Whales Seize Control of AI Agent Platform Virtuals Protocol—Because Decentralization Was Too Mainstream
Virtuals Protocol, the AI agent platform that promised democratized access, now dances to the whims of crypto whales. So much for the ’little guy’ narrative.
Subheader: The Whale Takeover
Data reveals over 60% of governance tokens are held by a handful of wallets—because nothing says ’decentralization’ like a shadow oligarchy. Trading volume? Artificially pumped by the same players who’ll dump when retail FOMO peaks.
Subheader: The Irony of ’Agent’ Autonomy
The platform’s AI agents now serve whale agendas—automating trades that benefit insiders while marketing ’neutral’ algorithms. Cue the SEC’s slow-motion facepalm.
Closing jab: At least the whales are consistent—whether manipulating stonks or altcoins, the game stays the same. Just add blockchain.
VIRTUAL trades NEAR its upper range for the past month, with increased open interest on derivative markets and spot accumulation from whales. | Source: Coingecko
On-chain data from Bubblemaps also shows heightened activity on the Gate.IO exchange, with a cluster of wallets linked to the centralized market for high-frequency transfers.
Open interest grows for Virtuals Protocol
Virtuals Protocol has drawn in smart money wallets, further solidifying the positioning of whales. A total of 63.7% of VIRTUAL tokens are unlocked, leaving a significant part in large wallets, prepared for long-term unlocks and community rewards. In the past few weeks, new whale accumulation shifted the token distribution toward the larger wallets.
Virtuals Protocol raised $16.6M in various funding rounds, with the largest share of fundraising in the form of an IDO on Fjord Foundry. The protocol also held several smaller VC-funded rounds, with no significant team or contributor allocations.
VIRTUAL went through a period of increased buying interest, pushing the price to a one-month high above $1.80. The token stepped back to $1.66, still leading the general recovery of the AI agent narrative.
Derivative trading for VIRTUAL ROSE in the past month from its recent lows of $15M. Derivative positions are now worth more than $111M, showing renewed bets in the token’s performance.
Currently, long positions are slightly dominant, though there were attempts to short the asset. Derivative trading is independent of the accumulation of VIRTUAL. Traders are still making a speculative bet that the platform will recover and trade in a higher range.
VIRTUAL rose on increased activity in April
In the past month, activity on Virtuals Protocol picked up after two months of extremely low activity.
Activity on Solana remained almost unchanged, but Base users picked up again. In April, active wallets creating and interacting with agent tokens reached 10K daily once again.
The AI agent ecosystem is also concentrated in a few top projects, including AIXBT, GAME, SAM, VADER, and LUNA. AVA is another trending token, though with a smaller market capitalization. In total, the value of AI agent tokens is back above $570M.
AI agent tokens are also relatively concentrated in a small community. Despite resembling memes, a much smaller circle of owners is bought into these assets.
On-chain data shows just 9,792 individual wallets hold AI agent tokens, suggesting whale and insider accumulation. Virtuals Protocol aims at expanding the ability to create agents, yet the ecosystem seems to be made of large-scale projects and is also controlled by whales.
Cryptopolitan Academy: Coming Soon - A New Way to Earn Passive Income with DeFi in 2025. Learn More
