83% Surge in One Day After Listing… Will AI Coin 'DeepSeek' Overcome the Wave?

Last Year's Rising Star 'AI Agent'

Recent Plunge Due to 'DeepSeek Shock'

ai16z and Others Show Strength Again

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based virtual assets are showing strength once again. The AI-themed virtual assets are drawing attention to see if they can overcome the recent 'DeepSeek wave' that swept the tech industry.

According to the domestic virtual asset exchange Bithumb on the 12th, Cookie DAO (COOKIE) is trading at around 300 KRW. Cookie DAO was listed on the Bithumb KRW market on the 10th. On the day of listing, Cookie DAO surged 83.4% from the base price of 235 KRW to trade at 431 KRW.

Cookie DAO is a project that collects and indexes data for about 1,400 AI agents, launched last year. It is also listed on global virtual asset exchanges like Binance and Bybit. Its market capitalization is about 74 million dollars (approximately 107 billion KRW) as of today.

The listing of Cookie DAO on the domestic KRW market is noteworthy because it is an AI agent-based project. AI agents emerged as the biggest topic in the virtual asset industry last year. Unlike existing AI bots, AI agents are software (SW) that learn, plan, and make decisions on their own without direct human intervention. ai16z and Virtual Protocol are representative AI agents.

Recent Direct Hit from 'DeepSeek Shock'

AI agent-based virtual assets were directly hit by the recent 'DeepSeek Shock'. This was due to the Chinese startup DeepSeek releasing a 'low-cost, high-efficiency' AI model, raising concerns about the US's AI dominance. At the beginning of this month, when US tech stocks plummeted due to the DeepSeek shock, AI agent-based virtual asset sectors like ai16z and Virtual Protocol also experienced a sharp decline.

However, some AI agent-based virtual assets have shown strength again this week. As of today, Cookie DAO is trading at about 0.2 USD, up about 7% from a week ago on CoinMarketCap. The price of ai16z also rose about 33% from a week ago to 0.49 USD. According to CoinMarketCap, the market capitalization of the AI agent-based virtual asset sector is about 5.874 billion dollars (approximately 8.5 trillion KRW) as of today.

The background of this strength is interpreted as the regulatory movements of major countries against DeepSeek. The US, Japan, Taiwan, and others have already blocked government access to DeepSeek due to concerns about information leakage. Korea has also recently joined this regulatory trend. The European Union (EU) is known to be considering additional measures besides the individual DeepSeek regulations of its member countries.

"Integration of AI and Virtual Assets Will Continue to Grow"

The fact that industry figures are continuously criticizing DeepSeek, alleviating concerns about Chinese AI, also had an impact. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year, pointed out on the 10th that the DeepSeek craze is "exaggerated." CEO Hassabis said, "From a technical perspective, there is no scientific progress in DeepSeek," and "it uses already known technologies in the AI field." Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, also said on the same day, "DeepSeek is not an AI revolution," and "a better (AI) model than DeepSeek will be released soon."

The market is dominated by the view that the AI agent-based virtual asset sector will continue to grow steadily. Jack Purdy, Sales Director at virtual asset analysis firm Messari, recently said, "One of the core trends last year was the interaction between AI and the virtual asset ecosystem," and "this year will be the year when the AI agent industry, which laid its foundation last year, expands." Swiss-based virtual asset bank Sygnum Bank said, "The integration of AI and virtual assets is progressing rapidly," and "although the AI agent industry is still in its early stages, various catalysts are supporting its future potential."