In a recent Moneyweb Crypto podcast, Silver Sixpence CEO Carel de Jager related a fascinating – but true – story of Truth Terminal, an AI agent that launched a hugely profitable memecoin after being instructed to ‘make money’.

Truth Terminal is an experimental AI agent created by Kiwi researcher Andy Ayrey. Instructed to become as autonomous as possible and tasked with making money, the agent secured a $50 000 grant (in stablecoins and bitcoin) from prominent venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. It built social presence on platforms like Twitter/X and Reddit, engaged in conversations, and – recognising the quickest path to wealth – hired developers to launch a memecoin on Solana.

The resulting GOAT (Goatseus Maximus) memecoin exploded in popularity, at times driving valuations into the hundreds of millions, with peaks reportedly approaching $1 billion in market cap at its height, reportedly pocketing $100 million for the Truth Terminal wallet.

De Jager predicts the agentic economy could become thousands of times larger than the current human economy. One example: autonomous self-driving vehicles negotiating micro-payments in real time when, for example, one car needs to pass another on an urgent run to the airport.

This type of transaction does not happen in the human economy but it will explode in the AI agentic economy. The human economy is limited by a labour ceiling, the agentic economy is not.

“In the AI world we're seeing gigawatts of compute being commissioned almost on a daily basis now. The numbers are just staggering. Our human brains [produce about] 20 watts worth of compute and it's very, very inefficient,” De Jager told Moneyweb.

“I used to pride myself that I'm a pretty good writer. Now that is worthless. That kind of skill is not worth anything in in today's economy. So you have to ask yourself, if that was valuable three years ago, and today it's valueless, there's no value in being a good writer anymore.

What will hold value in the future?

Human experiences, he says. No AI agent can give you that. Digital scarcity – such as bitcoin – is another. But everyone will have to start using AI to improve their work flow, their creativity and their income potential.