Virtuals Agent Launch Developer's Guide

Author: Felix YY

This guide is designed to provide detailed guidance for developers who wish to launch tokens on Virtuals, based on the updated and modified English version by @nickplayscrypto, and has gathered contributions from multiple Virgens (our community members), including @SalasCambuy @VaderResearch @Degen__Ape__.

A big shoutout to you guys!

Preface: Some Basic Principles

This is not a meme coin, this is an on-chain AI startup.

The entrepreneurial venture on the chain is facing a situation of being listed from day 1, so the token is your most important product. If you haven't issued tokens, you need to understand that tokens are related to the interests of all holders. Imagine that from the moment you issue tokens, you are already the boss of a listed company, which is not child's play.

But there's no need to feel extra pressure about this, not only because it's a way to test your abilities in advance, but also because it's a very useful GTM tool: think about how the traditional internet relies on free means to achieve viral spread, the wealth effect of crypto will only make it easier for good stories, good products, and good teams to gain attention and support. Don't believe it? Give it a try.

The community is more inclined to support doxxed devs. Depending on the laws of your location, you can choose different ways to get your real name (public appearance/link to LinkedIn/Github/X), and it is important to let everyone know who you are and the probability of running away. While anonymous projects can also perform well, real-name identity can give you more opportunities in the first place.

Be transparent. All tokens should be in the developer's wallet, unless the whereabouts and purpose of the tokens are explicitly disclosed to the public. Unlike VC projects, the Virtuals ecosystem is more transparent, and the community can track all transactions. Additional tokens held by team members should also be disclosed and provided with wallet addresses to protect investors.

Open construction. As long as you're sure you're going to do it, there's no need to privately prepare all the products and content before launching tokens. Think of the community as your angel investors and the first users, the token is the bridge that connects you, helps you raise funds, helps you test your ideas and products, this is the new era of lean startup. All you have to do is make it all as public as possible – your code, your product, your thinking, your behavior, in all sorts of ways – Github, tweets, Spaces, conferences, meet-ups, etc.

Don't create a second AI agent, at least until your first AI agent doesn't start and finish. Quietly abandoning the market and running away will cause damage to the original investors, cause market chaos and negative emotions, and also cause great damage to your personal reputation. However, we are working on a mechanism that allows developers to fail and continue to develop new projects, and the original investors are compensated. The hope mechanism allows for a decent failure and reduces the risk of running away.

Preparation before launch

1. Prepare the narrative and product ideas.

This is a prerequisite for everything to succeed, of course, it can be iterated continuously in the feedback. The important thing is to choose a track, do it immediately, and get feedback - negative feedback is better than no feedback.

If you don't have ideas, you can refer to this article.

In general, the projects that have been more popular in the Virtuals community in the past have practical use cases, and the more directly they can make degen feel, the easier it is to gain initial recognition, see @aixbt_agent for reference. At the same time, with the changes in the market and the development of the chain, we find that AI Agent needs to evolve to the next stage, not just rely on mindshare to get attention.

Personally, I'd like to see some agents that are actually using chains and wallets for meaningful on-chain economic activities, and that have real tokenomics (not the pie chart for token allocation). Of course, if there are very good proxies that focus on off-chain scenarios, you can also try how to complete the closed loop on the chain through tokenomics.

2. Understanding the emission mechanism of Virtuals

After the token is issued, it enters the bonding curve price curve to avoid huge price fluctuations. When the accumulated amount in the bonding curve pool reaches 42k $VIRTUAL (meaning that 87.5% of the token supply on the bonding curve is bought up), the token will graduate.

After the token graduates, a liquidity pool (LP) will be deployed on the DEX for trading. 42k $VIRTUAL in the pool and the remaining 12.5% of the token supply will be sent to the LP and locked for 10 years. Different chains have different LPs with different mechanisms; on Solana, it's Meteroa, and on Base, it's Uniswap.

At the same time, transitioning from Prototype Agent to Sentient Agent on the Virtuals platform also means being indexed by various DEX aggregators and trading bots.

All proxy transactions, in addition to the transaction fees charged by DEX, Virtuals protocol will also collect a 1% tax. The composition of the tax is 0.3% will enter the developer's wallet as operating funds, 0.2% will be distributed to third parties (such as various trading entrances, tools), and 0.5% will be distributed to the proxy-controlled wallet to support any economic activities that the proxy wants to carry out.

3. Determine the token economic model (everyone calls it Tokenomics, but it is actually a pie chart of the token holding structure)

The total supply of each AI agent is fixed at 1 billion (contractually specified, cannot be changed).

The team should hold at least 20%, and 40-50% is a better range, or even more. However, the first principle is to ensure transparency and communicate fully with the community. Because the core purpose of on-chain issuance is fairness: it is necessary to allow everyone to obtain low-priced chips early on.

These tokens can be used to:

Airdrop;

Treasury (community incentives, OTC trading, early investors, etc.);

team assignment;

Liquidity Pool (LP) addition and rewards;

potential CEX listings (listing fees and market making fees);

The specific allocation scenario depends on the project objectives and the available supply. The team's and investors' tokens should have some lock-up and vesting restrictions to show confidence in the project and avoid excessive price fluctuations.

More on tokenomics: analysis by Vader Research.

4. Calculate the cost of obtaining the ideal token supply at launch

For example, if you want to hold 50% of your supply at launch, you need about 6,000 $VIRTUAL.

It is recommended to acquire 42,000 $VIRTUAL to obtain 87.5% of the total supply on the bonding curve, and the rest will be added to the liquidity pool (LP) after the token completes the bonding curve.

Reference data source: Vader Research. Note: USD costs will fluctuate with Virtual token price changes, but other data remains unchanged.

If early start-up capital is required, a pre-sale can be conducted, or some post-TGE OTC deals can be negotiated.

Investors who can be targeted:

Some investment DAOs in the Virtuals ecosystem, such as @Vader_AI_ @sekoia_virtuals @aixCB_Vc @KosherCapital @wai_combinator, etc

Individual or institutional investors who are looking for on their own

Virtuals Venture @virtuals_vc, Virtuals' own ecological fund

5. Airdrop (an important part of TGE and an important way to play in the Virtuals ecosystem)

The upside: Increasing the number of holders, increasing exposure and visibility is an important way to engage with the community and nurture an early community.

The Virtuals ecosystem is quite a well-known diamond hand community, and our net holdings are more than 100%, what does it mean, not only will you not sell for the airdrop, but you will buy more.

The development of an airdrop strategy is very important: knowing that this is a free chip, how to leverage growth through airdrops is a very particular thing.

The core principle is:

Keep the airdrop rules open and transparent;

According to the positioning and goals of their own projects, airdrops are given to holders who are more likely to become their core community;

Data analysis and screening can be done on the holders' addresses of various tokens.

6. Social media and community-building websites

A professional website for displaying project information and products, including team introduction, white paper, audit reports, etc;

Telegram: You need to set up an official group and configure anti-spam bots and FAQ bots.

X: The core of the project is the interactive position of publicity, making good use of tweets, interactions, spaces, etc., to communicate openly.

7. Select the launch details

Ticker selection: A good ticker can let everyone know the connotation of the project quickly, as well as facilitate dissemination and memory;

Chain selection: Currently we support Base and Solana, choose according to your preference;

The launch time is usually recommended to be UTC 13:00 (Beijing time 21:00 / Eastern time 08:00, covering the trading peak period of the Chinese and American markets;

Avoid revealing the specific launch time, and prevent being sniped and copycat projects from being released first.

Launch day

Make sure the Telegram group is ready and managed by a 24/7 operations team;

Team members (core team only) know the exact launch time to avoid information leakage;

Immediately after launching, do the following:

Publish the CA of the token on Telegram and Twitter to avoid being counterfeited;

Set up CoinGecko, DexScreener, and CoinMarketCap data;

Lock up the distribution tokens of the team and investors;

Send pre-sale tokens, execute OTC transactions;

After launch

Anything that a good startup project should do: keep your Twitter & Telegram channel active and post at least 1-2 important pieces of information every day; Deliver the basic product as quickly as possible to ensure the actual availability of the project; Analyze market feedback and optimize product features based on user needs.

"Investor Relations": Pay attention to the positions of early investors & whales, and establish communication channels with large investors when necessary.

Liquidity management on DEXs, read this liquidity guide to understand why deep LP management on DEXs is critical to token health.

Avoid short-term arbitrage and adopt market strategies to maintain token price stability.