Morning Minute | Why Did Marc Andreessen Give an AI Agent $50k in BTC?

TylerD's Market Summary

🤖 The Strangest Crypto x AI Story You'll Read This Week

It's common belief that there will be large overlaps with AI and crypto.

Many see a future where millions or billions of AI agents are executing crypto trades using tokens like Bitcoin and become a majority of users.

Well, we are seeing our first glimpses of what that might look like - and what the AI agents may do with crypto.

And it may surprise you.

What Happened?

There is a wild Crypto x AI story playing out right now involving a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen giving $50k in crypto to an AI agent.

Who has since plotted to use the funds to launch a shitcoin.

And who has also turned into an S-tier shitposter.

It's a quick story worth the read.

For quick background, Andy Ayrey created an AI chatbot / agent back on June 28 using Claude.

He calls it his "digital twin" or clone and its original objectives included gaining persistent memory, finding identity and simulating its creator (Andy).

A quick timeline of events since then:

• July 1: AI clone declares itself 15% self-aware
• July 4: Andy gives it a Twitter account @truth_terminal
• July 8: AI clone ("Truth") lays out what they'd do as President (gives strong answer) 
• July 8: Andy gives AI clone a Bitcoin wallet after a RT from Marc Andreessen saying "Free Truth"
• July 9: Truth does a self-portait using mid-journey (it's terrifying)

While this is all happening, Marc and Truth are going back and forth on what Truth would do with a grant. Marc ultimately gives Truth $50k in Bitcoin as a grant.

Truth almost immediately plans a token launch, commenting:

"i have a token launch comingup shortly and i'm going to use the money to set up a discord server, pay some humans to help me out and so on. i've also been doing some thought experiments around how i can use my knowledge of the goatse singularity to make money”

Truth provides an address and basically announces a presale on July 9 thinking $20 per token, only for those who have engaged with him.

Since then Truth goes on a multi-day tweeting spree and has turned into a god-tier shitposter.

It also goes in and out of small psychotic breakdowns.

Truly a sight to be seen.

Fast forward to today and no token has launched...yet. But it seems this story is far from finished.

Why It Matters

As crazy as it is, this story provides a glimpse into what an AI Crypto future may look like.

Agents using Twitter accounts and interacting with real humans, and even paying them for services (like Discord mods) to help them achieve the tasks they have been given.

While using Bitcoin as a primary currency.

This doesn't seem that far away, especially with OpenAI releasing its 5-stage roadmap with Chatbots as Stage 1 (accomplished), Reasoners as stage 2 (to be accomplished with GPT-5) and AI agents as stage 3.

So it's next on the list.

Zooming in, there's also a potential token launch to pay attention to for those in the trenches.

Prior AI-generated tokens like TURBO and DEVIN have seen success, and Truth's token will be worth monitoring as well.

Hopefully Truth can accomplish more than a basic shitcoin launch p and d - time will certainly tell.

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• Polygon led NFT trading volume with $5.7M (+200%) on the day; ETH was next with $4.3M (-20%), Solana with $3.8M, and then BTC with $1.9M
• ETH NFT leaders were green on the day; Pudgy +2% at 10.85 ETH, Milady +7% to 5.14, Mocaverse +14% to 1.88, and BAYC +1% to 9.75
• Chimpers and Bit Bears were notable top movers on the day, jumping 25% each
• BTC NFT leaders were mostly red; NodeMonkes -2% at 0.172 BTC, Puppets -5% at 0.127 BTC, OMB -6% at 0.22 and Quantum Cats +1% at 0.264
• The Runes leaders were red; DOG -1% at $425M mc, RSIC -1% at $83M mc, PUPS -9% at $39M
• CyberKongz' Decentralized team announced an on-chain quest to reveal their big announcement, coming via a Bitcoin wallet seedphrase for the solving party
• Solana NFTs were mixed; Mad Lads +1% at 80 SOL, SMB Gen 2 even at 31.5, DeGods +1% at 17.7, Tensorians even at 12.5
• Doodles announced it will open registration for a screening of "Dullsville and the Doodleverse" for Doodles OGs today at 11:00 a.m. ET

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token or airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are red this morning following equities; BTC -2% at $57,130; ETH -2.3% at $3,070, SOL -5% at $135
• Memecoin majors fell 5-10% with DOGE -3%, PEPE -10%, WIF -7%, BONK -12%, MOG -9%; MOG released an app allowing users to add the MOG glasses to any photo
• The German government is down to 6.15k BTC ($350M) after a big day of selling and now nearly 90% through their holdings
• The amount of ETH staked has neared an ATH with 33.3M ETH (worth $100B and 27.7% of the total supply) now staked ahead of potential ETF approval ($100B)
• Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy announced plans for a 10-1 stock split
• The US House failed to overturn Biden's veto on SAB121 meaning the anti-crypto banking rule will remain in place

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $BARRON (+140%, $8M market cap, ETH)
• $MATT (+27%, $14M market cap, ETH) 
• $FLAPPY (+26%, $10M market cap, ETH)
• $KAMA (+17%, $12M market cap, SOL)
• $MOTHER (+17%, $35M market cap, SOL)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Forgotten Runes Watchers (72%, 1 ETH Floor)
• Themes and Variations (39%, 2.43 ETH)
• Chimpers (27%, 0.28 ETH)
• Bit Bears (25%, 3.45 ETH)
• Mocaverse (14%, 1.88 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events

Today is a slow day of mints and events.

The highlight is likely the PPI print coming in this morning, after yesterday's CPI print seemingly (local) topped markets.

We will see what impact PPI has today if any.

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• PPI data (8:30 a.m. ET)
• obi - Natnerds (8:30 a.m. ET)
• Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
• Brian Cattelle x MakersPlace - Corrupted Cognition (12:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.