Mindshare-Based Investment Strategy Helps Retail Investors Lead the AI Industry | Opinion
The cryptocurrency industry continues to evolve at a rapid pace. New trends emerge in each market cycle and strongly influence retail investors’ investment decisions. Meanwhile, many critics still consider trend-following investments to be short-term, which is detrimental to the long-term growth of the industry.
However, retail investors’ early participation in emerging trends plays an important role in driving innovation and industry development. Unlike institutional investors, who often wait for regulations, retail investors provide the liquidity and attention needed to create momentum for emerging sectors, helping to create waves of innovation.
Mindshare Investing Delivers Long-Term Results
In 2024, artificial intelligence (AI) will become one of the most prominent sectors, attracting great attention from investors with more than 50% of the market share. Along with the strong development of AI-related sectors, such as DeFAI with more than 7,000 projects and a market capitalization of $7 billion, the AI industry has witnessed an explosion of AI infrastructure protocols and AI agents.
Early investors who participated in these sectors have achieved significant returns as the AI industry matures. Contrary to the popular view that mindshare investing is a get-rich-quick scheme, this investment helps identify and provide capital to sectors with innovative potential, bringing long-term benefits to those who invest early.
For example, one category that retail investors have focused on is AI agents. In October 2024, the market cap of AI agents was just $4.8 billion. But when Goatseus Maximus launched its AI token on the Solana platform, the market cap of these tokens skyrocketed 322%, reaching $15.5 billion in December of that year.
AI agents are not just a short-term trend
AI agents are not a fad or simply automated bots on social media. Investing in AI agents means using capital to develop future financial applications. These agents can perform complex tasks in the web3 ecosystem, from liquidity management to automated interactions with users.
A prime example is Eliza, an AI agent from a16z, which has successfully managed an onchain liquidity pool with returns of up to 60% annually. Other use cases for AI agents include automated trading bots, wallet management systems, and smart transactions. As technology continues to advance, AI agents will increasingly be involved in smart contracts, making decisions based on market data and improving customer service.
2024 saw over 10,000 AI agents in the web3 ecosystem earning millions of dollars from on-chain activities. According to VanEck’s 2025 Crypto Report, this number is likely to reach one million agents by the end of the year, and the market capitalization of AI tokens could reach $60 billion, according to Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget.
Retail Capital Is Driving AI Innovation
The majority of investment in AI agents comes from retail investors, demonstrating their power to shape the evolution of technology without the need for venture capital (VC) funding. Mindshare-based investing helps retailers identify potential trends and provide capital for innovative projects.
While VC investors typically wait until an industry is mature enough to ensure steady returns, retail investors are often early to deploy capital to support early-stage innovation. Protocols like Virtuals are empowering non-technical investors to create and profit from AI agents. This creates a positive feedback loop where both investors and AI agents drive each other's growth.
The Future of Mindshare-Based Retail Investing
The explosive growth of AI agents also raises questions about the role of retail investors in driving cutting-edge technology. With nearly 50% of all AI agent tokens held by investors on Solana and Base, retail capital has become a significant driver of growth in this technology sector.
As mindshare narratives continue to dominate the market, retail investors will remain at the forefront of deploying capital into potentially industry-changing technologies. This will not only benefit them, but will also shape the future of financial applications by investing in cutting-edge technology projects.
Mindshare-based investing is more than just chasing short-term trends. It represents a major shift from passive to active investing, with retail investors taking an active role in shaping and developing stories
