In years gone by, the gatekeepers to DeFi were the complex web wallets and protocols that had to be coaxed into playing nicely together. But from today, the only gatekeeper you need to get past is an owl called edwin – and he’s only too happy to help. Developed by a team also called edwin, edwin the lower case owl is something akin to ChatGPT for DeFi. Only this owl can squawk and talk since he’s blessed with full wallet connectivity, allowing him to action onchain tasks from a simple text prompt.
A New Era for DeFi
It’s pretty clear that the future of DeFI is going to be intertwined with that of AI – which is why the term “DeFAI” is now routinely appearing everywhere. It’s less clear which products will dominate this emerging sector – but edwin is gunning for the top spot with the public release of its AI terminal. If it succeeds in this endeavor, it will become the de facto gateway to DeFi, a portal that’s been dominated by the web wallet for the past five years.
Instead of resembling MetaMask or Rabby, edwin looks more like a standard conversational AI: enter your prompt into the text box and the assistant will respond instantly. Underneath the hood, however, edwin isn’t just another run-of-the-mill chatbot. It’s been trained on DeFi for one thing, so can tell you everything from the best stablecoin yields to the simplest way to swap tokens on Solana.
It’s not just talk either: edwin will act upon your instructions. Because behind the scenes, there’s a non-custodial wallet attached, making this much more than an AI: it’s a fully fledged DeFi trading terminal. While it remains to be seen which type of DeFi users gravitate towards edwin, be it the AI-curious or yield-chasing veterans, the terminal has been targeted at beginners, since they’re the segment most commonly overwhelmed by DeFi’s complexity.
DeFi on Steroids
The edwin team was partially inspired to create edwin the terminal on account of research that shows just how many first-time web3 users run into trouble and don’t bother coming back. If onboarding is consistently a struggle, mainstream adoption will never occur, and DeFi will remain the preserve of those with the tech skills and patience to put up with its boondoggles.
That’s why there’s so much investment being poured into DeFAI right now by astute VCs who recognize that the first “ChatGPT for DeFi” could be huge. The challenge in creating such a product is striking a balance between giving the user freedom to control their funds and make their own economic decisions without risking them straying into danger and losing money.
edwin doesn’t make any such promises in that respect – nor would it be expected to – but the AI has been carefully trained to ensure that it exposes users to legit DeFi protocols and tokens, while fading the riskier ones. It’s just one way in which the intelligent owl has been carefully trained to ensure new users fall in love with DeFi at the first time of asking – and then keep coming back for more.
