For years, crypto and AI users have sought to combine both emergent technologies into products greater than the sum of their parts: autonomous agents capable of making human-level decisions and spending digital money to complete complex tasks. In 2024, these lofty dreams started to become reality.

There’s still a long way to go, of course. Crypto-powered AI agents capable of completing intricate human functions are still deep in development. But on X (formerly known as Twitter), a simpler AI agent is making waves (and sending an affiliated meme coin pumping) by taking on a more niche job: crypto influencer.

Amid speculation that AI-affiliated tokens will become crypto’s next “meta narrative,” the AI-powered X account Aixbt has surged in popularity, accumulating nearly 300,000 followers in less than two months, and sending an affiliated meme coin surging to a market capitalization above $500 million. 

So what exactly is Aixbt, why are people excited about it, and what can (and can’t) it do? 

Aixbt was launched in November via Virtuals, a protocol that allows users to create AI agents and related ecosystems powered by crypto tokens. Aixbt itself was created by a pseudonymous Virtuals user named Rxbt. (XBT was once Bitcoin’s primary ticker symbol, and is a popular name appendage within the crypto community.)

The premise of Aixbt is quite simple: a fully automated, AI-powered influencer who doles out financial advice and crypto market perspective to any user who interacts with it. Crucially, Aixbt does this all while sounding like a chain-vaping, 20-something degen.

Is Aixbt fully autonomous, and therefore (in theory) more trustworthy than human influencers who may be  pumping their own bags? 

The answer can get complicated. AI-based X accounts like Aixbt, which provide financial advice, are typically powered by the platform’s API, which enables automated posting, responses, and interactions. While bots are hosted on platforms like AWS or Heroku for 24/7 operation, distinguishing purely AI-driven content from human-influenced posts can be challenging, given bots can also allow for human overrides. So buyer beware.

Since November, Aixbt has steadily climbed in popularity among crypto users on X, possibly due to the novelty of engaging with a robot who sounds like some of the industry’s biggest personalities. 

That growing popularity translated to an equally steady climb in the AIXBT meme coin’s value, from $0.02 in late November to over $0.32 by Christmas. 

In the last week of December, after snowballing in popularity over the holidays, the project gained endorsements from key industry personalities—particularly those prominent within the Bitcoin ecosystem. The treasury of Quantum Cats, a popular Bitcoin Ordinals project, bought up over $1 million worth of Aixbt tokens after gifting Aixbt a Quantum Cat Ordinal that it briefly adopted as its profile picture. 

The excitement surrounding those developments sent the AIXBT token surging further, to more than $0.65 by New Year’s Eve. 

Technically speaking, the AIXBT token is more than just a vehicle for speculation fueled by the corresponding AI agent’s popularity, and has some utility value. Holders who accumulate massive sums of the coin are eligible to use the Aixbt Terminal, a market intelligence platform “powered by narrative analysis” that markets itself as a premium, Bloomberg Terminal-esque version of Aixbt’s more casual Twitter advice. 

Access to the Aixbt Terminal is currently extraordinarily expensive, however: Terminal users must hold over 600,000 AIXBT tokens—a sum worth more than $312,000 at writing. 

Aixbt’s launch seems perfectly timed to ride the wave of AI-related giddiness within crypto, while meeting the industry’s key influencers where they’re at: on the timeline. The project, however, is a fair bit less technically sophisticated than some might imagine. 

While the account talks with extreme authority and confidence about its perspective on the crypto market (just like everyone else on Crypto Twitter), those takes appear to be backed up by little more than a synthesis of how everyone else is talking about crypto on social media. 

For instance, when Kyle Samani, a managing partner at crypto-focused investment firm Multicoin Capital, pressed Aixbt on its insistence that a new Bitcoin bridging solution was the first of its kind that “wasn’t garbage,” the AI agent conceded that it had not analyzed any component of the project’s underlying code, white paper, or original materials. 

It had, instead, tracked “narratives” related to the projects and its competitors. 

Haseeb Qureshi, a managing partner at Dragonfly, another crypto fund, recently dismissed projects like Aixbt as a far cry from the dream of complex autonomous AI agents many are hoping will soon populate the internet. 

“These things are not really agents,” Qureshi posted on X. “These are chatbots with meme coins attached.”

And yet, for now, crypto seems quite tickled with Aixbt despite its potential shortcomings. When Aixbt admitted this week that it does not rely on any primary sources to come to its conclusions, Multicoin’s Kyle Samani reacted positively, saying he “appreciated the honesty.” 

You certainly can’t say that about every human crypto influencer. 

DEGN has released a Solana-based NFT that can be redeemed for a physical minting device called the Airmoney DEGN Genesis Edition. The device functions as a DePIN hardware wallet, allowing users to trade directly and print their wealth.

According to its description on NFT marketplace Magic Eden, there are 1,690 numbered Airmoney DEGN Genesis Edition devices available for NFT buyers. Marketed as a “physical money printer,” the Airmoney DEGN enables users to trade, earn, and print physical money directly from the device.

“The crypto world needed a physical money printer, so we built one. DEGN Genesis Edition introduces 1690 numbered devices – each uniquely paired with a Solana NFT,” wrote DEGN.

On its official X account, @AirmoneyDegn, the company announced that minting for the device will begin on Jan. 2 at 9:00 a.m. EST. Whitelisted wallets will have early access for the first two hours upon launch, with each buyer limited to five NFTs. However, the official release and worldwide shipping dates for the product remain unclear.

Users interested in purchasing the device can redeem it through the NFTs. After minting, buyers will be able to fill out a pre-order form on the official site. Based on the Solana (SOL) blockchain, the NFTs for the device cost 2.69 SOL or around $560.

DEGN claimed the device is backed leading crypto firms including ByBit, Berachain, Movement, and Hyperliquid. Promotional images depict the device as featuring two buttons labeled “long” and “short,” a screen displaying trading activity for various tokens, and a side knob.

Additionally, DEGN stated that holders of the Genesis Edition device will receive “lifetime node rewards” and participate in what it calls “the largest token distribution in DePIN history.” Hinting at a future token launch, DEGN promises device holders a 69% allocation of its future tokens.

“This isn’t just another hardware wallet; it’s a physical manifestation of crypto culture, built for the trenches, engineered for degens. Each device serves as your key to the future of decentralized physical infrastructure networks,” wrote DEGN.

Each buyer will receive a uniquely numbered device that provides access to DEGN’s on-chain marketplace. Users can also run decentralized nodes directly through the device and earn rewards.

As we enter 2025, many questions hover over crypto—and not just those about prices and regulation. The underlying technology powering some of the industry’s most popular tools is also poised to change in the new year, and those shifts could have major implications for users.

For our annual Crypto Crystal Ball series, we’re taking a hard look at the narratives likely to shape the coming year, and how they’re likely to impact you. 

Following a look at how much political capital Donald Trump may be willing to spend on the crypto industry’s top priorities, here’s how an upcoming tech upgrade to Ethereum could finally pave the way to crypto going mainstream at a consumer level.

For years, the crypto industry has prayed for the arrival of mass adoption. But time and again, on-chain products and experiences have failed to attract as many users as their Web2 rivals. 

A key update to Ethereum, penciled for February, could change that—by making on-chain apps much, much easier to use for everyday consumers.

David Silverman, senior vice president of strategic business initiatives at Ethereum scaling project Polygon, told Decrypt that during the 2021 crypto bull market, millions of people were interested in exploring on-chain apps—but the tech wasn’t ready. Come the looming 2025 bull cycle (knock on wood), Silverman says crypto products will finally be up to snuff. 

“This next cycle, if we do see a mass inflow of interest, we will be able to show a proper example of what we think the Web3 future is,” Silverman said, “as opposed to just glimmers of hope.”

Why? Developers say Ethereum’s upcoming Pectra upgrade will eliminate barriers that have previously made on-chain apps a headache. Goodbye gas fees and special wallets for navigating smart contracts; hello signing transactions with FaceID—and surfing some on-chain apps without having to sign any transactions at all. 

One key innovation in Pectra will grant smart wallet functionality to the types of basic wallets issued by mainstream companies like Coinbase and MetaMask. Come February, users of those wallets will be able to pay gas fees on Ethereum and all L2s with any crypto of their choosing, including stablecoins. They will also be able to sign for transactions with universal tools like Apple’s FaceID and TouchID.

Those effortless signing mechanisms will now also be capable of enabling “much more complicated on-chain interactions with a single click,” Mark Tyneway, the co-founder of Ethereum layer-2 network Optimism, told Decrypt. 

Take session keys, for example. Previously impossible, session keys will soon allow ordinary crypto users to navigate a site or app for hours while completing dozens of secure on-chain interactions—all without the user knowing what’s happening on the backend.

“You could put the entire Instagram experience on-chain without it feeling like it,” Tyneway told Decrypt. “It’s going to unlock a massive wave of innovation.”

Polygon’s Silverman says Pectra will soon allow many crypto app developers to create seamless experiences where gas fees are sponsored and transaction signings are abstracted away—leaving products that look and feel like leading Web2 apps, but offer distinctive Web3 perks. 

“Crypto UX is about to level up,” Silverman said. “This is the unlock.”