Hey, it’s Marc. We’ll soon publish a comprehensive report on Web3 commerce for business leaders. The first 100 people who sign up will get it for free (90/100):

“You can think of an AI copilot as your main interface for interacting with your chatbot or assistant. Kind of like a home screen for your different AI needs.”

— Ray Smith, VP AI Agents at Microsoft

This week’s question:

👉 Keep up with all our signals for Web3 execs on our Telegram channel.

Let’s dive in🦈

📚 Our Top Reads This Week

• Year in review: Top pieces and themes of 2024. A16z crypto. Link
• 2025 Crypto Market Outlook. Coinbase. Link
• Building effective agents. Anthropic. Link
• Consumer Crypto & Gaming Year in Review [Podcast]. Messari. Link
• Revolut’s Stablecoin Will Be a Total FAILURE! Link
• The Dawn of the Intelligence Explosion. Mckay Wrigley. Link
• AI in Action: Use Cases, ROI, and What’s Next for 2025. The Information & SAP. Link

🤖 AI Agents: The New Interface of the Internet

AI hit a new high.

In 2024, AI agents evolved beyond learning, analyzing, and predicting—they’re now driving decisions and taking action.

Chatbots are history and AI Agents are taking over. Here’s what happened this year:

• AI Leaders: OpenAI remained dominant as an LLM provider, while Google and Anthropic gained momentum, closing the gap. In 2024, OpenAI's market share in the enterprise LLM sector decreased from 50% to 34%.

• Adoption Trends: AI saw growing adoption in both experimentation and production settings. However, challenges persisted:

  • Scaling complexities

  • Data privacy concerns

  • Lack of robust monitoring tools

Why it matters: Businesses are prioritizing automation and simplification to drive real value with AI.

Five key areas where AI agents are transforming workflows:

1. Employee support: Tools like Copilots enhance productivity.
2. Consumer advocacy: Digital doubles personalize customer interactions.
3. Customer service: Platforms like Intercom deliver better experiences.
4. Workflow automation: Beam AI optimizes processes.
5. Data & business intelligence: Snowflake AI powers actionable insights.

By the data: By 2027, agents will reshape work, doubling productivity and contributing to at least 40% of knowledge-based tasks.

Successful AI Agent applications:

• AI XBT: It uses AI agents with reinforcement learning to analyze markets, execute trades, and manage portfolios in real-time.
• JP Morgan: AI agents optimize portfolios and assess creditworthiness, cutting fraud by 70% and saving $200M annually.

Notable open-source frameworks (AI Agent development):

🚨 Key takeaways for executive and brand leaders:

• Start identifying areas within your organization where automated AI agents could be deployed to improve operational efficiency, such as treasury management or user engagement.

  • Use open-source AI frameworks like Eliza for prototyping quickly & reducing costs.

  • Collaborate with platforms, actively developing in AI and crypto spaces.

• Evaluate deploying AI agents to manage investment portfolios or create passive revenue streams.

  • Start small with low-value assets to test trading algorithms and progressively scale.

• Prioritize areas where AI can replace labour-intensive tasks, focusing on scalability without increasing costs.

  • Use hybrid models that combine human oversight with AI autonomy.

  • Measure ROI based on saved costs and improved output from AI-driven operations.

AI Agent "Wars"

Base and Solana are competing for dominance in AI agent development, with key metrics like transaction speed, user growth, and developer engagement.

AI16Z vs. Virtual Protocol: Virtual Protocol leads the AI agent space with a $3B market cap, while Solana-backed AI16Z, at $880M, aims to challenge its dominance.

Key Differentiators of AI16Z:

• Adoption: Eliza (AI16Z’s open-source framework) ranks #2 on GitHub for AI agents, indicating strong developer interest.
• Tokenomics: Overhaul ties new agents to its token, similar to Virtual's model.
• Exchange Listing: Potential tier-1 exchange listing could drive growth.

Also: AI16Z currently holds only 5% mindshare compared to rivals like Virtual, limiting its short-term impact.

Looking ahead: With increasing demand for multi-agent systems and coordinated pipelines, 2025 could bring advancements in areas like retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)1 and collaboration across agents.

Sports Prediction Markets 🏈

Crypto.com launched a sports prediction market in the U.S., beginning with Super Bowl bets.

What you should know:

• Betting Options: Bets can be placed using various cryptocurrencies.
• Opportunity: Sports betting has not been widely popular on platforms like Kalshi.
• Market: Sports betting revenue in the U.S. reached $14.3B in 2024, from $0.48B in 2018.

Why it matters: Crypto.com’s deep sports ties, with partnerships like F1 and UFC, give it a unique advantage. Holding 35.9% of sports sponsorships alongside FTX, it’s primed to engage sports fans and capture the growing market for decentralized sports prediction.

By the data: The U.S. sports betting market is projected to grow at a 10.73% CAGR, reaching $23.80B by 2029.

Other players: Polymarket, Azuro, Hedgehog, Drift, Myriad Markets

Crypto.com stands out with its strong brand, CFTC compliance, seamless integration, and diverse payment options, including stablecoins.

👉 We’ll publish a series of Web3 enterprise & consumer reports. Be the first to get them by signing up for the first report here:

🚀 Work With 51: Scale Your Web3 x AI Corporate Adoption

Our industry OGs, vast network, research team & 70k+ B2B audience help you:

• Co-publish enterprise-grade reports with us, driving traffic and boosting B2B outbound conversion rates.
• Execute a multi-channel growth campaign that delivers better results than anything else in Web3's consumer space.

🚨 Other Highlights You Can’t Miss

• Disney and ESPN launched on Fortnite. Link
• African Diamond Council using blockchain for traceability. Link
• xAI raised $6B Series C. Link
• Perplexity raised $500M at a $9B valuation. Link
• Mo Shaikh stepped away as Aptos’s CEO. Link

🚨 Top Under-The-Radar Macro Signals

• Bitcoin: Matador Technologies, a Canadian crypto firm, adopts a Bitcoin reserve strategy, purchasing $4.5M in Bitcoin.

• Regulation:

  • Russia bans crypto mining in 10 regions for six years starting January 2025, with seasonal restrictions in key areas to prevent energy blackouts.

  • The IRS insists staking rewards are taxable upon receipt, rejecting the Jarretts' lawsuit that sought tax deferral until sale.

• Acquisition: MoonPay will acquire Helio Pay, a crypto payment platform for approximately $150M.

• Partnerships:

  • Crypto.com extended its partnership with Formula 1. Link

  • Bitget partners with Swiss fintech Fiat24 to develop PayFi solutions. Link

👉 Keep up with all our signals for Web3 execs on our Telegram channel.

💰 Money Moves

• Rumble: Online video-sharing platform raised $775M led by Tether. Link
• ALLO: Real-world assets tokenization platform raised $100M. Link
• Usual: RWA stablecoin protocol raised $10M from Binance Labs. Link
• Avalon Labs: DeFi protocol raised $10M led by Framework Ventures. Link
• Trrue Chain: Layer-1 blockchain raised $10M from GEM Digital. Link

That’s all for now, folks.

Talk soon,

– Marc & Team

---

More feedback? Reply to this email.