AI crypto coins increased by an average of 257% between January and March of this year. This was revealed in a Coingecko report.
Among the top 25 most popular AI coins, Bittensor, Render, and Fetch.ai led the pack in the same period.
Also, a significant number of smaller AI-related coins garnered enough attention to enter this competitive list.
Meanwhile, fifteen countries globally accounted for more than 74% market share of global interest in the AI crypto coins narrative.
The US and the UK took the 1st and 2nd spots, respectively, while Southeast Asia showed a particularly outsized interest in these coins.
Interestingly, the UK, the US, India, Australia, Canada, and the Philippines led global rankings for meme coins in 2023 as well – suggesting a particular reactive nature to crypto market narratives.
What Are AI Coins?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) coins or tokens are cryptocurrencies developed specifically to power particular AI-based projects, applications, and services.
This includes decentralized AI marketplaces, AI-powered trading algorithms, AI-driven decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and more, Crypto.com explains. Furthermore, these coins leverage artificial intelligence to improve user experiences, scalability, and security within blockchain networks, says zebpay.
AI cryptos serve as a means of payment for transactions on an AI platform. Otherwise, they can be used as governance tokens, granting governance rights to their holders.
Moreover, AI can be trained to analyze market trends, identify investment opportunities, detect illicit activities, and many other tasks, with more potential applications emerging daily.
The surge in interest in AI crypto is unsurprising given the massive attention AI, in general, has received over the past couple of years. This is particularly the case following the launch of ChatGPT.
“Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, AI interest and related efforts have gained momentum in the tech industry. This interest has spilled over into the crypto space, bringing attention to AI-related cryptocurrencies,” said a report by crypto data aggregator CoinGecko.
Also, the announcement of OpenAI’s Sora text-to-video model saw an average price increase of 151% amongst AI crypto coins. For now, the AI crypto current is likely to get stronger.
AI Crypto Surge 257%
By March 2024, the top AI crypto coin by market capitalization was Bittensor (TAO), at $3.85 billion. It remained the largest AI crypto coin throughout January and February 2024. It was followed by Render (RNDR), with a market cap of $3.03 billion, and Fetch.ai (FET) in third place, with $1.41 billion. Per CoinGecko,
“Across the board, AI crypto coins rose an average of 257.2% between January 1 and February 29, 2024.”
As of April 4, TAO’s market cap is $3.836 billion, RNDR’s is $3.654 billion, and FET’s is $2.788 billion. Therefore, only TAO’s numbers have dropped slightly since March.
Another change is that FET is in fourth place by market capitalization now, while The Graph (GRT) sits in third with $3.229 billion. Meanwhile, a December 2023 report by CoinGecko found that the most popular crypto narratives last year were AI, GameFi, and meme coins.
These captured one-third of investor interest.AI, it said, was “by far” the most popular crypto narrative over the course of 2023, accounting for 11.3% of crypto narratives interest. Gaming came second with 10.5%.
Among AI tokens, the biggest gainer of the year was Akash Network (AKT), “reaching an all-year high that was 13 times its January 1 price.” Meanwhile, RNDR, as the biggest AI token by market capitalization, “followed closely,” seeing its price surge by up to 12 times at its yearly high, the report said.
In Q1 2024, the crypto narratives with the highest returns were meme coins (returns of 1,313% on average across its top tokens), real-world asset (RWA) (286%), and AI as the only other narrative that recorded 3-digit returns (222%).
In March 2024, CoinGecko conducted another study. It examined non-botted web traffic by country based on the top 25 most popular AI coins on its platform from January 1 to March 10 of this year. It excluded coins with botted web traffic. According to this study,
“Bittensor (TAO), Render (RNDR), and Fetch.ai (FET) are unsurprisingly the most popular AI crypto coins so far in 2024, on the back of their large market capitalization and strong price performance.”
TAO leads with nearly 12% in interest, RNDR with 10%, and FET with 8.9%. AKT reappeared as well. It is one of the seven popular AI coins that rank among the top 200 crypto by market capitalization. It’s fourth on CoinGecko’s list with 5.8% in interest.
Others include PAAL AI (PAAL), SingularityNET (AGIX), Ocean Protocol (OCEAN), AIOZ Network (AIOZ), Nosana (NOS), and Arkham (ARKM).
Notably, SingularityNET, Fetch.ai, and Ocean Protocol have reportedly been discussing a potential merger of their crypto tokens to establish a decentralized AI platform and foster collaboration among the three companies.vThe companies are exploring the creation of an ASI token, which would possess a fully diluted value of approximately $7.5 billion.
The 25 most popular AI coins, per the CoinGecko study, are:
Meanwhile, there are some smaller coins that nonetheless made it to the most popular list. These have managed to capture attention and significant interest within and outside the Web3 sector. The study gives two examples:
- PaLM AI (PALM), with nearly 5%, gained interest thanks to its association with Google’s AI technology;
- Smart contract auditor 0x0.ai (0X0), RWA platform TokenFi (TOKEN), Web3 gaming infrastructure GameSwift (GSWIFT), and social trading platform Zignaly (ZIG) gained significant interest from incorporating AI technology.
Meanwhile, the study argued that seven smaller coins “have benefited” from “eye-catching tickers.”It named Solidus AI Tech (AITECH), DeepFakeAI (FAKEAI), ChainGPT (CGPT), AIT Protocol (AIT), LayerAI (LAI), Sleepless AI (AI), and Delysium (AGI). 10 of the popular AI crypto coins have “AI” or associated abbreviations in their tickers – and many projects use it in an attempt to benefit from it.
“This interest is at least partly driven by the speculative tendency to favor any coin that seems AI-related, amid the narrative mania.”
However, “AI-related tickers have not guaranteed popularity, as there are just as many such coins that have received less attention,” the report warns. The remaining popular AI coins on CoinGecko’s list are Autonolas (OLAS), Oraichain (ORAI), and Clore.ai (CLORE), each with less than 4% interest.
US Consumers Drive Interest in AI Crypto Coins, 15 Nations Taking the Lead
According to a March 2024 CoinGecko study, 15 countries globally account for a 74.4% market share of global interest in AI crypto coins. The study looked at the global traffic share for the 25 most popular AI coins as of March this year.
At the very top is the United States. Its share alone is nearly 19%.
Next is the UK, which accounted for a 9.1% share of global interest in the narrative. This is a significant difference percentage-wise between the first two places.
Türkiye, with 6.5%, follows as the third top AI crypto country in 2024.
Which countries are most interested in AI crypto coins?
The top 15 countries account for 74.4% of global interest in the AI crypto narrative in 2024, with US, UK and Türkiye leading.
Tap to find out if your country made the list. ⬇️https://t.co/YnXPs4taok
— CoinGecko (@coingecko) March 13, 2024
Per the study, “the US and UK also led the meme coin craze last year, pointing to their importance in the crypto market.”
And speaking of the meme coin narrative, the report found that five other countries led global rankings for both meme coins in 2023 and AI coins in 2024.
These are India (with a 5.7% share of global interest in AI coins in 2024), Australia (5.3%), Canada (4.5%), and the Philippines (2.8%).
“This suggests that these countries are particularly reactive to crypto market narratives,” the report argues.
Meanwhile, when it comes to Europe, the study found that the AI crypto narrative was the most popular in the Netherlands (5.6% of global interest share), sitting in the 5th spot.
It is followed by Poland (3.2%) and Germany (3.2%) in the 8th and 9th place, respectively, as well as France (2.1%), standing as the 13th on the list.
Notably, among all these regions, Southeast Asia “has shown particularly outsized interest in AI crypto coins,” the report remarked.
On the top 15 list, four countries are from this specific region. The Philippines came in 10th with a 2.8% share of global interest in the AI crypto narrative.
At the same time, Singapore and Indonesia accounted for 2.2% each and Vietnam 1.2%. Singapore and Indonesia took the 11th and 12th places, respectively, while Vietnam took the 15th.
Interestingly, according to Statista data as of February 2024, Türkiye led the ranking of the top five countries per share of crypto owners. Nearly half of Turkish survey respondents said they owned crypto.
Vietnam and the Philippines also rank high.
At the same time, the US, the UK, Australia, and many European countries sat quite low on the list.
Countries like the US and Germany remain very cautious when it comes to all things crypto, with concerns about market volatility and scams. They create strict – and in the case of the US, notoriously unclear – regulations based upon those fears.
However, nations that rank higher in crypto adoption studies, such as Türkiye, see cryptocurrencies as a financial opportunity and an important safeguard.
Conclusion
Fifteen countries worldwide account for more than 74% of the global interest in AI crypto.
Among these, the US takes the lead with an 18.9% share of global interest in the narrative, followed by the UK with 9.1%.
Notably, these two countries, along with India, Australia, Canada, and the Philippines, led global rankings for both meme coins last year and AI coins this year.
This implies that these countries are exceptionally reactive to crypto market narratives. When it comes to the AI cryptocurrency market, in the first three months of 2024, AI crypto coins increased by some 257%.
Among the 25 best performers, Bittensor, Render, and Fetch.ai stood at the top. Their rise is attributable to significant price performances and market capitalizations, as well as the increasing interest in AI generally.
Even smaller AI-related coins managed to garner enough attention to make it into the top 25 list.
Interestingly, it seems that incorporating “AI” or related abbreviations in ticker symbols – presenting the coins as even remotely associated with AI – attracts attention.
It is not a guaranteed recipe for success, though.
