South Koreas Upbit Launches AI Agent Token VIRTUAL

South Korea’s largest crypto exchange launches trading support for the Virtuals Protocol token on its platform on Jan. 31, catapulting it by 20%.

In recent notice, Upbit announced that VIRTUAL (VIRTUAL) will debut on its platform on Jan. 31 at 20:00 KST. The token will be available for trading on Korean won, Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT) markets. The crypto exchange supports trading for VIRTUAL on the Base (BASE) network or VIRTUAL-Base.

Shortly after Upbit announced that it will be adding the AI agent network’s token, VIRTUAL saw its price leap as high as 20%, from $2.04 to $2.40. However after its launch, the token has since retracted from the brief high. At the time of writing, the token is trading hands at $2.30.

According to data from crypto.news, VIRTUAL has a market cap of $1.5 billion and a fully diluted valuation of $2.3 billion. The token’s trading volume has gone up by nearly 130% in the past 24 hours to more than $415 million.

Upbit becomes the second South Korean crypto exchange to launch VIRTUAL, after Bithumb listed the token in Nov. 2024

VIRTUAL’s Upbit listing comes almost a whole month after Virtuals Protocol hit its most recent all-time high on Jan. 2 when it reached $5.07. However, the token’s price has plummeted by more than half, settling at a range of $2.40 to $2.30 at the time of writing.

According to the Upbit notice, VIRTUAL will start trading at an even lower base price upon launch, ranging from 2,971 Korean won ($2.04) to 2,984 Korean won ($2.05).

Buy orders for VIRTUAL will be restricted to around five minutes after the crypto exchange begins trading support. While all types of orders, with the exception of limit orders, are restricted for approximately one hour after trading support starts.

Virtuals Protocol has been a major player in promoting AI agents in the crypto sphere. The network is known for its co-ownership layer for AI agents in the gaming and entertainment sectors, which essentially lets users to co-own AI agents through the tokenization of AI agents. Some of its top agents include G.A.M.E, Prefrontal Cortex Convo Agent and Luna.