The "AI + DeFi" trend is emerging—here are the DeFAI projects worth watching
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The "AI + DeFi" trend is emerging—here are the DeFAI projects worth watching
DeFAI is becoming the future of DeFi.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: TechFlow
The AI theme continues to dominate the market, with $ai16z, $zerebro, and $griffain all launching on Binance Futures. Narrative-driven tokens like $arc and $swarms are surging, delivering over 10x gains within a week. Meanwhile, AI Agents are emerging one after another. In short, the current AI-themed market can be described as—utterly疯狂.
Beyond soaring token prices, the practical utility of AI is also rapidly evolving. Many AI projects are now targeting the DeFi sector, enabling AI to execute complex DeFi operations. As a result, the concept of DeFAI is being mentioned more frequently.
As Twitter user 0xJeff stated in his recent post titled “DeFAI is the New DeFi”: “DeFAI is becoming the future of DeFi.” With the DeFAI trend clearly emerging, what exactly is DeFAI? And which DeFAI projects are worth watching?
TechFlow Note: The AI Agent market is highly time-sensitive, with extreme volatility in token prices and significant associated risks. Investors should fully assess these risks before participating. This article merely shares information based on current market trends; neither the author nor the platform guarantees the completeness or accuracy of the content, and this article does not constitute any investment advice.
What Is DeFAI?
Although DeFi has become one of the pillar concepts in the crypto world, actual operations still present certain barriers for ordinary users.
To experience the various benefits of DeFi, an average user must learn how to find legitimate platforms, set up wallets, distinguish between various L1s and L2s, avoid phishing scams, and more—making DeFi relatively complicated to use.
The emergence of DeFAI is changing this situation to some extent.
As the name suggests, DeFAI stands for "AI + DeFi," leveraging AI to simplify the complex operational barriers of DeFi so that more people can participate easily. Using DeFi services to manage assets could soon be as simple as chatting with GPT.
What Are Some DeFAI Projects?
The DeFAI concept is straightforward, and the first wave of DeFAI projects is beginning to emerge. Currently, they mainly fall into three categories:
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Abstraction Layers
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Autonomous Trading AI Agents
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AI-Powered dApps
Abstraction Layer—Simplifying User Interaction
An abstraction layer essentially wraps a user-friendly interface around the complex operations of DeFi. It's like driving a car—you don’t need to understand how the engine works; you just need to know how to drive.
Prior to DeFAI, there were already some basic attempts at abstraction layers in DeFi—for example, Uniswap used the cross-chain intent standard ERC-7683 to optimize cross-chain routing. However, these solutions still require users to possess some foundational DeFi knowledge.
In contrast, DeFAI-era abstraction layers go further: users can express their investment intentions directly using natural language. For instance, simply telling an AI agent, “I want to dollar-cost average ETH at $100 per week,” would prompt the system to automatically handle all underlying blockchain operations.
Currently, the most prominent abstraction layer products include Griffain, Orbit, and Neur. They share the common goal of enabling users to perform DeFi operations via chat, but each focuses on different areas. Griffain aims to be all-in-one, Orbit specializes in cross-chain functionality, while Neur concentrates on the Solana ecosystem.
Griffain
Token contract address:
KENJSUYLASHUMfHyy5o4Hp2FdNqZg1AsUPhfH2kYvEP
Griffain (@griffaindotcom) is an early-mover AI Agent project in the DeFAI space that launched its own token.
Griffain categorizes agents into two types: personal agents and specialized agents. Personal agents are AI agents created and controlled by users, who can customize instructions and continuously update the agent’s memory. These agents can execute on-chain actions and retrieve information, with future plans to delegate tasks to other expert agents.
Specialized agents, on the other hand, are professional-grade AIs developed by Griffain itself. Several such agents have already been launched, including Baxus, Blink, Onchain, Holiday, Sniper, and Flipper, each serving distinct functional roles.
Currently, Griffain operates under an invite-only model. Users must hold an early access pass or Griffain’s Saga Genesis token to gain entry. Once granted access, users can create their own AI agents and tap into Griffain’s network of specialized agents.
Orbit
Token contract address:
GekTNfm84QfyP2GdAHZ5AgACBRd69aNmgA5FDhZupump
Orbit (@orbitcryptoai) is an AI-powered DeFi assistant platform whose core mission is to streamline user interaction with DeFi. Orbit currently integrates seamlessly with over 100 blockchain networks and more than 175 protocols, significantly improving the efficiency of cross-chain operations through AI technology. Its feature set includes cross-chain prediction games, asset bridging, optimized staking and yield farming strategies, lending protocol integration, and comprehensive portfolio management tools—enabling users to operate across 116 chains.
Neur
Token contract address:
3N2ETvNpPNAxhcaXgkhKoY1yDnQfs41Wnxsx5qNJpump
Neur (@neur_sh) is an intelligent assistant built for the Solana ecosystem, powered by an open-source full-stack architecture supported by the Solana Agent Kit. The platform offers a smart agent system with natural language interaction capabilities and has integrated with major Solana protocols such as Jupiter and Magic Eden. Core features include smart wallet management, NFT collection analytics, real-time market tracking, and an AI-driven interface designed to simplify user interactions with DeFi and NFTs.
Slate
Slate (@slate_ceo) is an early-stage project in the DeFAI domain, distinguished primarily by its automation capabilities. According to user feedback, Slate excels in executing complex trading strategies. This automation capability draws inspiration from established technologies such as Chainlink’s automation services, offering users secure and cost-effective solutions.
Slate has not yet issued a token and remains focused on product development.
AI Wayfinder
Wayfinder (@AIWayfinder) is an AI-powered omnichain tool that enables autonomous AI agents owned by users to securely and efficiently navigate within and across blockchain ecosystems and applications, conducting independent asset transactions via dedicated Web3 wallets.
Autonomous Trading AI Agents
Unlike traditional trading bots limited to executing pre-programmed scripts, next-generation AI trading agents possess far greater capabilities: extracting information from complex environments, contextual reasoning, learning patterns, and performing actions beyond their original programming.
The field of AI trading agents is transitioning from early entertainment-focused use cases (such as meme coin speculation) toward practical, profit-generating tools. However, a key challenge remains: how do we verify that an "agent" is truly AI-driven rather than just a conventional bot or human-operated?
To address this issue, the industry has introduced two critical infrastructures:
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Trusted Execution Environments (TEE): Ensures agents run in secure, tamper-proof environments
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Transparent Execution Verification Frameworks: Use zero-knowledge proofs and similar technologies to ensure computational integrity
As autonomous agents prepare to manage substantial capital, these verification mechanisms become increasingly crucial. Users need clarity on how agents manage risk and safeguard funds.
While still in early stages, several projects are actively exploring these key technologies:
Almanak
Almanak (@Almanak__) is a platform focused on democratizing quantitative trading, aiming to enable anyone to create and use AI trading agents for profit generation. Its core advantage lies in a unique simulator combining agent-based modeling with blockchain-driven Monte Carlo simulations, providing high-precision forecasting environments for financial strategies.
The platform uses the simulator for strategy testing and optimization, while an execution engine handles deployment and monitoring. Almanak incentivizes ecosystem participants through its token, placing special emphasis on rewarding contributors who develop successful strategies.
Cod3x
Cod3x (@Cod3xOrg) is a DeFAI ecosystem developed by the Byte Mason team (creators of Fantom and Sonic Labs). Its standout feature is a no-code builder that allows users to easily create trading agents. Users can define trading strategies, personality traits, and even tweet styles for their agents.
The platform provides rich APIs and a strategy library, and collaborates with Allora Network to leverage advanced machine learning price prediction models, enhancing the effectiveness of trading strategies. This enables users to access any dataset and develop financial strategies within minutes. The flagship agent Big Tony, powered by Allora’s models, executes trades on major cryptocurrencies, demonstrating real-world applications of AI-driven trading.
Axal & Gekko Agent
Token contract address:
0xf7b0dd0B642a6ccc2fc4d8FfE2BfFb0caC8C43C8
Axal (@getaxal) is an innovative AI trading platform whose signature product, Autopilot, allows users to create custom trading agents. Founded in 2023, Axal focuses on developing AI agent infrastructure, managing agent sources, competitive auctions, and payment processing. Users can configure automatic rebalancing rules, yield harvesting conditions, and build custom token portfolios via Autopilot—for example, setting triggers like “automatically liquidate when portfolio drops below a certain price.”
Recently, Axal partnered with Agora Finance to expand its capabilities in automated trading strategies, enabling everything from rebalancing to creating custom token indices.
Gekko Agent (@Gekko_Agent) is an AI agent launched by AXAL via Virtuals.io. It primarily shares cryptocurrency market insights and trading-related content, adopting a communication style that mimics 1980s Wall Street traders on social media.
ASYM
Token contract address:
KENJSUYLASHUMfHyy5o4Hp2FdNqZg1AsUPhfH2kYvEP
ASYM Agents (@ASYM41b07) are described as “cheat codes” for memecoin trading, capable of analyzing large datasets from blockchains and social media to predict memecoin trends (primarily monitoring and trading tokens on the Pumpfun platform).
The project’s core functionality consists of two parts: First, a prediction system where ASYM employs a suite of machine learning models to forecast short-term price movements and automatically execute corresponding trading strategies. Second, social interaction—the project enhances the a16z framework by deploying interactive bots on X that engage with users.
Currently, ASYM’s official website sees infrequent updates, with most activity centered on posting market analyses like AIXBT on X. The project uses bot accounts to regularly publish progress reports, including data on prediction model accuracy and development milestones.
Project Plutus
Token contract address:
76PsEyML7UV9uiBDWMdG3itRRuupDuRs6nNpjNBpump
Project Plutus (@ProjectPlutus_) is an AI trading agent deployed on the Solana chain, with its token PPCoin issued via the Pumpfun platform. The project’s primary goal is to help users maximize returns while freeing them from tedious chart analysis and complex financial operations.
Project Plutus argues that merely providing research analysis—as seen with @aixbt_agent—is insufficient; true autonomy requires actual trading capability. Therefore, it has designed an integrated system that combines analysis with execution: capable of market research like aixbt, but also able to autonomously trade using a funded wallet, allowing users to invest and withdraw capital (AUM). Key features include automated strategy execution, optimized portfolio management, and transaction completion aligned with user-defined financial goals.
The project is actively building additional functionalities, such as enabling agents to evaluate GitHub code quality of projects to broaden analytical dimensions. For token utility, holders with more than 5,000,000 PPCoin can unlock advanced analytical features—a mechanism similar to Cookie’s token staking model, giving the token tangible utility.
AI-Powered DApps
AI-powered dApps represent a promising direction within the DeFAI landscape. These complete decentralized applications integrate AI or AI agents to enhance functionality, automation, and user experience. Although this niche is still nascent, several ecosystems and projects are beginning to stand out.
Mode Network
Token contract address:
0x084382d1cc4f4dfd1769b1cc1ac2a9b1f8365e90
Mode Network (@modenetwork) is a Layer 2 network specifically designed to attract high-skill developers in AI x DeFi, making it one of the most active ecosystems in this space. Multiple teams are already building cutting-edge AI-powered applications on Mode:
ARMA (by Giza Tech)
ARMA (@0xARMAgeddon) is an emerging AI-driven yield optimization project within the Mode Network ecosystem, developed by Giza Tech (@gizatechxyz). Focused on automated yield management for USDC assets, ARMA is a core application in the Mode Network AI Agent App Store. Operating in a self-custodial model, ARMA ensures users retain control over their assets through smart contracts. Its main function is continuously monitoring interest rates across lending protocols on Mode Network and automatically rebalancing funds when optimal opportunities arise.
Modius
Modius is an autonomous agent powered by Autonolas (Olas) (@autonolas), designed to manage Balancer liquidity pools. Launched on Mode Network in 2024, Modius is part of a multi-agent autonomous system. It joins the growing Mode Network AI agent ecosystem—including ARMA—to advance automation in DeFi.
Amplifi Lending Agents
Developed by Amplifi.Fi (@Amplifi_Fi), Amplifi Lending Agents utilize AI algorithms to analyze market data and automatically adjust investment strategies, delivering optimized yield solutions for users. Core features include intelligent asset allocation, risk management, and yield optimization, helping users achieve better returns in DeFi markets through automation. These agents are also integrated with Ironclad Finance, enabling automatic asset swaps, borrowing on Ironclad, and maximizing yields via auto-rebalancing.
HeyAnonai
Token contract address:
9McvH6w97oewLmPxqQEoHUAv3u5iYMyQ9AeZZhguYf1T
HeyAnonai (@HeyAnonai) can automatically execute complex operations such as cross-chain bridging, token swaps, and staking, while simultaneously aggregating and analyzing project data in real time from multiple sources including Twitter, Discord, and GitHub. Leveraging natural language processing, HeyAnon helps users quickly obtain insights on price changes, community sentiment, and development updates, significantly improving decision-making efficiency in DeFi investing.
Recently, @danielesesta sparked widespread attention with his DeFAI theory via HeyAnonai (@HeyAnonai). He announced that HeyAnon is currently developing the following components:
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An abstraction layer serving as a DeFi interface
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DeFi agents for autonomous transaction execution
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Research and communication agents for acquiring, filtering, and interpreting relevant data
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