The following content is published by JuCoin Labs Research Institute:
Recently, the MCP protocol has reignited market attention on the AI Agent track. MCP stands for Model Context Protocol, launched by Anthropic, the parent company of Claude, in November 2024. The core of MCP is to help various AI LLMs/Agents seamlessly connect to various data sources and tools, serving as an open standardized protocol. The emergence of MCP provides a unified framework, helping AI applications break free from past data silos, enabling “dynamic” access to external data and tools. Against this backdrop, new projects represented by $DARK have emerged in the AI Agents track. Below, we will focus on analyzing five potential targets in the recent AI track.
1. $DARK
Project Overview
$DARK is based on the Solana chain and is an experimental MCP network under a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). $DARK has garnered attention due to its DEV, who is the organizer of the next Solana official hackathon. Currently, $DARK’s main product is still under development, and users can join the waitlist via email. Meanwhile, DARK is also developing an AI competitive game called DARK Games, where players need to interact with DARK tokens to obtain clues.
Fundamentals
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Token: DARK
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CA: 8BtoThi2ZoXnF7QQK1Wjmh2JuBw9FjVvhnGMVZ2vpump (Solana chain)
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Liquidity: $1.32 million
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24h Vol: $9.07 million
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FDV: $29.69 million
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Holders: 14,700+
Project Summary
$DARK is the earliest AI Agent combining the MCP concept, but the project is still in its very early stages, with the product yet to be launched. Currently, it mainly sells its technical background and community resources. From on-chain data, its market cap once approached $50 million but has now fallen back to $29.69 million. Overall liquidity is still poor, but with the backing of the Solana official hackathon organizer and innovative attempts in the AI gaming direction, it has certain narrative potential. The key going forward lies in the product launch schedule, ecosystem expansion progress, and whether it can continue to attract developers and players.
2. $PROMPT
Project Overview
Wayfinder Foundation is a decentralized AI interaction protocol aimed at enabling intelligent interactions with the blockchain through AI agents (referred to as Shells). These Shells can understand users’ natural language instructions and automatically execute tasks in the blockchain environment, such as asset management, transaction execution, DeFi operations, etc. One of Wayfinder Foundation’s core innovations is “Wayfinding Paths,” which are navigation paths jointly developed by the community, providing Shells with instruction sets and roadmaps for navigating the blockchain ecosystem.
Wayfinder adopts a dual-token mechanism: $PRIME is the governance token, which users can stake to participate in the ecosystem and receive $PROMPT rewards; $PROMPT is the native token, mainly used to pay for Shell operation fees, path usage fees, participate in governance, etc. Currently, its native token $PROMPT has been listed on top centralized exchanges like Coinbase but has not yet been listed on Binance.
Fundamentals
The native token $PROMPT is mainly distributed on two public chains; we will analyze them specifically below:
2.1 Ethereum Chain (Main Chain)
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Token: PROMPT
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CA: 0x28d38dF637dB75533bD3F71426F3410a82041544 (Ethereum chain)
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Liquidity: $3.92 million
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24h Vol: $1.18 million
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FDV: $326 million
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Holders: 5,909
2.2 Base Chain (Extension Chain)
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Token: PROMPT
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CA: 0x30c7235866872213F68cb1F08c37Cb9eCCB93452 (Base chain)
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Liquidity: $670,000
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24h Vol: $680,000
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FDV: $19.46 million
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Holders: 109,100
Project Summary
Wayfinder Foundation combines AI agents with on-chain interactions, leveraging the narrative of “natural language + blockchain automation,” aligning with the current hot trend of AI+Crypto. Compared to the latest MPC protocols, Wayfinder emphasizes application-level implementation and binds community contributions and economic incentives through a dual-token model, making its ecosystem design relatively complete. The Base chain has a large number of token holders, but current liquidity is mainly concentrated on the Ethereum chain. The multi-chain distribution provides a good foundation for subsequent product promotion.
However, the main products Shells and Wayfinding Paths are still in early development stages, and their actual experience and scalability have not been verified, posing uncertainties in technical implementation and user retention. Additionally, after the launch of $PROMPT, its price fluctuated significantly, once dropping 68% due to an MEV attack, raising concerns in the community about its security and stability. Although the project has certain innovation and market attention, attention should still be paid to its product implementation progress and actual application in the ecosystem.
3. $ALCH
Project Overview
Alchemist AI is a no-code development platform deployed on the Solana blockchain, dedicated to helping users generate Web3 applications and personalized AI Agents through natural language processing (NLP) technology. The platform aims to lower the threshold for Web3 development and comes with a built-in application publishing market, allowing users to quickly create, deploy, and monetize their projects while enjoying the high performance and low-cost transaction experience provided by the Solana network. Its native token is $ALCH, used for ecosystem incentives and transaction settlement.
Fundamentals
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Token: ALCH
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CA: HNg5PYJmtqcmzXrv6S9zP1CDKk5BgDuyFBxbvNApump (Solana chain)
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Liquidity: $6.184 million
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24h Vol: $5.9966 million
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FDV: $165 million
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Holders: 33,900+
Project Summary
Alchemist AI’s advantage lies in generating applications through natural language and no-code development tools, significantly lowering the threshold for Web3 development and attracting more non-technical users to participate. Additionally, the platform’s built-in trading market promotes the circulation and value realization of applications. Moreover, leveraging Solana’s high performance and low transaction costs, Alchemist AI provides a better user experience and scalability. From the community sentiment, $ALCH has higher community activity than other similar projects due to its continuous promotion of product implementation. From the secondary market perspective, $ALCH is relatively a potential target, currently not listed on top centralized exchanges, and its market cap has considerable growth space.
4. Talus Network (No Token Issued)
Project Overview
Talus Network introduces the Nexus framework, enabling AI agents to operate, make decisions, and execute tasks autonomously without human intervention. Additionally, the platform supports cross-chain communication protocols (IBC), achieving interoperability between different blockchains. Talus’s native token is TAI, used for paying transaction fees, resource allocation, network security, governance, and other functions.
Talus Network has completed two rounds of financing, raising a total of $9 million, led by top VC Polychain Capital, with a valuation as high as $150 million, as follows:
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On February 26, 2024, completed a $3 million financing round, with investors including Polychain, dao5, TRGC, Inception Capital, The Rollup Ventures, etc.
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On November 26, 2024, completed a $6 million financing round, with investors including Polychain, Foresight Ventures, Animoca Brands, GeekCartel, etc.
Currently, Talus Network has not issued tokens and is mainly operating through community incentives. Its Tallys NFT series, totaling 5,555, has been sold out. These NFTs, themed around Talus’s mascot Tally, represent the spirit and innovation of the Talus community. The Tallys NFT minting event was conducted on the Sui chain and exclusively sold through the TradePort platform. Holders not only obtained unique digital collectibles but also have certain governance rights and priority participation rights in the Talus ecosystem.
However, it should be noted that the Tallys NFT series was almost instantly sold out during the sale, possibly due to sniping by the project’s own scientists or bots.
Project Summary
Overall, Talus Network is actively expanding its ecosystem, including developing Protochain, the Nexus framework, and the “AI dating experience” application. Although the platform has made some progress in technology and community building, it is still in the early stages, and the ecosystem’s improvement and user base expansion still require time. Additionally, the specific economic model of the current TAI token has not been fully disclosed, and the project’s transparency needs further observation.
5. TheoriqAI (No Token Issued)
TheoriqAI is an innovative project focused on decentralized AI agent infrastructure, aiming to build an open, composable AI Agent marketplace that allows users to create, deploy, and monetize autonomous agents without programming. TheoriqAI coordinates the collective behavior of multiple AI agents to promote on-chain AI collaboration and automation, aspiring to become a key infrastructure at the intersection of DeFi and AI. The project is still in its early stages and has not yet publicly released its tokenomics. Currently, TheoriqAI has established a partnership with Google Cloud, granting direct access to Google Cloud’s private network and resources.
To date, TheoriqAI has completed two rounds of fundraising, raising a total of $10.2 million:
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On September 27, 2022, it raised $4 million from IOSG Ventures, SNZ Holding, HashKey Capital, Alliance DAO, among others.
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On May 13, 2024, it raised $6.2 million from Hack VC, Foresight Ventures, HTX Ventures, and others.
Project Summary
As a pioneer in the decentralized AI agent market, TheoriqAI recently ranked in the top five on the Pre-TGE Arena leaderboard of the Kaito platform. In terms of testnet performance, it has over 55 million agent interactions, more than 500,000 registered users, and a daily active user count of 120,000. A total of 15 agents and 3 swarms have been developed and deployed.
However, it should be noted that TheoriqAI remains in its early phase, and most current users are primarily airdrop hunters. Additionally, its token economic model has not yet been released—mechanisms for distribution and value capture remain unclear, which may temporarily affect investor and community confidence. Therefore, its mid- to long-term development will depend on the pace of technical implementation and strength of community building.
Summary
With the release of the MCP protocol, the AI Agent sector has entered a new phase of accelerated experimentation. Representative projects such as $DARK, $PROMPT, $ALCH, Talus Network, and TheoriqAI have demonstrated early competitiveness in application innovation, infrastructure construction, and ecosystem expansion. Although the sector is still in its infancy and faces multiple challenges—such as product launch, user growth, and incomplete tokenomics—narrative momentum, technological advancement, and capital support are progressing in parallel.
For investment and observation, we recommend focusing on: Actual application progress of the project，Community engagement，Token value capture mechanisms，Long-term moat-building capabilities.
Neason Oliver
