ai16z surges over 35% amid L1 launch plans and whale buying

The native token of agentic AI platform ai16z has rallied following the project’s plans to launch its own layer 1 blockchain.

ai16z(AI16Z) rose 38% to an all-time high of $1.77 on Dec. 31, while its market capitalization grew from $1.4 billion to more than $1.9 billion at that time, data shows from crypto.news. The rally was fueled by increased trading activity, with daily volume doubling over the past day to $330 million.

Zooming out on its weekly and monthly charts, the gains were significantly higher at 156% and 383%, respectively, making it one of the best performing assets among the top 100 cryptocurrencies during these periods.

Why did ai16z fly away today?

Several catalysts led to ai16z’s recent rally, the most notable being its plans to launch an open source layer 1 blockchain suitable for AI applications, marking a major milestone in its tokenomics overhaul.

Additionally, the project will introduce a token launchpad in the first quarter of 2025, which will become the main platform for deploying AI projects built on the Eliza framework, the project’s AI operating system.

The launchpad is expected to include features such as launch fees, staking requirements for access, and liquidity pool pairs to generate value for the ai16z token. The token will play a dual role, functioning as both a governance token within the DAO and a utility token for platform activities.

Investor sentiment was further boosted by Eliza overtaking Google Gemini to become the world’s top AI repository on GitHub in December, as developers and contributors grew more interested in its codebase.

Strong market performance, combined with growing hype around AI agents, pushed the AI ​​token to trend on Google and secure a top spot on CoinGecko.

Increase accumulation of whales over the past week, it has also helped extend the crypto-AI rally.

According to an X of December 31 job According to Lookonchain, two wallets likely belonging to the same whale purchased 2.62 million ai16z tokens for 22,641 SOL worth approximately $4.34 million following recent developments around ai16z.

Additionally, another whale acquired 1.19 million ai16z tokens for 1.65 million USDC at an average price of $1.39 per token.

Some of the big players are already making huge profits. A few weeks earlier, another whale makes a profit of $5.66 million after spending 10 million USDC to purchase 13.16 million AI16Z tokens, which then appreciated to reach a value of $15.66 million.

Additionally, the demand for ai16z among derivatives traders has increased significantly over the past day. According to data From CoinGlass, open interest in the ai16z futures market increased 256% to over $22.5 million at press time.

Such a sharp upward move usually means that traders are very confident in the potential for the current rally to persist.

According to some market experts, ai16z could outperform other AI heavyweights like Virtual protocol (VIRTUAL). Daniel Cheung, partner at crypto VC Syncracy Capital, projects that recent developments have positioned ai16z to surpass VIRTUAL, the largest AI agent creation tool by market capitalization.

At the time of writing, VIRTUAL had a market capitalization of $3.68 billion, while ai16z stood at $1.79 billion.