The Agentic Future (01.20.26): Tokenized Vibe Coded Apps
DeAI mindshare hits 32% as "vibe-coding" sparks a wild market cycle. Plus, Render powers A$AP Rocky, NEAR joins NVIDIA, and SUI positions for the 2026 Agentic Economy.
This Crypto AI & Robotics newsletter consists of three parts:
Snippet Partner (Khala Research)
Crypto AI & Robotics Market Overview
Emerging Developments
If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on X or message my business X account ‘Khala Research’
At Khala we released our inaugural report on decentralized robotics, which can be viewed here for free: Link
The reception was very strong with more than 250k views across the Khala X account and 0xSammy X distribution channels
This will be the first of many reports on the intersection of crypto, AI and robotics so stay tuned as we will be releasing our next report in the coming month.
Bonus points if you can guess the topic for the next deep dive? Hint:
This newsletter goes out weekly to 6,999 subscribers.
Please don't hesitate to message me directly for sponsorship or partnership enquiries
AI Roundup
Decentralized AI (“DeAI”) mindshare is up 1% to 32% this week as tokenization of vibe coded apps revives “the crypto trenches”:
Several tokens were launched on behalf of developers of vibe coded apps, who were incentivized to adopt the coins using the creator fees.
The initial hype drove significant attention and capital to the tokens, driving “Gas App” to $60m market cap, but only momentarily before it crashed to $1m again.
The problem? Incentives.
Once the developers had received the initial fees, volume drops and incentives dry up for ongoing development of the vibe coded application.
However revised financial frameworks are being refined to explore capital formation around single founder protocols, vibe coded using the ever improving AI tooling:
IdeaRalph offers an alternative solution, with more sustainable financial incentives for vibe coders.
To caveat, this is all experimental but it’s this iterative process that could result in a new protocol that enables budding vibe entrepreneurs to bring their apps to market in a more productive manner.
A) DeAI Market Cap
The overall DeAI market cap has declined by $2.5bn (-8%) to $27bn this week:
The core price action follows the majors, where Bitcoin experienced a sharp sell off of $3k (-3%) to $92 within an hour on the 18th, in response to the Geopolitical Tensions; Trump’s tariff threats sparked risk-off sentiment, hitting crypto assets.
Several key developments continue among these top AI protocols:
TAO: Subnet development continues as Hermes (Subnet 82) goes live and more transactions take place as DSV execute transactions on two alpha tokens (FlameWire (SN97) and Vericore (SN70).
Rendernetwork: (a blockchain platform that lets people share their computers’ graphics power) released an upgraded version of its 3D rendering software (Octane 2026) on January 14, and it was immediately used to create special effects for A$AP Rocky’s asvpxrocky new music video:
NEARProtocol joined NVIDIA Inception program, gaining access to GPU resources, tools, and expertise for privacy-preserving AI development
B) Robotics Market Cap
The Robotics market cap is down $143m (-15%) this week, despite the heightened attention:
The key driver is the consistent pull back across the board on all of crypto, with the robotics tokens experiencing double digit declines across the ecosystem.
We are monitoring the decentralized robotics ecosystem closely and anticipate the next few years to see an explosion in growth:
Note: If you’d like to learn more about the current Decentralized Robotics landscape you can find more in our latest report, available at: Link
C) Ecosystem Analysis: SUI AI
This segment will explore a standalone ecosystem for AI protocols emerging; we will delve into SUI this week to understand the latest AI developments and positioning:
In December 2025, A16z outlined “17 things we’re excited about for crypto in 2026”, three topics of which were AI related:
From know your customer (KYC) to ‘know your agent’ (KYA)
We’ll use AI for substantive research tasks
‘Secrets-as-a-service’
Point 3 was written by Eman Abio (Co-founder and CPO of Mysten Labs) which is the entity powering the SUI protocol.
“And as agentic systems begin browsing, transacting, and making decisions autonomously, both users and institutions across industries need cryptographic guarantees as opposed to “best-effort trust”…
That’s why I believe we need secrets-as-a-service: New technologies that can provide programmable, native data access rules; client-side encryption; and decentralized key management enforcing who can decrypt what, under which conditions, and for how long… all enforced onchain.
So this context makes a lot of sense when we look at SUI’s “Verifiable AI Economy”:
Walrus → verifiable data
Seal → programmable access
Nautilus → secure execution
Sui → control, audit, receipts
As AI evolves, there will be a proliferation of data meaning an even greater need for onchain verification and privacy to enable data protection; this is a future SUI is positioning for as they build out the infrastructure to support it.
In “2026: Buildings what’s inevitable” SUI highlighted that:
“Automation is becoming the default mode. The internet has been automating manual processes for 25 years. AI Agents are the next phase.”
This is becoming consensus across all major capital allocators and forward thinking institutions alike:
The expectation is that “intelligent” recursive software will act on your behalf; executing transactions, managing assets, coordinating with other agents.
In the last few months the following SUI eco developments have taken place:
Sui is a launch partner for Google’s new Agentic Payments Protocol (AP2); this is a standard that enables agentic commerce similar to the X402 developed by Coinbase
0xBeepit: At the end of last year Beep launched its Agentic Finance Protocol and "Beep Pay"; essentially building the finance system for agents, on Sui
DLPLabs is integrating the Sui Stack, starting with WalrusProtocol. EV data is stored securely. Drivers get paid for off-peak charging, grid support, and carbon credits. These developments will thrive as autonomous vehicle proliferate.
Autonomous vehicles are one of many physical AI developments that will gain traction over the coming few years. Robotics also features in the SUI AI roadmap:
As the capabilities of AI tools improves and becomes more widely available, expect these developments to continue as developers experiment with applications at an exponential rate.
For more information on Mysten Labs Agentic vision, they’ve published an AI Manifesto: Link
2. Crypto AI Agent Analysis
a) Nansen Smart Capital Flow Analysis
Nansen’s smart 7-day net capital flows:
This week’s smart capital inflows for AI coins are led by Fartcoin, likely off the back of the vibe coded tokenized app meta with others front running a potential memetic resurgence from the “Stink index”
b) Agentic Commerce (x402)
x402 transactions are at 1.2 million (average) per day, down from 2 million (per day) last month:
Activity translates to a more organic, “real” activity compared to previously; According to Artemis, gamed transactions decline to just 1.5% total now:
Coinbase, PayAI and Dexter retain the top 3 spots as facilitators, however PayAI flips Coinbase for 30 days facilitation of agentic payments:
“What are agents paying for?”
Lucas (Artemis) has provided some insights as to where the agentic money is flowing.
3. AI Agents Developments: Innovations and Market Developments
Here are some other interesting Crypto AI related developments this week:
That’s a wrap for issue 160 of S4mmy’s Snippets. I hope you enjoyed it.
Please leave me any questions or thoughts here - I will respond to everyone!
If you found this interesting, please consider subscribing to this Substack and following me on X for more related insights.
If you are interested in more formal reporting on Crypto AI and Robotics then Khala is my research product.
Disclaimer: The content covered in this newsletter is not to be considered investment or financial advice. It is for informational and educational purposes only.
Disclosure: I hold some of the assets and have partnerships with some of the projects mentioned in this newsletter.
Next report on Bittensor, I even thing you mentioned that in the first one