DeFAI projects emerged, comprehensively sorting out the four major categories of DeFAI ecology

Author:Haotian

"Suddenly a spring breeze comes overnight, and pear blossoms bloom on iron trees." How come so many DeFai projects have emerged like magic in such a short period of time? The standards and framework haven’t been fully understood yet, is another round of Defai’s involution war beginning? Okay, next, let me share from a popular science perspective, what is going on in several major categories of DeFai projects?

1. In the past two days, Brother Poopman has shared a distribution map of DeFai ecosystem projects, which has been widely circulated in the community. Looking at the comment area, there are still many related projects that have not been included. Many people will be very anxious and worried about missing every wealth code, but in fact there is no need to do so.

First of all, it needs to be explained that although there are some good AI "new" projects from Mindshare, such as: $AIXBT, $BUZZ, #NEUR, #GRIFT, #Cod3x, etc., most of them are outright " A new face with an old taste.

The core reason is that most of them are old projects that have been given new expectations through the new narrative of AI Agent. Some old projects have done a lot of optimization experience work in the DeFi field but no one cares about it. Some of them were attracted by the last round of VC. Old projects that are difficult to discover under the background of retail investors’ attention.

2. There are four major categories in total in the picture below. I will try to dissect them one by one to understand my understanding:

1. AI Abstraction (AI abstraction): As the name suggests, it uses abstraction capabilities to encapsulate the information processing capabilities of large AI models in front-end product experiences that users can directly interact semantically. Users can enter some prompts directly in the dialog box front-end. Call the transaction interface and the AI ​​backend will directly complete the transaction automatically.

Because of this, this type of product seems to be looked down upon by people at first glance, because there is a lot of friction in the early product interaction experience, such as the "ambiguity" of user input prompts and the "accuracy" required for the AIGC backend to process information and execute requirements. With the "fault tolerance" mechanism, either the user feels that the instructions that can be input and executed are too simple to compete with the current DeFi experience, or the user inputs too many high-expected instructions and finds that the program background does not execute the Solver accurately and cannot handle it.

However, this type of product can also gain the trust of a large number of users with its novel interaction mode and solutions to some basic Swap, Staking and other problems. The reason is that its stamina is highly predictable. Because users can input prompts in text, audio, etc. in a convenient way that conforms to usage habits, it will greatly reduce the threshold for use. At the same time, the AIGC background processing capabilities will gradually encapsulate more new Solver execution solutions to improve the user experience.

Anyway, this is an attempt to explore a new trading paradigm. Just like when Uniswap entered the market with the AMM Swap trading pool paradigm, it was also complained about large slippage and friction at the beginning. The AI ​​Abstraction subdivision track is indeed useless in the short term, but the big paradigm shift opportunities that will be nurtured in the long term are worthy of attention.

2. Autonomous Portfolio Management & Yield Optimization (automated portfolio management and income optimization): This type of product is the result of the previous round of DeFi market involution. A large number of projects want to get a share of the DeFi track from personalization, We have continued to work hard from the perspectives of customization, vertical segmentation, specialized experience, etc., but before we can harvest the fruits of victory, the DeFi industry is almost desolate.

Most of these DeFi income optimization strategies come from the team’s ability to monitor and analyze on-chain data, such as transaction depth, capital flow, APY fluctuations, slippage estimates, price deviations, arbitrage space, risk warnings, etc. According to these real-time chain Analyze the data, and then formulate a set of execution strategies, such as position fund allocation, arbitrage opportunity capture and execution, Yield income estimation, single pool or combination strategy, impermanent loss management, liquidation risk control, etc.

Simply put, the core of this type of product is real-time on-chain data + trading opportunity capture capabilities, plus a complete set of automated analysis and execution operation experience upgrade capabilities optimized based on smart contracts. At first glance, what does it have to do with AI? The combination point is that data analysis and strategy formulation can train and fine-tune traders' strategies to create a set of possible investment opportunities that are more efficient than manual work.

Moreover, when combined with AI Agent, there is even more room for imagination. Everyone can use their own strategies to fine-tune an AI Agent of personal trading preferences to automatically help them find opportunities on the chain and automatically execute transactions. Let AI Agent become a human's advanced trading assistant, which is a long-term sexy and online narrative.

3. Market Analysis or prediction: This type of product has captured most users of Mindshare as a super powerful single AI. For example, aixbt has indeed become a key information acquisition for many traders as a top KOL. platform. However, everyone recognizes the practical application scenario capabilities of AI Agents that only provide trading strategy analysis, but there is little room for long-term imagination. For example, can my AI Agent monitor the news of AIXBT and automatically help me make decisions to buy dips and arbitrage? etc.

Theoretically, it is naturally feasible. In fact, it is entirely possible for AI Agents such as AIXBT to independently manage user assets, and at the same time help users conduct trading operations based on their own information decisions, but this step has not been taken yet. At present, users of this type of products are occupying the minds of users so quickly, and with the commercial monetization capabilities behind the traffic drive, the space for imagination is actually not small.

4. DeFai infrastructure or Platform (infrastructure and platform): This type of protocol covers a wide range. In addition to emerging platforms such as #ai16z and #Virtaual for AI Agent Native, others such as Bittensor, io, Athair, Hyperbolic, Vana, SaharaAI and other project business frameworks related to AI computing power, data, fine-tuning and other businesses can be extended to this.

After all, if the AI ​​Agent needs to function normally, data is the oil, computing power is the power grid, reasoning is the transformer, AI Agent is the terminal, etc., they are all upstream service providers.

Therefore, there is not much to say. AI Agent needs to gather strength in the second half of the journey, and this type of DeFi platform will definitely make great efforts. Originally, AI Agent narrative was only the earliest part of AI Narrative. Frameworks and standards, DeFai, Gamfai, MetAiverse and other core narratives were all inseparable from these AI infra platforms.

above.

Although I have given you a clear understanding of DeFai, it does not mean that I am not optimistic about it. Compared with the current chaotic and difficult-to-judge narrative framework and standard "Chaos Era" market, DeFai at least substitutes a more AI Agent application. , and you can see the progress and expectations step by step through experience, PMF product implementation, etc.

This is also a manifestation of the current popularity of the AI ​​Agent market turning from virtual to real. Moreover, so many old species cannot find opportunities in the old DeFi era. In the face of new trends, isn't this an opportunity for them to unleash their potential?