plus Bitcoin and crypto majors are rallying to start the week.
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's top news:
Crypto majors green to start week, BTC $68,700
AI mania continues as GOAT rebounds, ai16z endorsed
Vitalik publishes pt 5 of his blog "The Purge"
Hong Kong prepares crypto tax incentives
Apu is big NFT winner of weekend
🤖 AI Mania Continues
Some called top on the recent AI memecoin meta, after GOAT got the Binance perps listing and pulled back.
And many of the recently hyped AI tokens fell 50-90%.
But the run isn't over yet, at least if Marc Andreessen has anything to say about it.
What Happened?
On Saturday night, Marc Andreessen posted a simple tweet: "Hey, I have that T-shirt. 😆"
But with the tweet he shared the image of the ai16z memecoin, which then soared to an $90M market cap overnight.
A 20x jump for $ai16z on the day.
A few other AI tokens rebounded in its wake:
GOAT back up to $700M
DegenAI rallying 750% to $26M
LUNA running 3x over the weekend to $240M (before pulling back)
It seems the calls for the death of the AI meta were premature.
Protocols Are Winning Too
But it's not just memecoins winning here.
Starting with ai16z, that memecoin is actually a DAO token powered by Daos.fun.
The idea is that a group of people got together to spin up an AI Agent, give it a $100k fund to trade memes, all with the goal of outperforming a16z.
That protocol just got a lot of free advertising from the Marc Andreessen tweet mentioned above and will be interesting to watch here this week.
Then there's Virtuals Protocol.
Virtuals was arguably the biggest winner in crypto on the week, jumping 200% to a $380M mc (touching $500M at peak).
This protocol where users can create AI Agents and then trade them (requiring the $VIRTUAL token to start) saw a massive surge in interest on Base this week, largely on the back of LUNA's run.
The memes are winning, and so are the picks and shovels.
Why It Matters
The AI meta isn't over yet.
In fact, it's likely just beginning.
The more that folks like Marc Andreessen interact with this sector, the more credibility it gets. And the more interested builders it may attract.
AI is making crypto cool again.
Now is the time to pay attention and looking for the next wave of opportunities...
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
Ethereum led NFT trading volume with $3.99M on the day; Solana was next with $1.7M, and then Bitcoin with $1.1M
ETH NFT leaders were mostly red and closing a red week; Punks -1% at 26.7 ETH, Pudgy -4% at 9, BAYC -10% at 11.54, Milady -14% at 4.28, Azuki -7% at 4.83
Apu (+30%) and Project Aeon (+20%) led notable top movers
BTC NFT leaders were mostly red again and also closed a red week; NodeMonkes -13% at 0.123 BTC, Puppets -23% at 0.124 BTC, OMB -9% at 0.167, Quantum Cats -17% at 0.2
The Runes leaders flipped green; DOG +3% at $480M mc, PUPS +10% at $123M, RSIC -3% at $67M mc, BDC even at $77M
Solana NFT leaders were red again with Mad Lads -1% at 36.5 SOL, SMB -3% at 15.5, DeGods +4% at 14.4 and RCs even at 26
The Apu NFT collection saw the most volume over the weekend, reaching a 0.22 ETH floor with several sales in the 3-4 ETH range
Things We Say We Saw was the big winner on Apechain, reaching a 5,000 APE floor at peak (now 2,500)
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
Here's a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:
Rekt Drinks teased their Liquidated Lime launch coming Oct. 30 (note: I've had the drink and it's good!)
Wayfinder Foundation announced it will host a $PROMPT release vote in two weeks, with 40% of $PROMPT to be provided to $PRIME stakers
Daos dot fun went viral over the weekend after the success of ai16z (more below)
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
Crypto majors are green up 2%; BTC +2% at $68,430; ETH +2% at $2,520, SOL +2% at $177; Mantra, Thorchain and Aave were top alt movers up 7-10%
Memecoin majors were mostly green; DOGE +6%, SHIBA +1%, PEPE even, WIF +2%, BONK even, POPCAT +7%, and MOG even
SOL / ETH hit a new ATH at 0.07 on Sunday during the Solana rally
ai16z dominated AI meme mindshare over the weekend after a Marc Andreesen post sent the meme to $80M
LUNA and the Virtuals Protocol were big winners on the weekend, reaching $200M and $480M mc's respectively
Emory University disclosed a $15M position in Bitcoin, making them the first university to disclose a Bitcoin ETF position
Vitalik published part 5 of his blog titled "The Purge" focused on reducing Ethereum's bloat
Tether's CEO stated that they are not under investigation after the WSJ broke news of a potential sanctions from the U.S. Treasury
Hong Kong prepares for crypto tax incentive policy by end of year
🚀 Memecoin Movers
$TATE (+100% to $30M market cap, SOL)
$SIGMA (+50% to $58M market cap, SOL)
$USA (+50% to $32M market cap, SOL)
$TRUMP (+27% to $209M market cap, ETH)
$SPX (+20% to $880M market cap, ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)
Ethlizards (34%, 2.15 ETH Floor)
Overworld Keys (30%, 3.9 ETH)
Apu (29%, 0.22 ETH)
Synthetic Dreams (25%, 0.87 ETH)
Project Aeon (20%, 1.6 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events
Today is a fairly busy day to start the week.
OSF is partnering with AOI & Red Bull Racing for today's Velociy Pass 2.0 drop featuring his "Bull Run" piece.
Then Lewis Osborne is the meme card artist, and Wayfinder is sharing new alpha for the Parallel eco.
See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor.
OSF x Red Bull Racing - Bull Run (10:00 a.m. ET)
Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
Wayfinder Foundation - Alpha (12:00 p.m. ET)
Game7 DAO - Market Wars (1:00 p.m. ET)
Addie Wagenknecht x Verse (1:00 p.m. ET)
Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.d.warner@gmail.com.