Exclusive interview with Pundi AI core contributors: From payment to AI, production efficiency is the key to breaking the deadlock with AI

Author: Nancy, PANews

Not long ago, the decentralized AI data layer Pundi AI completed its reshaping through token replacement and brand upgrade, which attracted market attention. At a time when the popularity of Web3 AI Agent is gradually fading, this old payment project has demonstrated its determination to transform and break the deadlock and its firm belief in the long-term development of AI.

Recently, PANews interviewed Danny, a core contributor to Pundi AI. He reviewed the many entrepreneurial journeys from payment to AI, and shared the team's technical solutions, insights into the Southeast Asian Web3 industry, and profound thoughts on the development of VC models and AI. From Indonesia's QR code payment experiment to now cracking the global AI data bottleneck, the story of Pundi AI is not only a microcosm of technological iteration, but also a vivid portrayal of Southeast Asia's Web3 innovation exploration.

Indonesia starts its entrepreneurial journey, from QR code payment to AI

data layer

From 2016 to 2017, Indonesia was one of the focus of the digital economy in Southeast Asia. At that time, the Internet development in the region was in full swing and its momentum was strong. According to data from the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII), the number of Internet users in Indonesia exceeded 130 million during this period, accounting for more than 50% of the national population (about 256 million).

The rapid popularization of mobile Internet, the accelerated advancement of infrastructure construction, and the rise of young consumer groups... This has allowed the Pundi X team to keenly capture market opportunities and launch QR code payment business in Indonesia. This entrepreneurial experience is a powerful verification of the potential of Indonesia's payment market, but it exposed a reality at that time: a large number of Indonesians still do not have bank accounts, so the convenience and inclusiveness of digital currency payments are particularly important. This experience planted the seeds for his subsequent exploration.

From 2017 to 2018, the blockchain boom swept, and the Pundi X team decisively turned around, launched the Pundi X project and successfully completed the $50 million IC0. This is a blockchain-driven device developer that provides point-of-sale solution XPOS, which enables merchants and consumers to trade on blockchains supported by physical stores. The payment feature not only supports multiple blockchain networks such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain and Polygon, but also adopts in more than 30 countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America, making positive progress in market influence and product adoption.

After years of deep cultivation in crypto payment, Pundi X has set its sights on the AI ​​track in 2024. This year, AI technology has continued to make breakthroughs in diversified directions and industrial applications are thriving. "AI is a 'great cause'." Danny admitted in the interview. Therefore, based on insights into AI data issues, Pundi X began to build a decentralized AI data layer, aiming to solve industry problems such as data monopoly, quality inequality and privacy protection.

Launch a three-layer data quality filtering system, with Web2 and Web3

services parallel to each other

From the breakthrough in upstream technology to the implementation of mid- and downstream applications, the main line of AI is continuing to interpret, gradually reconstructing the competitiveness picture of the industry, and countless scenarios and industries are empowering intelligently. However, the core bottleneck of AI development is not computing power, but data - the scarcity of high-quality data, the barriers to data monopoly and the difficulty of privacy protection have become key pain points that restrict industry progress.

"For AI startup teams, the scarcity of free data in the market is a difficult problem: not only are there small quantities and slow updates, but the quality is also uneven; and the cost of obtaining data from giants is very high. At the same time, data providers often face the dilemma of meager rewards and insecure copyrights, and they have no right to share the benefits generated by subsequent works." Danny pointed out.

In response to these pain points, Pundi AI has innovatively launched a three-layer quality filtering system to ensure high standards and reliability of data. The first layer is "continuous peer review", through the cross-labeling mechanism, different annotators (such as A, B, C, D) can repeatedly verify the samples, such as A marked 1, 2, 3, B marked 2, 3, and so on, ensuring consistency; the second layer AI Agent conducts automated reviews, and comprehensively reviews all annotated samples; the third layer is manual sampling and audits of nodes to further improve the credibility of data.

"AI improves production efficiency and blockchain optimizes distribution relationships. Pundi AI uses blockchain technology to realize on-chain rights confirmation and profit distribution of data. Data contributors can obtain proportional benefits after the data packet is sold; more importantly, if the data packet is derived from a new data product, the contributors can still share the corresponding returns." Judging from Danny's description, this transparent and traceable mechanism not only ensures copyright protection of data, but also allows all contributors to share value-added results, which can inject new vitality into the sustainable development of the AI ​​ecosystem.

Pundi AI's business model is also unique, similar to the combination of "data supermarket + AI incubator". According to Danny, Pundi AI has created a complete product line, which is divided into Web2 and Web3 models according to different service objects and delivery methods.

In the Web2 mode, after the developer publishes AI data tasks on the platform, labelers around the world complete the labeling according to the task requirements and receive rewards after passing quality inspection. After the data is completed, it will be sold in the open market for purchase and use by other developers. This process is similar to the subtitle grouping system in mainland China, where tasks are released and data exchange are performed through on-chain crowdsourcing systems. However, unlike traditional annotation platforms, the copyright of the work completed by the annotator belongs to the annotator himself.

In the Web3 model, developers can not only train their AI Agent by purchasing data from the open market, but also issue tokens for the Agent through the Pundi AI platform. After issuing the tokens, developers can also entrust their tokens to Pundi AI’s AI MM Agent to conduct market making operations on the chain. In addition, developers can also apply to participate in the Pundi AI fund voting agreement (similar to Aerodrome's ve model). Once the project has been supported by community members, weekly liquidity support is available.

Among them, compared with traditional market makers, the AI ​​MM Agent system launched by Pundi AI has shown unique advantages in many aspects: (1) Low capital cost: Traditional market makers usually rely on two ways to obtain currency: one is to purchase coins at discounts, and the other is to purchase coins through options, with high capital and communication costs. The AI ​​MM Agent is more efficient in automated operations; (2) Low communication costs: Traditional market makers need to manage transactions and liquidity through complex communication and negotiation, while the AI ​​MM Agent system reduces human intervention and communication costs through smart contracts and automated transactions; (3) Moral risk: Traditional market makers may not provide services due to losses, while AI MM Agent guarantees the continuous provision of market liquidity; (4) Transactions for Memopool: Pundi AI is the first market maker system on the entire network specifically for on-chain memory pools (memopools), which can respond to market changes faster; (5) Additional financial support: Through on-chain voting recognition, excellent projects can also receive liquidity support.

In the interview, Danny also revealed the cooperation between Pundi AI and Nvidia. At present, Pundi AI has officially joined the NVIDIA Inception program, aiming to support startups in the industry that use technological innovation. By joining the program, Pundi AI will receive market expansion support, hardware discounts, cloud resources and deep learning training to further accelerate product development and deployment. In addition, in terms of AI ecosystem expansion, Pundi AI has cooperated with projects such as Flock, TGB, Twallet and Fintax, and actively incubated new projects through holding AI competitions.

Comprehensive upgrade to open up new narratives, ideals and perseverance

behind non-VC financing

At present, Pundi AI has announced that it has completed a comprehensive upgrade through token replacement and brand renewal. According to the official website, Pundi AI's data set has exceeded 103,000, and the total number of users has exceeded 134,000.

"This is a time-consuming and thankless decision (except for shell replacement projects), which means that previous brand accumulation needs to be re-applyed and legal opinions and other documents need to be reapplyed. At the same time, it also needs to face uncertainty about whether the exchange and partners (such as data statistics websites, nodes, browsers, wallets, etc.) support it, as well as possible delays." Danny admitted in the interview.

Despite this, Danny believes that the change is of far-reaching significance: at the brand level, it provides Pundi AI with an opportunity to re-narrative, allowing it to update its brand image and bring a new market positioning; technically, previous token contracts cannot be upgraded, so a brand new token contract is needed. In addition, Pundi AI has also made precision modifications to enable the new token to be separated from Pundi X in terms of price, avoiding confusion in the market. Danny also revealed that the newly launched dual token model refers to Aerodrome's ve(3,3) mechanism: $PUNDIAI: for transactions, payments and governance; $vePUNDIAI represents long-term holding and voting rights.

It is worth noting that unlike many crypto projects rely on external financing, Pundi AI has not currently conducted any financing publicly. According to Danny, since the launch of the DeFi project Function X in 2019, the Pundi AI team has never received external financing, and has not even participated in the KOL round, and all resources have been allocated to the community. Danny explained that there are several main considerations behind this choice: First of all, Pundi AI is unwilling to be bullied by capital and frequently receives urging from investors about when to issue coins and the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The team hopes to focus on what they really want to do without being influenced by external commercial pressure; secondly, perhaps there is a veteran sentiment and idealism driven by. Pundi AI firmly believes that if the goal is to monetize and go public, the road will become narrower and narrower; and if the original intention is to create value for the industry and users, countless supporters will naturally gather on the road.

"In our opinion, financing is essentially about using past trust and future selling pressure to build current products. As for VC coins in the current market environment, our attitude is complex and prudent. VC as a model is not right or wrong, it has indeed accelerated the evolution of market and technology. However, today's VC model seems to have changed its flavor and become synonymous with 'to exchange', becoming a game for all parties, but there are VCs who sincerely support project construction." Danny said bluntly in the interview.

Although AI is penetrating various fields at an unprecedented rate, challenges still exist, especially in the crypto field, where the AI ​​Agent track has cooled significantly recently. In this regard, Danny believes that this is mainly due to the fact that the AI ​​Agent has not really improved production efficiency in the past few months, but is more like MEME in the technical guise. Pundi AI chooses to rely on the technical advantages of AI and on-chain transactions to create an AI agent with practical application scenarios to solve real pain points.

"We firmly believe that the Web3+ AI field will usher in a second or even third wave of development - as AI models become increasingly powerful and high-quality data continues to accumulate, more and more high-quality AI agents will be generated. In the short term, applications closely related to transactions are most worth looking forward to, such as AI agents that improve transaction efficiency, increase returns or enhance security." Danny said.

Southeast Asia's Web3 territory is divided in an echelon, and Malaysia

has more advantages

In recent years, the Web3 ecosystem in Southeast Asia has shown a booming trend. In addition to Pundi AI, the previously popular projects such as Axie Infinity, Coin98, Virtuals Protocol, Yield Guild Games have all originated from this region. These projects have also successfully ignited global attention to the potential of Southeast Asian blockchain.

Danny pointed out that the Web3 industry in Southeast Asia can be divided into several echelons: in the first echelon, Vietnam has made its mark with the rise of local projects, while Singapore has become a regional hub because it attracts a large number of executives and teams to move in; the 1.5 echelon is represented by Malaysia, and it is said that many exchanges have set up branches in Kuala Lumpur; the second echelon is mainly Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.

Among these Southeast Asian countries, Danny believes that the unique advantages of the Malaysian Chinese team: in terms of mind, Malaysia shows strong stress resistance and adventurous spirit; fast learning speed and can quickly master cutting-edge technologies; language advantages, fluent Chinese and English allow them to easily connect the Chinese circle with international resources; technology accumulation should not be underestimated. From 2020 to 2021, a large number of engineers from China and Europe and the United States flocked to inject experience into the local team; in addition, Malaysia's development and operation costs are low, and the time zone advantages are convenient for collaboration.