AI Agents Bring Revolutionary Changes to DeFi: Wayfinder Depth Analysis

Summary

Although DeFi claims to be open to everyone, its complexity makes it difficult for ordinary investors to enter. From preparing Gas fees to understanding complex protocols, many users miss investment opportunities due to cumbersome processes. Wayfinder, as an on-chain AI agent system, aims to address these accessibility issues. Users only need to converse with the agent to execute professional-level investment strategies ranging from cross-chain transactions to basis trading.

Wayfinder will provide API services in the future, expected to become the infrastructure that simplifies on-chain operations, widely applied in various Web3 projects. This will significantly improve the user experience across the entire cryptocurrency industry, bringing the ideal of "inclusive finance" closer to reality.

1. The accessibility challenges of Decentralized Finance

Although DeFi aims to create an open financial ecosystem, it actually requires complex technical knowledge and advanced financial skills. Technologies such as chain abstraction and account abstraction improve user experience, but there is still a lack of standardization and limited supported protocols. Users still need to understand DeFi-specific concepts such as AMM and liquidity pools, which sets a higher barrier to entry compared to traditional finance.

The research by the Bank for International Settlements shows that in Uniswap V3, only 7% of liquidity providers control about 80% of the TVL. The return rate for these professional users is 20% higher than that of ordinary users. Even in Uniswap, which has a relatively good user experience, this gap exists, indicating that accessibility issues affect the entire Decentralized Finance ecosystem.

The complex operation process deters many users, making it difficult to participate even when faced with attractive investment opportunities. As a result, DeFi is becoming the exclusive domain of professional users, which goes against the original intention of achieving inclusive financial innovation through decentralized technology.

2. The potential of AI in lowering the barriers to Decentralized Finance

The latest AI breakthroughs bring new possibilities for lowering the entry barriers to Decentralized Finance. Agent-based AI technology not only provides intelligence but also executes complex tasks, which could be the key to the large-scale adoption of DeFi.

For example, the user only needs to say "Bridge ETH from Base to Solana and buy BONK", and the AI agent can analyze various bridging options and provide clear recommendations:

• Wormhole: Fee $2.50, completed in 3 minutes, high security
• LayerZero: Fee $1.80, completed in 5 minutes, with Gas fee volatility risk

Users do not need to understand the technical differences of the bridge; they just need to make decisions based on the key information provided by the agent. The agent will automatically handle wallet connections and complex transactions, as if having a dedicated asset manager available 24/7.

However, there are challenges in realizing this vision. Most AI technologies lack direct blockchain integration and cannot view wallet balances in real-time. Even if blockchain nodes are integrated, understanding thousands of smart contracts is a significant challenge. How to securely interact and verify the security of protocols is an additional challenge.

AI technology requires a dedicated on-chain agent system to create real value in Decentralized Finance. This is precisely Wayfinder's entry point.

3. Wayfinder: On-chain dedicated AI agent system

Wayfinder provides an AI agent system designed specifically for on-chain environments. These agents are directly integrated with blockchain infrastructure and can automatically execute on-chain tasks. The AI models are specially optimized for the blockchain environment, navigating and utilizing Decentralized Finance protocols more efficiently than general models.

Wayfinder consists of two core components:

1. Wayfinder Shell: An interface for users to interact with various dedicated intelligent agents.
2. Wayfinder Graph: A navigation system that helps agents find the optimal path in a complex multi-chain environment.

3.1 Wayfinder Shell: Your Decentralized Finance private banker

Wayfinder Shell serves as an interface that allows users to interact with dedicated agents to formulate and execute various on-chain strategies. It provides agents for specific roles that can collaboratively handle complex tasks. The Shell supports major mainnets such as Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Avalanche, enabling multi-chain asset management.

The biggest feature of Shell is that the agent directly executes on-chain transactions through a built-in dedicated Web3 wallet. For example, if a user requests to allocate 100 USD in USDC into recently rising tokens on Solana, the agent will use real-time market data to filter tokens, build a portfolio, and execute the investment directly.

The Wayfinder's intelligent system includes four types:

• Trading Agents: Handle basic on-chain asset transfers and management
• Perpetual Contract Agent: Integrated with Hyperliquid exchange, supports spot or perpetual contract trading
• Contract Agent: Handles tasks such as writing, deploying, and analyzing smart contracts.
• Autonomous Agents: Coordinate multiple agents based on user goals, handling the comprehensive roles from strategy formulation to execution.

In the future, more dedicated intelligent agents will be continuously added, such as yield discovery agents for yield optimization. Wayfinder adopts a multi-agent system, where agents validate and collaborate with each other, making decisions more stable and accurate. For operations that require multiple transactions, the agents will simulate on a virtual network, predict outcomes, and prevent errors. Important transactions require user approval to ensure users have complete control over their assets.

3.2 Wayfinder Graph: Google's Map of Decentralized Finance

Wayfinder Graph is a navigation system that systematically organizes the complex blockchain ecosystem. It builds the relationships between DeFi protocols, smart contracts, and assets across various blockchain networks, helping agents execute tasks along the most efficient paths.

The core of the Graph system is the "routing path". Each path defines in detail the steps for a specific task, recording the required smart contract addresses, function call methods, expected costs, and considerations. Agents can use these verified paths to complete tasks quickly and securely.

In the future, the routing paths will be created and managed by the community. When a new DeFi protocol emerges, community members can write and submit paths that interact with it. Submitters must stake PROMPT tokens as collateral, and only after approval by path validators can they be added to the official repository. When other Shells use the path, the creator can earn a portion of the fees. Incorrect paths will result in the staked tokens being forfeited, which will be used to compensate victims. This mechanism ensures continuous quality management of the paths.

Wayfinder ensures scalability through community involvement rather than adopting a slow approach of directly integrating with all protocols. This community-centric approach allows Wayfinder to flexibly respond to the rapid changes and complexities of the DeFi ecosystem.

4. A brand new Decentralized Finance experience brought by Wayfinder

Wayfinder makes complex on-chain strategies accessible to everyone, not just experts. Automated agents handle strategy formulation and execution, enabling beginners to easily manage professional-grade strategies while experts can focus on more complex designs.

The following case shows how Wayfinder customizes new Decentralized Finance experiences for users at different levels:

4.1 Simplifying Complex Cross-Chain Transactions

Wayfinder's trading agent solves the complexity of cross-chain transactions through the BRAP engine. The BRAP engine explores multiple liquidity paths, finds the optimal route, and handles token swaps and bridging, providing users with a one-stop experience.

In addition, Wayfinder supports the unified handling of cross-chain gas fees using only the PROMPT token based on the Base chain, allowing users to efficiently execute cross-chain transactions without the need to prepare native tokens for each chain.

4.2 One-stop operation repetitive investment process

Wayfinder can execute complex investment strategies, such as leverage-based DCA strategies. Users only need to set the conditions once to continuously execute complex investment strategies without the need for repeated manual operations.

For example, users request to use $100 weekly to purchase BTC through DCA and borrow additional funds to buy more BTC when the value of the collateral increases as the price of BTC rises. Autonomous agents will analyze multiple lending protocols, select the optimal solution, and then trading agents will sequentially execute leveraged investment strategies.

The intelligent agent executes strategies within the risk parameters set by the user, continuously monitors conditions, and automatically adjusts positions when necessary to control risk.

4.3 Providing Professional-Level Trading for Beginners

The Wayfinder perpetual contract agent integrates with the Hyperliquid on-chain order book engine, allowing ordinary users to easily utilize professional strategies such as basis trading.

For example, users request to execute basis trading based on the funding rate of HYPE tokens. The agent will automatically buy HYPE in the spot market while opening an equal amount of short futures positions, creating an arbitrage structure. The autonomous agent continuously monitors the funding rate and automatically closes positions when profitability decreases.

Users do not need to understand the basic trading mechanisms or know about the Hyperliquid exchange to generate stable profits through Wayfinder.

5. Accessing the Future of Decentralized Finance

Wayfinder is expected to bridge the gap between on-chain market opportunities and ordinary users. Users can communicate with agents through dialogue, easily formulating and executing various strategies ranging from simple token purchases to yield farming and automatic rebalancing. This could open up strategies that were previously handled only by experts to ordinary users, marking an important turning point in the industry.

In the long term, Wayfinder has the potential to develop into an operating system for on-chain environments. It plans to provide functionalities in the form of APIs, enabling various Web3 services to easily invoke complex on-chain tasks. This will allow each service to offer new features that go beyond existing limitations, such as allowing MetaMask users to directly execute complex portfolio rebalancing strategies.

Ultimately, Wayfinder is expected to become the infrastructure that improves the user experience across the entire cryptocurrency industry, bringing the ideals of DeFi "inclusive finance" closer to reality.