It started not so long ago. First a trickle, then a steady flow of on-chain AI agents that could launch memecoins on demand, trade on your behalf, or answer your pressing questions. You interfaced with these agents not through a chat interface but a social media post. Want to launch a token? Just put the name, ticker, and image in a post and hit the send button. It's really that simple.
Naturally, other sub-sectors of the crypto industry started to take notice. How can we make AI agents work for us, they wondered. Once we reached this point, the hype train had well and truly left the station.
Trinity had this hot take about ReFi's foray into AI - the aptly named ReFAI.
STOP CHASING HYPE!!!
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Predictably, this unleashed a torrent of replies from within the ecosystem.
It’s nature of crypto community (many devs including)Our strategy is to focus on what’s important and keep building
working backwards from market needs and experimenting make sense to me and feels like a good use of my time personally…
agree we shouldn’t chase hype just to chase hype
So are AI agents the next big thing in ReFi? Maybe.
First, let's look at what we know about AI agents and crypto:
They are a simpler interface to a complex set of solutions
They work best with on-chain actions
One of ReFi's evergreen challenges is the volume of off-chain activity needed to make the impact that justifies the funding. In other words, if a project gets funding to plant trees, it needs to actually plant trees (and prove it). Since AI agents aren't helping to physically plant trees, we can really only look to the on-chain part of ReFi for an indication of how these agents might help.
Consider three scenarios:
A waste collection project that wants to simplify and automate the process of collecting and rewarding the impact actions of its community
A donor that wants to optimise the donation process during a Gitcoin Grants round
A trader that wants to build an index fund of ReFi investment instruments
In each case, the introduction of an AI agent would dramatically improve the user experience. A waste collector could simply post their activity and have the agent do the rest; the donor could provide preferences and have the agent make the donations; the trader could architect the fund and have the agent issue the index token. Crypto is hard enough as it is. If AI agents are going to make it easier for people to use, then what are we waiting for?
Implementation matters, of course. But at the very least, AI agents are an exciting tool in the toolbox that can make it easier for people to interface with ReFi.
Climate Collective's AI * Climate Accelerator
Speaking of AI, Climate Collective has opened applications for climate projects leveraging AI in their solutions, specifically in the following areas:
Decarbonization and Energy Transition
Nature Conservation and Restoration
Climate Resilience and Adaptation
Circular Economy and Resource Management
Policy and Governance
Apply here 👇
ReFi Making Impact
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