If you've tuned into the many ongoing discussions about the future of artificial intelligence (AI), you may have encountered an interesting idea as it pertains to cryptocurrency investments. In short, so the idea goes, the AI agents of the very near future may have a need to hold resources and transact with each other, and to do that, cryptocurrencies are the obvious way that they'll prefer (or be coded) to do it.
The validity of this concept remains to be proven, but per CoinGecko, AI agent coins as a category of cryptocurrencies grew by more than 322% in the fourth quarter of 2024, reaching a total market cap of around $15.5 billion. So it's clear that there's a lot of interest from investors.
Therefore, there's a juicy opportunity to invest in the cryptocurrencies that are most likely to be the chosen mediums of exchange for these AIs on the basis of their capabilities today. In the best case, investors could capture a lot of upside if this AI thesis plays out as its boosters suggest. So let's take a look at the two blockchains that are AI-ready today and appreciate why they're worth buying.
CRYPTO: SOL
Key Data Points
1. Solana
Today, AI agent coins on Solana (SOL +6.00%) have a total market cap of around $1.8 billion. But that's likely just the start of the category on the chain.
Solana has a few features that make it ideal for automated transacting, including low gas fees and very rapid transaction times. Plus, it has a full framework for developing and publishing what it calls "programs," which correspond to the idea of smart contracts on other blockchains. Therefore it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Solana has had the single largest share of AI agent-related launches so far, with around 56% as of Jan. 15, according to CoinGecko.
It's unclear how much demand AI-driven activity there will be on the chain, either by humans launching AI applications or by the AI agents themselves. Still, as a capital market, Solana offers one big advantage that meshes very well with AI launches: It's the chain for trading meme coins.
That means there's a lot of liquidity circulating that investors are holding quite loosely on the chain, with the intent of speculating on new projects launching. When given the choice between a meme project that's purely frivolous, or a flashy AI-agent meme project, at least some investors will take the latter. Then the agents themselves will be funded and more likely to continue transacting on their native chain than to bridge to another ecosystem, which could ultimately drive more demand for Solana over the medium term.
But take care. This isn't an investment thesis strong enough to bet the farm on, even if you plan on investing in a relatively high-quality crypto asset like Solana.
CRYPTO: ETH
Key Data Points
2. Ethereum
Ethereum (ETH +1.27%) also stands to gain a significant amount from the rise of on-chain AI agents as well as from infrastructure projects intended to support them.
As the chain that originally focused on smart contracts, there's almost certainly a larger concentration of skilled developers on Ethereum than Solana, which could give way to a deeper roster of on-chain AI agents as well. And while issues like high gas fees and slower transactions mean that it might not be the first choice for deploying AI-related infrastructure or tokens, the software ecosystem is, at least for now, much larger.
There is thus a very high chance that there will be an ongoing demand for people to buy Ether, which will support its price.
Beyond that, Ethereum's AI agent coins are worth a total of $5.7 billion as of Jan. 28. If the original thesis here is that AIs will need to transact with each other, right now they'll have a lot more liquid capital on hand if they were launched on Ethereum rather than Solana. There's no way to know if that difference will persist, but for now, it's a bullish factor for the Ethereum AI ecosystem.
Thus, compared to Solana, investing in Ethereum is slightly less risky if you're looking for exposure to the AI narrative. Just be aware that this story is far from over, and the odds are very good that the competitive landscape will change a lot with regard to launching and operating AI agents over the coming months and years.
