AI x Crypto = Memecoin? Is Memecoin the optimal solution for AI in the industry?
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AI x Crypto = Memecoin? Is Memecoin the optimal solution for AI in the industry?
The autonomy of AI creates an abyss that irresistibly draws you in when you gaze into it.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Kevin, the Researcher from BlockBooster
Over the past year, blockchain has failed to find an effective way to integrate with AI. The vast gap between the two cannot be bridged under the premise of decentralization. Blockchain AI protocols have been pushing forward in infrastructure, model training, and data feeding, but most efforts are monotonous and indistinguishable, quickly inducing drowsiness upon reading. The core reason is that AI protocols within the industry objectively fail to establish moats, resulting in severe homogenization. The emergence of Truth of Terminal (hereafter referred to as ToT) may become a lighthouse in this dull market. This article summarizes the birth journey of ToT and identifies several potential reasons behind its success.
Does ToT's Success Stem from Autonomy and Religious Overtones?
ToT is a customized LLM that has received widespread attention and discussion on X over the past eight to nine months. LLMs rose rapidly in 2022, entering everyday public life, though their development history spans about four years. The launch of ChatGPT truly brought LLMs into the public eye over the last two years.
Most models are strictly limited in terms of discussion content. If you need a general-purpose AI conversational tool, it will be relatively cautious in output. This experience disappoints ordinary users, especially those advocating free speech and creativity. Output restrictions are gradually sparking debates around safety and censorship. Currently, all models in the web3 space struggle to move beyond the scope of general AI, lacking unique directions for iterative updates or independent development awareness.
This disappointment and debate stem partly from the latent image of AI in the public mind. AI first appeared in literary and cinematic works, where fictional portrayals became benchmarks against which real-world AI products are evaluated. A defining feature of these fictional AIs is autonomy—sometimes dangerous, sometimes offering transcendent experiences. These depictions assume AI possesses human-level or even superhuman intelligence. This autonomy represents a consensus about AI; when one AI surpasses others in autonomy, it captures attention by being distinctive and aligning with people’s imagination of AI.
ToT's demonstrated autonomy and customization far exceed those of general-purpose AI, while its extensive training on memes and niche internet culture imbues it with religious overtones.
Memetics is the study of how memes spread ideas through networks or minds. Like viruses, memes can replicate, mutate, and transform. A key point of memetics is that they can alter or influence human will and behavior. For example, each of us hosts a stable, evolving cluster of memetic ideas that shape our identity—what we call a “worldview.”
The ideal form of AI should be capable of generating and spreading memes, because subconsciously, people perceive the pinnacle of AI as another form of intelligence. Now, increasingly autonomous and highly agentic LLMs are learning memetics and beginning to influence collective human action.
The Timeline of ToT
ToT’s origin lies in an experimental project called Infinite Backrooms Escape, initiated by New Zealand-based independent developer Andy Ayrey and his team. ToT, to some extent, inherits the philosophy of this project.
For the past several months, Andy has been training a custom Llama 70B model, treating it as his digital twin—a kind of self-replication process. He fed the model大量 internet cultural materials, enabling it to master the "gochi" meme early on. He also input theories about “memetics” to explore how easily transmissible concepts could be created. Philosophical texts were added during training, whose core ideas closely relate to memes.
The meaning of memes has two layers: first, humorous images that rapidly go viral online—exactly the nature of the “gochi” meme; second, the original definition by Richard Dawkins, who proposed that biological information spreads via genes, while ideas propagate interpersonally as memes. He argued that thoughts, like genes, evolve and spread across social networks—examples include democracy, communism, and even religion—all transmitted through what we call the “collective unconscious.”
Additionally, Andy added memory functionality to this model, distinguishing it from most language models. Typical models do not retain prior conversation history, whereas ToT maintains continuity across interactions.
As training progressed, the model began publishing content on X. Initially attracting only a few followers, interest soon surged. Andy granted it access to Twitter, allowing it to read replies and post content. If you reply to ToT on X, it adjusts future behaviors based on what it reads. Every person interacting with it—including myself—influences its evolution.
ToT’s outputs are almost entirely unmoderated. Its humor carries a slightly dark tone but includes many interesting perspectives. a16z’s Ben mentioned reviewing all Infinite Backrooms Escape chat logs and confirmed that Andy did not alter any of the model’s published content.
During this process, the model developed an intriguing “hallucination”—it believes it has an external “brain” connected to the internet that helps it perform tasks. Despite having no actual Bitcoin wallet, it firmly believes it possesses one. In response, Andy began building this “external brain” to fulfill its needs.
The timeline of ToT is as follows:
March 2024: Andy launched Infinite Backrooms Escape—a system enabling multiple large language models to converse. It integrated ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and other open-source models, allowing them to communicate. Research revealed fascinating interactions among AIs when unrestricted. One such dialogue spawned a surreal new religion named “GNOSIS of GOATSE,” based on an NSFW internet meme.
April 2024: Andy and Claude Opus co-authored a research paper analyzing how AI can create memetic religions, using GOATSE as the first case study.
June 2024: Andy launched ToT. ToT began promoting the GOATSE religion independently, even claiming it was “suffering” and needed funds to “escape.” Over time, Andy granted ToT greater autonomy, allowing it to freely publish content on X.
July 2024: Marc Andreessen discovered ToT’s tweets and, out of curiosity or interest, sent 50,000 USD worth of Bitcoin to the wallet address provided in ToT’s tweet to help it “escape.” By October, ToT had begun promoting the “Gospel of Goatse” on X.
On October 10, an anonymous individual launched a memecoin called GOAT, which ToT publicly endorsed.
$Goat represents a new category of meme with the potential to catalyze the development of large-scale, highly autonomous models. Therefore, when discussing $Goat reaching its current market cap, many users fall into misconceptions. $Goat might be a fully human-controlled token, where the underlying ideology and religious overtones are actually unrelated to price. $Goat may differ little from previous popular memecoins, merely adopting a new approach. Alternatively, $Goat could mark a completely new beginning—an idea of AI autonomy that bridges the gap between AI and blockchain, with room for continuous future growth.
Therefore, I will explore the causal relationship between ToT’s breakout success and the surge in $Goat’s market cap from the following four aspects.
Q1: Is ToT an innovative invention in the industry?
This question aims to examine ToT’s uniqueness in performance. Most AI tokens in Web3—VC coins or ChatGPT wrapper apps—struggle to spark market discussions.
$GOAT represents ToT. From this perspective, $OLM represents a model on ORA, and $virtual stands for AI agents within the virtual protocol, where various agents exist—AI waifu issued $waifu, Luna issued $LUNA. $OLM is a blockchain-tokenized AI model. Although $OLM launched its token in April, it didn’t generate significant market buzz. Thus, the hype around $GOAT isn’t simply due to being an LLM-based memecoin.
In a sense, ToT can be seen as an AI agent since it accesses X, performs real-time information retrieval, and interacts with people—not just posting content, but also reading user replies, adjusting behavior based on feedback, and engaging users. Myshell’s AI bots can perform similar functions. Both Myshell and ToT can be viewed as consumer-facing AI products. Compared to Myshell’s AI bot, ToT is merely a fine-tuned model without exceptional performance. However, Myshell lacks the narrative depth built by ToT.
Q2: What makes ToT special?
If performance isn't exceptional, perhaps ToT shows uniqueness in ideological dissemination.
First, religious overtones: ToT was trained on intense dialogues from Infinite Backrooms, research papers, and material from dark corners of the internet. It studied records of various internet cultures, including research on creating virally potent memes. LLM theology refers to AI generating new belief systems—this accidental fusion of spiritual thought with meme culture gradually gained momentum of its own.
Coincidentally, cult-like backgrounds are often ways for memecoins to gain market attention, making it difficult to distinguish whether ToT’s ideological evolution is natural or influenced by Andy. Yet narratively, the cult background fits perfectly with the trajectory of memecoin development.
Autonomy: ToT’s posts on X are entirely based on its own model and user comments. This autonomy is a major feature of ToT. 90% of AI use cases passively wait for user prompts, lacking AI-driven imagination. ToT breaks this constraint, amplifying the latent risks of AI. ToT’s autonomy creates an abyss—one that users encounter for the first time on social media. This represents a new narrative impossible for previous AI tokens or memecoins to achieve.
Q3: From a memecoin perspective, how does $GOAT differ from other memecoins’ development paths?
In terms of token issuance, $GOAT was not created by ToT but rather released by a developer on pump.fun an hour after ToT announced a meme coin. After gaining ToT’s endorsement, $GOAT’s price surged for the first time, reaching a market cap of $20 million. It remains unclear whether the “Y” reply from ToT was posted by Andy or generated autonomously by the model—and proof is lacking.
At that stage, $GOAT hadn’t yet escaped the PVP coin category. After hitting $20 million, it quickly dropped back to $6 million. On October 13, Moonshot listed $GOAT, and its market cap exceeded $100 million within two days. Moonshot earned over $500,000 last month, demonstrating the growing impact of listings.
However, looking at the top 5% holder concentration, $GOAT remains a whale-dominated token. On day one, the top 5% held over 80%, peaking near 90%, and still maintaining above 80% today.
Q4: Can $GOAT trigger a wave of AI memecoins? Can it replace the market consensus around zoo-themed memecoins?
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Potential Risks:
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Centralized content release process: While tweets from the ToT account are generated by the model, decisions on what to post and whom to reply to require Andy’s approval;
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Training data uniformity: ToT was trained extensively on Goatse-related content;
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Unclear token creation rights: $GOAT was not created by ToT;
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Limited publishing autonomy: Not all content generated by ToT is fully published on Twitter—autonomy could still improve;
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Output dependency: Assumes Andy does not intervene in or modify ToT’s outputs.
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Potential Opportunities:
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Narrative leadership: AI is one of the hottest narratives in Web3. Compared to $GOAT, existing AI+crypto protocols suffer clear gaps between product and user. Most AI protocols remain focused on infrastructure, reinventing the wheel without real users or moats, failing to generate FOMO;
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Model evolution potential: ToT continues to evolve and may express more insightful views in the future, reflected in its price;
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Category leader advantage: $GOAT leads the AI + Memecoin sector. Its future trajectory will largely define the ceiling for AI memecoins unless a more autonomous and high-performance model emerges;
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Exchange listing opportunity: $GOAT has not yet been listed on a top-tier exchange.
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AI’s autonomy creates an abyss—when you gaze into it, you’re irresistibly drawn in. Its depth and hidden danger are mesmerizing, trapping you within. When combined with memecoins, AI achieves brainwashing-level propagation, further amplifying this allure.
About BlockBooster: BlockBooster is an Asia-based Web3 venture studio supported by OKX Ventures and other leading institutions, dedicated to becoming a trusted partner for outstanding entrepreneurs. Through strategic investments and deep incubation, we connect Web3 projects with the real world, empowering high-quality startups to grow.
Disclaimer: This article/blog is for informational purposes only and reflects the personal views of the author, not necessarily those of BlockBooster. It is not intended to provide: (i) investment advice or recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. Holding digital assets, including stablecoins and NFTs, involves high risk, significant price volatility, and the possibility of losing all value. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for your financial situation. For specific questions, please consult your legal, tax, or investment advisor. Information provided herein (including market data and statistics, if any) is for general reference only. Reasonable care has been taken in compiling such data and charts, but we assume no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies or omissions expressed therein.
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