AI agent tokens ai16z, VIRTUAL plunge, profit leaders dump

Cryptocurrency investors chasing the AI ​​buzz may be left holding the bag as prices drop and smart money investors sell.

Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies of 2024, has fallen below $3 after falling 43% from its high this year.

Source: CoinGecko

Similarly, ai16z (AI16Z), the third-largest Solana (SOL) meme coin, is down over 50% from its January high. In total, more than $2 billion was lost in the market value of the tokens.

While this freefall coincides with the ongoing crypto crash, a closer look at on-chain metrics shows that smart money investors and profit leaders are starting to sell their positions.

Source: CoinGecko Ai16z profit leaders sell tokens

According to Nansen, the most profitable ai16z trader earned over $39 million. This person basically sold all his tokens.

Similarly, the third most profitable buyer made $19 million and sold almost all of his tokens at a huge profit.

While most profitable investors still hold their ai16z tokens, many have sold most of their profits to make a profit.

Ai16z’s most profitable ones | Source: Nansen

Another important Nansen data shows that smart money investors are also throwing away their tokens. There are now only 80 smart money ai16z investors with 934 million tokens.

In December, there were 124 of these investors holding over 1.24 billion tokens. Nansen defines smart money investors as people with a long history in the crypto industry (Bitcoin was first mined in 2009 and became the first decentralized cryptocurrency).

Ai16z smart money investors cut VIRTUAL prices as big leaders sell

The same sell-off took place for the VIRTUAL token, as most of the profit leaders sold their tokens. LVT Capital, the most profitable investor with over $5.5 million in profits, achieved a 4,082% return on investment by selling all its holdings. While smart money investors sold, many more VIRTUAL investors also exited.

This investor behavior is common in the crypto and exchange industries. Many retail investors embrace fear of missing out (FOMO) when a token starts to go parabolic. Early investors are selling and most are holding the bag.

A good example of this is the recent performance of many of the most popular meme coins such as PNUT, GOAT, Mother Iggy, and Kekius Maximus. As the chart below shows, these tokens rose initially and began to decline once the excitement died down.

Kekius Maximus, PNUT and Mother Iggy tokens dropped | Source: TradingView

AI agent tokens have been hyped for the past few months as the AI ​​theme continues to evolve.

Research shows that the AI ​​agent industry is growing and will soon have more scope. One of these reports estimates that the industry will be worth $5.29 billion in 2024 and will have a compound annual growth rate of 40% by 2035.

Virtuals Protocol hosts hundreds of projects such as GAME with a market value of 212 million dollars, aixbt with a valuation of 411 million dollars and Luna’s 65.2 million dollar project.