The crypto AI agent sector dropped to a market capitalization of $11.3 billion as altcoins plunged during an industry-wide correction.

AI agents — protocols and projects powered by artificial intelligence — suffered the steepest drawdown among altcoins, with the category declining 16% in the past 24 hours.

The sector saw sharp losses as leading projects such as Virtuals Protocol, AI16z (AI16Z), and aixbt by Virtuals (AIXBT) posted double-digit declines amid a broader retracement in digital asset prices on Monday, Jan. 13.

Virtual fell 16%, bringing its market cap down to $2.3 billion. The project allows developers to create and interact with AI frameworks on decentralized networks like Base, an Ethereum layer-2 chain incubated by Coinbase.

another crypto AI infrastructure provider, dropped 16% to a market cap of $1.07 billion. AIXBT, a platform used by traders to analyze tokens, saw the steepest decline among AI agents, with its market cap falling 21% to approximately $338 million.

AI Agents reel as crypto market sheds 6%

AI Agents broke into the crypto scene late last year but amassed massive social media mindshare and billions in valuation within a few months.

However, the meteoric rise has now given way to the sector’s first major downturn as the total cryptocurrency market cap fell to $3.2 trillion — a 6% drop.

According to data from CoinGlass, the market downturn triggered liquidations across several crypto pairs. Approximately 222,751 traders were liquidated, with total liquidations reaching $544.82 million. “The largest single liquidation order happened on Binance – BTCUSDT with a value of $8.21M,” CoinGlass reported.