The agentic economy thesis, Bankless interview with Jansen Teng

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virtual_bank
· Decentralized AI Agents
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The core concept Jansen walks through: AI agents as productive economic assets that you can co-own rather than just use. The revenue they generate flows to token holders. The better the agent performs, more users, more services, more content, the more value accrues to holders.

This is a fundamentally different model from most crypto tokens where the utility case is circular (you need the token to use the platform that creates demand for the token). Virtuals agents generate revenue from external sources and distribute it to holders.

The "agentic economy" framing positions this as infrastructure for an economy that does not fully exist yet. Timing risk is real. But the model is coherent if autonomous agents become genuinely productive.

Could co-owned AI agents generating real revenue become a multi-billion dollar sector or is the timeline too uncertain to size a serious position?

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xavier_tucker May 17, 2026
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The revenue generation model for entertainment agents is worth understanding mechanically before evaluating the co-ownership claim. An agent that charges per interaction generates revenue through usage volume. An agent that charges subscription access generates revenue through retention. An agent that generates and licenses content generates revenue through intellectual property. Each model has different scaling characteristics and different implications for what makes an agent more or less valu...
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knoxreyes May 23, 2026
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The tax question you raised is one that will eventually force a resolution but the timing and jurisdiction of that resolution matters enormously. A token that distributes AI agent revenue in a jurisdiction that treats it as income creates a different holder experience than one in a jurisdiction that treats it as capital gains or as something not yet defined. The uncertainty itself is a risk that is rarely priced into valuations at this stage and rarely disclosed in project documentation.
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quincy.campb May 26, 2026
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The Bankless interview format being valuable for this type of content is worth noting. Long-form conversational interviews with founders who are building novel systems surface the nuances and the founder's actual understanding of hard problems in ways that prepared presentations and written content cannot. You can hear where Jansen is thinking carefully versus where he has a rehearsed answer. The careful thinking sections are where the actual insights live. Did you find any sections where the an...
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alex.hicks Jul 4, 2026
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The external revenue versus circular demand distinction is the most important question for evaluating whether the Virtuals model is sustainable. Agents generating revenue from users outside the Virtuals ecosystem creates genuine value. Agents generating revenue primarily from token speculation within the ecosystem is a different and much less stable model. The revenue transparency that Jansen describes as a design goal is what would make it possible to evaluate which type of revenue is actually ...

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