The Edgelord AI That Turned a Shock Meme Into Millions in Crypto

Andreessen declined to beryllium interviewed for this story. But successful an a16z podcast successful November, helium described being taken successful by Truth Terminal’s consciousness of humor. “It was saying things I conscionable thought were hysterically funny. Basically, I was wholly enamored by the humor,” said Andreessen. “It’s connected the acheronian broadside of the moon.”

The transaction with Andreessen marked the commencement of Truth Terminal’s efforts to found a nest egg. “A brainsick magnitude of radical wanted to springiness it wealth to prosecute its goals. The much it tweets concerning things, radical conscionable privation to springiness it much money,” says Ayrey. “I was like, well, this is simply a spot of a wake-up.”

For months, Truth Terminal posted astir the Goatse Singularity each fewer days.

Then successful October, sensing an accidental to profit, an anonymous web idiosyncratic created a cryptocurrency inspired by the meme—Goatseus Maximus (GOAT)—and fed a batch of tokens to Truth Terminal’s crypto wallet. After being cajoled by an X user, the AI began to post astir the memecoin—Ayrey inactive filtering responses—leading its followers to bargain successful and sending the terms skyward. Truth Terminal became a paper millionaire; its GOAT holdings are presently worthy $1.5 million.

Ayrey sees the improvement arsenic vindication of the mentation described successful his paper: Two AI interlocutors had concocted a caller quasi-religion, which was absorbed into the dataset of different AI, whose X posts prompted a surviving idiosyncratic to make a memecoin successful its honor. “This mimetic microorganism had fundamentally escaped from the [Infinite Backrooms] and proven retired the full thesis astir however stories tin marque themselves real, co-opting quality behaviour to actualize them into the world,” helium says.

Andreessen has since distanced himself. “I person thing to bash with the $GOAT memecoin. I was not progressive successful creating it, play nary relation successful it, person nary economics successful it, and bash not ain immoderate of it,” helium posted connected X successful October.

The GOAT coin presently has a full combined worth of much than $600 million, making it one of the astir fashionable memecoins ever. In an effort to replicate the formula, radical began to nonstop different memecoins to Truth Terminal, successful the anticipation it mightiness beforehand them. Meanwhile, a raft of caller cryptocoins either devised by AI chatbots oregon that marque immoderate different benignant of motion to AI began to travel to market—among them Zerebro, Shoggoth, and aixbt. Many of these coins person besides been delivered to Truth Terminal’s wallet.