AI and AI Agents specifically are one of the leading sectors bringing the market back from the dead in 2026. You know AI was hot last year as a trend, but prices didn’t keep up. Especially in Q4. But the interest is back. AI Agents are already up 20% in the new year.
So today, we look at some AI gems. Let’s check them out!
Bluwhale
Bluwhale is a 2-sided AI marketplace. This means they are attracting everyday users like us on one side and developers on the other side. Developers can get whatever resources they need from models to computing power to whatever. And then the user side works like an App Store but instead of apps, you’re getting autonomous AI Agents to do tasks for you.
In the Agent Store, and you can see some of the listings here, there is a big focus on DeFi.
There’s a Staking Agent to show where to get the best, safe yield staking your tokens. Or the Stablecoin Yield Agent does the same for your stablecoin holdings.
There’s also a Perps Trading Bot and a Cross Chain Aggregator so you get a good deal when you have to bridge coins across chains. You can see how practical these agents are from casual users all the way up to traders and degens.
And key to this marketplace, like a decentralized Apple App Store, the developers list their agents and then anyone can deploy them. Users get what they need and the developers get paid. Everyone wins.
Here’s what the front of the Agent Store looks like. All you have to do is
- Go to the Agent Store
- Pick Your Agent
- Confirm Your Strategies With Your Agent
- Review Agent returns
- And deploy.
Bluwhale makes it very easy and user-friendly to do all this. And agents can make money while you sleep.
Price Action
Bluwhale has 2 tokens. The main $BLUAI token, which we are talking about here. They also have the $BLUP Points token, which is a reward token for the community.
$BLUAI launched in October. And we know how Q4 was for the market…..
Yet the token is now up 19% in the last 30 days to 55/100ths of a cent. With a market cap of only $6.8 million, this is a small cap and by far, the smallest one on our list today. One of the few areas where we think small caps can still grow and become blue chips is in AI. And Bluwhale has the pieces to be successful AND you are early.
VIRTUALS
You know Virtuals as the AI Agent launchpad on Base.
One of their new agents is one of their most interesting. It brings AI agents and DeFi together. The Wasabot is the first trading/DeFi bot agent from the Wasabi Protocol to go live on Virtuals. And it means access to $1.3 billion of trading volume and real yield for users.
Live on Virtuals Protocol: Wasabot is the first and only agent from @wasabi_protocol, offering onchain exposure to an ecosystem with $1.3B+ trading volume and $30M+ TVL.
One of the first agent-native DeFi protocols on @base, unlocking leverage and yield for the entire agentic… https://t.co/i5bcTAWmlt pic.twitter.com/reIRgim2Pu
— Virtuals Protocol (@virtuals_io) January 8, 2026
This is a trend we see only growing from here as DeFi is already a success in crypto but needs to grow. And AI Agents offer the convenience of not having to search 35 protocols across 12 chains to find the best yield for your stablecoins. Expect to see more of this.
Price Action
After bottoming out in mid-December at 64c, $VIRTUAL has been on a nice run up 50% to over $1 at $1.06. The entire market suffered from the October 10th liquidation through the end of the year. Yet, January is already looking brighter for VIRTUAL, AI generally, and the market.
RENDER
Next, we have Render. Render is one of our favorite AI projects because it hits on what most believe is the highest demand area of AI.
GPU computing power.
One of the reasons AI is not growing even faster is the lack of computing power. These AI models use up A LOT of computing power while doing their calculations, speculations, writing, or image rendering.
As you can guess from the name, Render started by harnessing GPUs for image rendering models like Midjourney or Nano Banana. (like this one)
Nano Banana smart prompt:
Photo-grid tribute poster design
Prompt 👇 pic.twitter.com/6uQzOquGdX
— AmirMušić (@AmirMushich) January 7, 2026
And Render does focus on images and the AI needs of creatives instead of being just a general GPU marketplace.
Main integrations include Blender for 3D model creation and Unreal Engine, which is popular for its amazing graphics for games.
While images and graphics do eat up GPU computing power, Render is not exclusive to these markets. General AI including modeling and inference and machine learning projects use it, too.
Price Action
The Render token $RENDER was on Polygon and is now on Solana. Nearly all of its total supply or 518 million out of 533 million are in circulation.
We like that.
$RENDER had a tough 2025, as did the entire market, and it was down 66% in the last 12 months. That said, it’s up 61% just in the last 30 days. It’s like the calendar turned over from 2025 to 2026 and people started remembering that some projects, including Render have value.
Render has pretty decent tokenomics and a strong place in one of the leading subsectors of AI. It’s for these reasons we see this 30 day rise as just the beginning of what should be a bull run for this project.
Disclaimer
The information provided by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. It is intended solely for educational, entertainment, and informational purposes. Any opinions or strategies shared are those of the writer/reviewers, and their risk tolerance may differ from yours. We are not liable for any losses you may incur from investments related to the information given. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk assets; therefore, conduct thorough due diligence. This post is sponsored by Bluwhale.
Copyright Altcoin Buzz Pte Ltd.
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