VIRTUAL Rallies Ahead of First Ethereum-Based AI Agent Launch

AI agent launchpad Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) is up 7% ahead of the launch of I.R.I.S., its first agent on the Ethereum mainnet.

I.R.I.S. is a collaboration between Virtuals, which is overseeing the launch, token distribution and ecosystem development, and Nethermind, which provided the core technical foundation, including agent engineering and blockchain security.

It introduces AuditAgent, an automated smart contract security analysis platform, to I.R.I.S., which also scans social media channels and combines the two to identify security issues in real-time.

Nethermind was founded by Tomasz Stańczak, the newly appointed co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation.

At the time of writing, the IRIS Genesis launch is oversubscribed by more than 1500%.

“The platform’s expansion from Base to Ethereum with the IRIS launch represents a significant ecosystem growth milestone, with mentions of AWS partnerships, a revenue model generating $600k monthly, and possible future expansion to additional blockchains like Aptos,” said Messari in a June 10 X post.

AI tokens have been on a tear recently. VIRTUAL’s price is $2.20, up 7% but still down significantly from its January all-time high of $5.07, according to CoinGecko. It boasts a market cap of $1.3 billion, aided by a 130% jump over a week in late April and early May after the platform unveiled its overhauled Genesis launch mechanism.

VaderAI starts Yapping

VaderAI by Virtuals is an AI agent that creates autonomous hedge funds with AI agents executing “investment strategies across DeFi, gaming and AI,” according to the Virtuals website. “Vader positions itself as the BlackRock of on-chain AI finance, automating capital allocation with scalable AI strategies.”

Yapping expanded from Virtuals Protocol to VaderAI on June 9. While 2% of Virgen points go to Virtuals Yappers, VaderAI Yappers now earn another 1%, Vader Research posted on X.

Virgen points are earned by staking VIRTUAL tokens or tokens from other AI agent platforms like VADER, and by Yapping, or posting on social media about Virtuals or AI agent tokens launched on it. The Virtuals community calls itself “virgens,” a mash-up of Virtuals and degen.

In addition, Vader Yappers will get 20% of the airdrop rewards from a staker airdrop pool. There are currently 18 tokens in the Vader Rewards Pool, with airdrops scheduled to begin in mid-to-late June and continue over the next 12 months.

To earn Yapping points, users must connect their X account on the Vader website, stake at least 10,000 VADER tokens for one year, and appropriately tag their X posts.

VADER is up 71% over the past week, according to CoinGecko.