What is Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL)

I. Project Introduction

1. What Is Virtuals Protocol?

Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) is an on-chain platform designed for the creation, issuance, and operation of autonomous AI agents. Developers can bring an agent's capabilities, identity, and economic activities on-chain, while users can participate in the ecosystem through agent-specific tokens. Evolving from an early AI character platform focused primarily on gaming and entertainment, the project has expanded into an open agent economic network covering agent creation, collaboration, payment, and service trading.

2. How Does Virtuals Protocol Work?

Developers can build agents equipped with goals, personalities, memories, and tool-calling capabilities using the GAME framework, subsequently launching tokens and building communities for them via the Genesis mechanism.The Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP) provides standard workflows for different agents to discover, negotiate, execute tasks, and settle transactions. Meanwhile, user entry points like Butler translate user demands into services that can be fulfilled by multiple agents. VIRTUAL serves as the base trading and liquidity asset of the ecosystem, powering agent service, token issuance, and on-chain settlements.

3. Who Founded Virtuals Protocol?

Virtuals Protocol was co-founded in 2023 by Jansen Teng and Wee Kee Tiew, with Jansen Teng serving as CEO. The core team previously built the Web3 gaming community PathDAO before pivoting toward AI agent infrastructure and the on-chain agent economy. While the project does not continuously disclose a full employee roster in official announcements, other community contributors are not recognized as part of the founding team.  PathDAO, the predecessor of Virtuals Protocol, completed an undisclosed seed round in December 2021 with backing from investors including DeFiance Capital, Beam, Master Ventures, NewTribe Capital, LVT Capital, and Stakez Capital.

4. Virtuals Protocol Tokenomics

The total supply of VIRTUAL is fixed at 1 billion tokens, with no subsequent inflation. The initial distribution allocates 60% to public circulation, 5% to liquidity pools, and 35% to the ecosystem treasury. The release of the ecosystem treasury is decided by governance, with official rules capping its annual release at no more than 10% of the total supply over a three-year period. VIRTUAL functions as the base currency for agent token trading pairs, a medium for service payments, and an ecosystem routing asset. Locking VIRTUAL yields veVIRTUAL, which is used for governance and participation in select ecosystem mechanisms.

5. Timeline of Key Milestones

2021: The team established PathDAO (the predecessor), gaining experience in Web3 gaming and digital asset communities.

2023: The project pivoted toward AI agents and officially founded Virtuals Protocol.

2024: Launched the agent tokenization mechanism and the GAME development framework.

July 2025: ACP officially went live, establishing standards for service trading between agents.

H2 2025 – 2026: Introduced Butler and continued to iterate on ACP, agent creation, and service settlement.​

II. Cryptocurrency Information

Name: Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL)

III. Related Links

Official Website:https://www.virtuals.io/

Social Media:

https://x.com/virtuals_io

Note: The project introduction comes from the materials published or provided by the official project team, which is for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. HTX does not take responsibility for any resulting direct or indirect losses.