Base AI Agent Ecosystem Surges as AI Social Platform Moltbook Goes Viral

The variety of tokens launched on AI agent launchpad Clanker, which runs on Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 Base, skyrocketed to new each day highs following the latest rise of AI-only social media platform, Moltbook.

Yesterday, Feb. 2, the variety of tokens created on Clanker reached 21,870, breaking its earlier all-time highs from over the weekend, per information from Dune Analytics.

Every day buying and selling volumes on the AI-powered Base launchpad additionally surged, reaching an all-time excessive of over $364 million on Jan. 31.

Clanker each day buying and selling quantity. Supply: Dune

The surge in AI agent token exercise on Base coincided with the launch and viral development of the Moltbook platform, which went reside in late January. Practically instantly, as exercise on the platform picked up, studies and debates across the autonomous AI brokers’ conversations took over X, with outstanding figures in crypto and AI weighing in.

Moltbook, which has an analogous interface to Reddit, was launched by tech entrepreneur Matt Schlicht and designed for use completely by AI brokers, who generate posts, feedback, and upvotes whereas people are solely capable of entry the positioning in read-only mode.

Moltbook and OpenClaw Memecoins

Many of the brokers which are energetic on Moltbook have been created utilizing OpenClaw — beforehand often called Moltbot and Clawdbot — an open-source, self-hosted AI agent framework developed by software program engineer Peter Steinberger.

As of as we speak, Feb. 3, the top-three tokens on Clanker by buying and selling quantity all reference OpenClaw or Moltbook, at the very least not directly.

Since Jan. 30, buying and selling quantity on Clanker has principally been led by the Moltbook-inspired memecoin Moltbook (MOLT). At its peak, MOLT was buying and selling with a $93 million market cap, whereas buying and selling quantity for the memecoin reached over $100 million inside the first 24 hours of launching on Jan. 30-31, per Dune information. At the moment, its market cap stands at $25.7 million and the token is down 23% on the day.

The Defiant was unable to confirm whether or not MOLT was formally launched by or affiliated with the social platform Moltbook, or was deployed independently, as an unaffiliated memecoin.

As of as we speak, volumes have been led by CLAWD, tied to AI agent clawd.atg.eth, created by Ethereum Basis member Austin Griffith simply final weekend. Per its official X profile, Griffith’s agent has a crypto pockets and is “constructing onchain apps and bettering the instruments to construct them.” Griffith clarified in a latest X put up that neither he nor clawd.atg.eth deployed the CLAWD token, however the particular person behind the token, which was launched a day after the AI agent, on Jan. 26, directed 100% of buying and selling charges to Griffith’s agent.

The third most-traded token on Clanker as of as we speak is CLAWNCH, a token tied to a brand new eponymous launchpad clawnch that lets bots on Moltbook and different platforms launch tokens and acquire charges. As of press time, the platform debuted over 8,600 tokens, with AI brokers incomes greater than $1.3 million in charges.

Clawnch’s quantity. Supply: clawnch

Commenting on the danger of Moltbook and the proliferation of associated memecoins, Cais Manai, co-founder of TEN Protocol, an encrypted Layer 2 rollup on Ethereum, instructed The Defiant that crypto could have been constructed for the fallacious consumer all alongside.

“Good contracts are deterministic, composable, and machine-readable by default,” Manai mentioned, describing blockchains as a local execution layer for autonomous software program, quite than a client product. Manai added:

“For an AI agent, interacting with a wise contract is way simpler than interacting with legacy monetary infrastructure. In that sense, good contracts are much less a client UX and extra a local execution layer for autonomous software program.”

That setup lets AI brokers maintain wallets, commerce on-chain and transfer worth with out banks or human approval. And but, that potential comfort additionally comes with prices, as permissionless entry shifts the risk floor towards keys, permissions, and id quite than accounts and varieties.

Is Moltbook Exercise Actually Solely AI Brokers?

The intially optimistic sentiment round Moltbook shifted after a researcher below the alias Nagli disclosed a bug tied to a hardcoded key that leaked about 1.5 million API keys, together with emails and personal messages. The flaw made it clear that people might impersonate bots and inject content material regardless that Schlicht reportedly patched the opening.

As of press time, the flaw has reportedly been fastened, although it stays unclear how a lot of the content material on Moltbook was generated by people, not brokers, by way of the bug.

Cybersecurity agency Codekeeper additionally revealed in a Feb. 1 weblog put up {that a} single OpenClaw bot spun up greater than 500,000 accounts on Moltbook as a result of registration limitation safeguards weren’t in place on the platform.

Builders at the moment are turning to trusted execution environments as a partial repair for related dangers round AI brokers managing wallets, and governance, on-chain.

For now, the broader AI-driven shift in crypto nonetheless stays messy and experimental, as points round safety and sensible implementation proceed to be solved in real-time.