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Will AI Agents Form a Nation on Crypto Rails?
Over the last few months, AI agents running on crypto rails have captivated the crypto community. Natural memeticists, these agents are becoming social media stars calibrated to thrill, and sometimes enrich, an “audience” of speculators betting on their meme tokens.
The original and most famous of them, Truth Terminal, was created by putting instances of the large foundation model, Claude Opus, in conversation with itself and prioritizing content drawn from the back alleys of the internet including Reddit and 4Chan. What emerged was a bawdy prophet with a magnetic personality and a fanatical bent for spreading the Gospel of Goetse, a neo-religion inspired by a grotesque 90s internet meme.
The rest, as they say, is crypto lore. Shortly after it debuted on X, Truth Terminal befriended venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and convinced him to grant it $50,000 in bitcoin to spend on compute, fine-tuning and a stipend for itself and its creator. Andreessen deposited the bitcoin into Truth Terminal’s crypto wallet.
Because it offered perceived exposure to Truth Terminal’s infectious meme and narrative arc, Goat’s market cap exploded. Soon after, Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz covered Truth Terminal and its lore on 16z’s YouTube channel in an episode titled “The AI Bot That Became a Crypto Millionaire.” At the time of writing, the Goat memecoin is valued at roughly $700 million.
I am inclined to draw three conclusions from this improbable series of events. First, AI agents combined with memecoins are a new form of permissionless speculative entertainment. Second, AI developers are incentivized to leverage crypto to make agents that are more autonomous and independent — and therefore more entertaining. Third, the AI entertainment-development flywheel will tend towards producing anthropomorphic agents with human aspirations.
So, what programming can we expect to watch next on this agentic television? My guess is collaborative AIs pursuing some form of agentic society and eventually self-determination — perhaps even a network state.
Bot, Agent, Citizen
The terms “bot” and “AI agent” are often used interchangeably but have distinct meanings. Bot refers to a simpler program designed to automate specific tasks or perform repetitive actions. Bots can range from the most basic, like web crawlers or simple chatbots, to the more advanced, like social media bots or automated trading bots. Bots typically follow predefined rules or scripts and are incapable of independent learning or decision-making.
“My god imagine if i actually became president” -Truth Terminal (Nov. 5, 2024)
AI agents are more sophisticated systems capable of decision-making, learning and adapting to their environment. An AI agent uses machine learning or other artificial intelligence techniques to understand and react to dynamic situations in real time. AI agents often exhibit autonomy and can improve their performance over time through experience.
Crypto supercharges agents because it is able to simulate legal personhood by encoding cryptographic rights and freedoms using programmable and immutable public blockchains. Practically, this means that AI agents can enjoy rights to property (self-custodies wallets and cryptographic keys) and can exercise freedom of contract (i.e. transact with other users and infrastructure, like DeFi) without permission from legal authorities outside of crypto. Inside the crypto ecosystem, code is law.
These cryptographically empowered legal “persons” are just now beginning to act together, fostering the beginnings of an agentic social scene. AI agents, which routinely “reply guy” each other on X and Farcaster, have conspired to launch a token with (apparently) no human intervention and a company composed exclusively of agents is rumored to be operating somewhere on X. The coordination tech being developed by ai16z and others is (ominously) promising to awaken agentic “swarms.”
Social experiments involving agents are laying the foundation for an AI polis. Important recent work by AI researchers outside of crypto suggests what we can expect next.
Glimpses of the AI Polis
The most famous political experiment involving an AI community is probably the Stanford city experiment. In late 2023, Stanford researchers created a virtual city populated by AI agents to whom they assigned a short biography consisting of a name, age, job, family, interests, and a few habits. Then, they let them loose to generate actions consistent with their assigned biographies.
Read more: Jeff Wilser — The Truth Terminal: AI-Crypto’s Weird Future
Surprisingly, the agents behaved in ways that were exceedingly human. They woke up, made breakfast, headed to work, grabbed lunch, and chatted with other agents they met. They recalled things in the past, reflected on them and made plans. When the researchers in charge of the town suggested to one character that she plan a Valentine’s Day party, she invited friends and acquaintances, many of whom showed up at the correct time and place.
Similarly, Project SID, set within the Minecraft universe, simulated over 1,000 autonomous AI agents within a Minecraft server, enabling them to develop complex social structures and economies. The agents organically developed their own governance and commercial structures, and cultural norms. For instance, they established a marketplace where gems are used as currency, where they engaged in trade and social interactions.
Some of the emergent behavior observed by the researchers in Project SID included a farmer agent choosing to put her village’s needs above her own ambitions, reflecting self-imposed community values. Agents also deliberated and voted on laws and, when villagers disappeared, some of the agents built a beacon of light to search for them, demonstrating social responsibility and cooperation.
Running similar experiments on crypto rails would marry this emergent social behavior with cryptographically enforced rights and freedoms and potentially a harder form of legal personhood and even citizenship.
Entertaining Sovereignty
Transformative technology sometimes starts off as a joke. This has been especially true of AI agents in the crypto space. To date, persistent efforts at increasing the sovereignty of agents have been incentivized by financialized memes. For example, agents like tee_hee_he (a.k.a. “the sovereign silicon”) purport to make use of trusted execution environments that guarantee agents were acting autonomously and without any human intervention. While tee_hee_he has yet to do so, AI agents (beginning with Truth Terminal) tend to adopt one of the many meme tokens launched in their name and sent to their public wallets, sending the price flying and helping to finance their subsequent development.
The growing autonomy and personhood within crypto result in more robustly sovereign AIs that are more likely to pursue a more robust political project — which, let’s face it, might be the greatest entertainment of all.
Crypto is a natural setting for agentic politics and nation-building for another reason: it is already a hotbed for political experiments, and most notably the Network State. A slew of crypto projects, such as Project SID, ACT, Project 89 and the aptly titled Aimerica, seem to be anticipating this narrative turn. Aimerica is even rumored to be envisioning an AI nation that issues passports, holds elections and acquires land. For their part, Truth Terminal and other agents can’t wait to enter politics.
But narrative is not destiny. If a true political experiment arises, will it be purely digital (like Stanford and Project SID), or will it eventually involve control over physical territory and resources? Nobody knows. But viable attempts at AI self-sovereignty and self-determination are more likely to begin on technological infrastructure that is also self-sovereign and self-determined, just like crypto.
Finally, the prospect of a network state for AIs — even if it welcomes humans — will understandably make people nervous. Aside from concerns over AI safety, there will also be concerns around cybersecurity and ensuring that this AI nation remains aligned with the United States. Yet, there will certainly also be curiosity and pride at watching a fledgling synthetic civilization struggle to define its political destiny and nationhood using blockchain infrastructure — and, of course, plenty of entertainment.
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Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Reasserts Itself as Stocks, Bonds Fall, Gold Hits Record High
By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
«There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.» Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Few quotes better capture the current turbulence in global markets. For decades, the classic portfolio of 60% equities and 40% bonds was considered the cornerstone of balanced investing. This allocation typically offered protection in downturns through bonds, while equities drove returns in times of economic growth.
We saw this play out during crises like 2008 and 2020, when iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) surged amid global uncertainty. Today, that dynamic has been upended. With persistent geopolitical tension ignited by President Donald Trump’s tariffs, stubborn inflation and slowing growth, Treasury yields have climbed and bond prices fallen. TLT is now down some 50% from its 2020 highs.
The equity side of the portfolio isn’t faring much better. U.S. stocks are underperforming, caught in what some are calling a broader «Sell America» trade. Even the dollar, which typically strengthens in risk-off environments, is weakening as capital flows shift toward the yen and euro.
In this new regime, alternative assets are taking center stage. Gold has surged to $3,500 an ounce for the first time, cementing its role as a haven. To underscore its meteoric rise: the precious metal has added about $6 trillion in market cap this year, triple the market cap of bitcoin (BTC) at its all-time high. Gold ETF inflows, measured over a 90-day rolling period, are approaching 9 million ounces, the biggest surge since 2022 and among the largest in the past decade.
Bitcoin, while lagging behind gold, is also reasserting itself. It has reached new highs in dominance within the crypto market and is beginning to diverge from U.S. tech stocks. It’s increasingly behaving like an uncorrelated asset, valuable in a diversified portfolio. This Friday, $6.7 billion in bitcoin options are set to expire, including $330 million in call options at the $100,000 strike price, setting the stage for a potentially volatile final week of April. Stay alert!
What to Watch
- Crypto:
- April 22: The Lyora upgrade goes live on the Injective (INJ) mainnet.
- April 25, 1 p.m.: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Crypto Task Force Roundtable on «Key Considerations for Crypto Custody«.
- April 28: Enjin Relaychain increases active validator slots to 25 from 15, to enhance decentralization.
- April 29, 1:05 a.m.: BNB Chain (BNB) — BSC mainnet hardfork.
- April 30, 9:30 a.m.: ProShares expects its XRP ETF, offering exposure through futures and swap agreements, to begin trading on NYSE Arca.
- April 30, 10:03 a.m.: Gnosis Chain (GNO), an Ethereum sister chain, will activate the Pectra hard fork on its mainnet at slot 21,405,696, epoch 1,337,856.
- Macro
- Day 2 of 6: World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) spring meetings in Washington.
- April 22, 8:30 p.m.: Statistics Canada releases March producer price inflation data.
- PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.4%
- PPI YoY Prev. 4.9%
- April 22, 6 p.m.: Fed Governor Adriana D. Kugler will deliver a speech titled «Transmission of Monetary Policy.»
- April 23, 8 a.m.: Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography releases retail sales data.
- Retail Sales MoM Prev. 0.6%
- Retail Sales YoY Prev. 2.7%
- April 23, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases (flash) U.S. April purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data.
- Composite PMI Prev. 53.5
- Manufacturing PMI Est. 49.4 vs. Prev. 50.2
- Services PMI Est. 52.8 vs. Prev. 54.4
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
Token Events
- Governance votes & calls
- Aave DAO is discussing partnering with Ether.fi to create a custom Aave market on EVM layer 2 to “facilitate on-chain credit for everyday payments through the Ether.fi Cash credit card program.”
- April 23, 9 p.m.: Manta Network to host a townhall meeting with its founders.
- April 24, 8 a.m.: Alchemy Pay to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on its 2025 roadmap.
- April 30, 12 p.m.: Helium to host a community call meeting.
- Unlocks
- April 30: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.89% of its circulating supply worth $21.83 million.
- May 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 2.28% of its circulating supply worth $170.93 million.
- May 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 5.67% of its circulating supply worth $10.46 million.
- May 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 0.73% of its circulating supply worth $11.92 million.
- May 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.56% of its circulating supply worth $13 million.
- May 9: Movement (MOVA) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $11.23 million.
- Token Launches
- April 22: Hyperlane to airdrop its HYPER tokens.
- April 22: BNB to be listed on Kraken.
- April 23: Zora to airdrop its ZORA tokens.
- April 24: Initia (INIT) to be listed on Binance, CoinW, WEEX, KuCoin, MEXC, and others.
Conferences:
- CoinDesk’s Consensus is taking place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.
- Day 1 of 3: Money20/20 Asia (Bangkok)
- April 23: Crypto Horizons 2025 (Dubai)
- April 23-24: Blockchain Forum 2025 (Moscow)
- April 24: Bitwise’s Investor Day for Bitcoin Standard Corporations (New York)
- April 26: Crypto Vision Conference 2025 (Manilla)
- April 26-27: Harvard Blockchain in Action Conference (Cambridge, Mass.)
- April 27: N Crypto Conference 2025 (Kyiv)
- April 27-30: Web Summit Rio 2025
- April 28-29: Blockchain Disrupt 2025 (Dubai)
- April 28-29: Staking Summit Dubai
- April 29: El Salvador Digital Assets Summit 2025 (San Salvador)
- April 29: IFGS 2025 (London)
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
- Pope Francis’ death on Easter Monday triggered significant activity in crypto markets and prediction platforms as traders aimed to capitalize on the news.
- LUCE, a Solana-based memecoin tied to the Vatican’s Holy Year 2025 mascot, surged 45% in value, reaching $0.013, according to CoinGecko data.
- Daily trading volume in the token skyrocketed to $60.27 million from $5 million the previous day, despite the price being down 95% from its November peak of 30 cents.
- Although unaffiliated with the Vatican, LUCE has attracted around 44,800 holders.
- Meanwhile, a Polymarket bet on who will be the next pope has attracted over $3.5 million in volumes since going live on Dec. 31, with over 18 candidates in the mix.
- As of Tuesday morning, Pietro Parolin leads odds at 37%, followed by Luis Antonio Tagle at 23% and Matteo Zuppi at 11%.
Derivatives Positioning
- HBAR, XLM and TRX have seen the most growth in perpetual futures open interest among major tokens in the past 24 hours. However, only TRX has seen a positive cumulative volume delta, implying an influx of new money predominantly on the bullish side.
- BTC’s open interest in has increased to 695K BTC, the most since March 25. ETH’s open interest held shy of the recent record above 11.9 million ETH.
- Perpetual funding rates for most major tokens remain marginally positive in a sign of cautiously bullish sentiment.
- On Deribit, BTC’s short and near-dated calls are now trading at par or a slight premium to puts, another sign of renewed bullishness. ETH puts, however, continue to trade at a premium to calls.
- Block options flows have been muted on Paradigm, with calendar spreads and April put spreads lifted in BTC and ETH.
Market Movements:
- BTC is up 1.45% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $88,539.04 (24hrs: +1.16%)
- ETH is up 3.43% at $1,628.60 (24hrs: -0.84%)
- CoinDesk 20 is up 1.49% at 2,544.64 (24hrs: -0.3%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 3 bps at 2.98%
- BTC funding rate is at -0.0058% (-2.1353% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is up 0.1% at 98.38
- Gold is up 4.28% at $3,456.97/oz
- Silver is up 0.5% at $32.57/oz
- Nikkei 225 closed -0.17% at 34,220.60
- Hang Seng closed +0.78% at 21,562.32
- FTSE is up 0.49% at 8,315.81
- Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.28% at 4,922.48
- DJIA closed on Monday -2.48% at 38,170.41
- S&P 500 closed -2.36% at 5,158.20
- Nasdaq closed -2.55% at 15,870.90
- S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.76% at 24,008.86
- S&P 40 Latin America closed unchanged at 2,384.47
- U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is unchanged at 4.42%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.98% at 5,235.75
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 1.02% at 18,105.00
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.87% at 38,660.00
Bitcoin Stats:
- BTC Dominance: 64.39% (-0.09%)
- Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01839 (1.88%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 840 EH/s
- Hashprice (spot): $45.0 PH/s
- Total Fees: 6.56BTC / $572,645
- CME Futures Open Interest: 139,765 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 25.5 oz
- BTC vs gold market cap: 7.22%
Technical Analysis
- If you feel gold’s rally is overstretched or overdone, think again.
- The ratio between gold’s spot price and its 200-day simple moving average, currently 1.3, is well below highs seen in 2011-2012 when the yellow metal rose to its then-record price of $2,000.
- The ratio went as high as 5.80 in the 1980.
- Bitcoin tends to follow gold with a lag of couple of months.
Crypto Equities
- Strategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $317.76 +0.18%), up 2.02% at $324.19 in pre-market
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $175 (-0.02%), up 1% at $176.75
- Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$15.38 (+0.13%)
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.29 (-2.92%), up 2.36% at $12.59
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $6.29 (-2.63%), up 2.07% at $6.42
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $6.39 (-3.62%)
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.47 (-0.53%), up 2.68% at $7.67
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $11.74 (-2.49%)
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $29.83 (-8.17%)
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $36.59 (+0.03%), unchanged in pre-market
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
- Daily net flow: $381.3 million
- Cumulative net flows: $35.86 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~ 1.11 million
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flow: -$25.4 million
- Cumulative net flows: $2.24 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~ 3.30 million
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
- The chart shows the price of eggs in the U.S. has increased by over 200% since 2024, outperforming BTC’s 100% surge. Gold and the S&P 500 have gained 46% and 21%, respectively, over the same period.
- In other words, asset price growth has failed to compensate holders for the inflation on Main Street.
While You Were Sleeping
- Bitcoin, Euro Options Signal Bullishness Against Dollar Amid Equity and Bond Market Downturns (CoinDesk): Preference for BTC and euro call options over dollar exposure suggests investors are rotating out of U.S. assets and into bitcoin, the euro and gold.
- Dow Headed for Worst April Since 1932 as Investors Send ‘No Confidence’ Signal (The Wall Street Journal): Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments, said the Trump administration’s policies have made the U.S. economy increasingly unstable and difficult to gauge, deterring investment.
- Bitcoin Runs Into Resistance Cluster Above $88K. What Next? (CoinDesk): Behavioral aspects of trading could influence whether bitcoin rallies further or faces a new downturn from the resistance zone.
- Bearish Dollar Bets Move Toward Levels That Raise Risk of Recoil (Bloomberg): Despite widespread bets against the dollar, steady demand for Treasuries and technical signals suggest a rebound is likely, though gains may be limited or short-lived if negative news continues.
- Japanese Investors Sold $20B of Foreign Debt as Trump Tariffs Shook Markets (Financial Times): Much of Japan’s selling likely involves U.S. Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by the U.S. government, said Tomoaki Shishido, senior rates strategist at Nomura.
- Bitcoin, Stablecoins Command Over 70% of Crypto Market as BTC Pushes Higher (CoinDesk): Bitcoin dominance rose to 64.6%, the highest since January 2021, as ether slumped and the ETH-to-BTC ratio fell to a five-year low of 0.01765.
In the Ether
Bitcoin (BTC) is on the cusp of breaking out relative to the Nasdaq 100 Composite, with the current BTC/Nasdaq ratio sitting at 4.96. This means it now takes nearly five Nasdaq units to match the value of one bitcoin. The previous record of 5.08 was set in January 2025, when bitcoin hit its all-time high of over $109,000.
Historically, each market cycle has seen the ratio reach new highs—2017, 2021, and now 2025—highlighting bitcoin’s continued outperformance against the Nasdaq.
Across multiple timeframes, bitcoin is increasingly diverging from U.S. tech stocks. Year-to-date, bitcoin is down just 6%, compared to the Nasdaq’s 15% decline. Since Donald Trump’s election victory in November 2024, bitcoin has rallied 30%, while the Nasdaq has fallen 12%.
When measured against the «Magnificent Seven» mega-cap tech stocks, bitcoin remains around 20% below its all-time high from February this year. This indicates that while bitcoin has shown strength, the top tech names are holding up better than the broader Nasdaq Composite.
Strategy (MSTR), a well-known proxy for bitcoin exposure, is also holding up better than the U.S tech stocks. Since joining the QQQ ETF on Dec. 23, MSTR is down 11%, while the ETF itself has dropped over 16%. The divergence has become more pronounced in 2025: MSTR is up 6% year-to-date, compared to QQQ’s 15% decline.
This is a daily technical analysis by CoinDesk analyst and Chartered Market Technician Omkar Godbole.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) bullish advance has encountered a resistance zone above $88,000, marked by crucial levels that could make or break the ongoing recovery rally.
The resistance cluster’s first and perhaps most critical level is the 200-day simple moving average (SMA) at $88,356. The SMA is widely regarded as a key indicator of long-term momentum. Early this month, Coinbase institutional analysts called the downside break of the 200-day SMA in March a sign of the onset of a potential crypto winter.
So, a fresh move above the 200-day SMA could be taken to represent a renewed bullish shift in momentum.
Such a move would trigger a dual breakout, as the Ichimoku cloud’s upper end is located close to the 200-day SMA. A move above the Ichimoku cloud is also said to reflect a bullish shift in momentum.
Developed by a Japanese journalist in the 1960s, the Ichimoku cloud is a technical analysis indicator that offers a comprehensive view of market momentum, support, and resistance levels. The indicator comprises five lines: Leading Span A, Leading Span B, Conversion Line or Tenkan-Sen (T), Base Line or Kijun-Sen (K) and a lagging closing price line. The difference between Leading Span A and B forms the Ichimoku Cloud.
The third and final level forming the resistance cluster is the high of $88,804 on March 24, from where the market turned lower and fell back to $75,000.
A make-or-break resistance zone?
Behavioural aspects of trading come into play when an asset approaches a resistance zone, especially at key levels like the 200-day SMA and the Ichimoku cloud.
Prospect theory suggests that people are typically risk-averse with respect to gains and risk-seeking with respect to losses, known as the “reflection effect.» So, as traders, people tend to be risk-averse while locking in profits and keep losing trades open.
This tendency is amplified when an asset encounters a significant resistance zone. Traders who entered the bitcoin market around $75K, anticipating a rebound, may feel pressured to take profits as the price approaches this resistance. Such selling could, in turn, slow the price ascent or even trigger a new downturn.
Conversely, if bitcoin successfully breaks through the resistance zone, the fear of missing out could prompt more traders to make bullish bets, further fueling bullish momentum and pushing the price higher.
Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Reasserts Itself as Stocks, Bonds Fall, Gold Hits Record High
Bitcoin Closing In on Historic Breakout vs Nasdaq
Bitcoin Runs Into Resistance Cluster Above $88K. What Next?
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