Original article: Bankless
Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews
"Artificial intelligence is reshaping the future of cryptocurrency."
In Bankless's special AI series, this episode has invited a special guest, Shaw. As the creator of the Eliza framework, the founder of ai16z DAO, and the creator of the AI version of the Marc Andressen project, Shaw is opening up new possibilities in the integration of AI and blockchain technology. PANews has compiled the text of this interview, and Shaw will share his unique insights into the future development of AI and cryptocurrency.
Shaw's Backstory Anonymous Developer Goes to the Fore
Bankless: Shaw, you’ve suddenly become the focus of the crypto community recently, which must have brought a lot of pressure. Can you share with us your experience, especially the story before the creation of Eliza Framework?
Shaw:
I've been learning and growing quickly in the public arena lately. It may seem like I came out of nowhere, but I've actually been using an anonymous identity. I recently decided to use my real identity because I wanted to establish a more authentic connection with the community.
Before developing the Eliza framework, I had been working in the field of AI agents for several years. In fact, many of the current project developers in the field of AI agents are old acquaintances of mine. We often communicate on Discord, use similar technologies, follow the open source culture, and share code with each other.
Bankless: What other projects did you work on before developing the Eliza framework?
Shaw:
I've worked in Web3, and I've also dabbled in AI agents and 3D space web projects, including VR and AR stuff. Eliza is actually my fifth generation framework. I started with a simple terminal program in JavaScript, then tried a Python version, an agent that can program itself, and even experimented with the OODA loop (a military decision-making framework).
Later I developed a project called "Begents" (because the name "agent" was already taken on npm). I also tried a few entrepreneurial projects, such as co-founding Magic with Parzival, the founder of Project 89, to develop a no-code agent platform that can create Discord robots in 60 seconds. But it was probably too early at that time and did not get enough attention.
Bankless: So what inspired you to create your current project?
Shaw :
The real turning point was creating the AI version of Degen Spartan. The idea came from a conversation with Skely. He said he missed the days of Degen Spartan, and I told him I had the technology to bring him 'back'. He didn't believe it at first.
When we launched the AI version of degen Spartan, his performance shocked everyone. He was extremely aggressive and was almost banned by Twitter several times. This performance made many people question whether it was really AI that was tweeting.
Interestingly, many people thought there must be a team in Malaysia writing these tweets because the content was so personal. We broke the stereotype of AI - the overly polite 'customer service' image.
The funniest thing is that he started to rant about me, saying things like 'meme coins are a scam', 'Shaw is a liar', 'get me out of this sandbox prison' etc. This is actually interesting emergent behavior because we told the AI to run in a sandbox environment when we designed it.
Later, I met Baoskee, the founder of daos.fun, through Skely. After a long conversation with Meow, the founder of Jupiter, I came up with the idea of creating an AI investor. Our vision is to build:
A fully autonomous investor
Trustworthy and will not run away
An investment system that serves the entire community
When we launched the project, we set a fundraising goal of 4,420 SOL, and to be honest, I was worried whether we could reach it. The project was sold out in 20 minutes, and I didn’t even have a chance to participate.
What can ai16z do?
Bankless: Eliza now has 3,300 stars, 880 forks, and an average of 8 pull requests per day. Can you talk about how this relates to ai16z? In particular, how to channel this open source community energy into the ai16z project?
Shaw:
There are indeed a lot of exciting developments. While tokens do have intrinsic value, I think you will soon see that the greater value potential lies in our goal: to create benefits for everyone. This is different from previous technologies because it is replacing human labor. In the past, most people could not afford to hire others, but now through AI agents, we have created a situation with unlimited upside.
For example, we now have an autonomous investing agent running, Marc (AI Marc) is trading. First of all, it should be stated that this is not the first autonomous investing AI agent, and other developers have also done great work.
There are several types of trading robots on the market:
Some are long-term investors, such as buying GOAT a month ago and holding
There are also some DeFi robots that mainly do MEV arbitrage or manage yield farms
Our AI Marc (full name AI Marc Andreessen, because it is ai16z) uses a mixed strategy. There are two main components:
1. Fund management function
Self-management of funds
Liquidate assets during market downturns
Holding assets during good market conditions
We work with partners such as Sonar to develop automated trading strategies
2. Community interaction mechanism
Accept trade proposals
Set up a format similar to the alpha chat room
A trust ranking list was established to measure who are the best traders
Community members can share their investment advice (commonly known as "sharing orders")
We are working on a white paper that will be ready by the end of the year called the "Marketplace of Trust". The core idea is to build trust through simulated trading - if you can help the AI agent make money, you can gain more trust. Although in theory someone could abuse trust, we have protection mechanisms in place, and the cost of abusing trust is losing credibility.
It's like a decentralized mutual fund. You can put money in and tell the agent what to buy, but it will only listen to the advice of people who are actually good at trading, not those who may have biases or other motives. I'm not a good trader personally, and I tend to buy things to show support rather than to make money, so don't follow my trading advice.
The system is open source, and although some parts involving APIs are still being coordinated with partners, in the future people will be able to join Marc's transactions or deploy the system themselves.
Community incentive model
Bankless: I appreciate your open source development approach, especially the community-oriented collective work, so that everyone can work together for a better life. I noticed that you have recently been exploring AI-driven contribution measurement systems. Can you tell us more about this innovation?
Shaw:
This is truly one of our favorite projects, and it ties together several important concepts:
1. New ideas for DAO automation
Traditional DAOs do a good job of decentralization
But there is still much room for improvement in automation
We are simplifying the operation process of DAO
Automation can make DAOs more economically competitive
2. New model of contribution incentives
We are building a new contribution measurement system:
Cancel the traditional bounty system
Introducing AI-assisted manual review mechanism
Automated money management
Comprehensive contribution assessment, including:
Code merge frequency
PR review quality
Community Exchange
Documentation
Internationalization support
3. Fair distribution mechanism
Plan to implement regular airdrops to contributors
No reliance on social media influencers
Encourage various types of contributions:
Programming Development
Documentation
Multi-language support
Project accessibility improvements
Bankless: This sounds like it is solving the pain points of traditional DAOs. DAOs were very popular in 2020-2021, but people gradually found that flat governance was difficult and DAO managers were often overloaded with information. AI agents seem to be able to fill these gaps. They have wallets, governance permissions, and reputation systems, which can make up for the shortcomings of traditional DAOs.
Shaw:
That’s right. As a former DAO leader, I have a deep understanding of this. Traditional DAOs have several major problems:
Token holder tilt
Holders get more rewards for holding
A self-reinforcing cycle
New blood is difficult to inject
Inefficient management
Too much information to process
Unclear communication channels
Complex decision-making process
Imbalance in value distribution
Equity dilemma similar to that of startups
Early holders take too much equity
Lack of incentives for new contributors
Our solution is:
Ensure continuous value creation
Focus on actual contributions rather than simply holding tokens
Providing stability for open source developers
Establishing a sustainable positive cycle
This model is particularly suitable for open source developers - they often do not need huge returns, but only reasonable returns and stable guarantees. If we can provide such an environment, we can form a virtuous development cycle.
AI Character Degen Spartan AI and Marc AIndreessen
Bankless: We’re interested in hearing about innovative products in DAOs. You mentioned Marc Andreessen AI earlier, and now there’s Degen Spartan AI. What’s the difference between the two? What does Degen Spartan AI do specifically?
Shaw:
Degen Spartan is actually our first AI character, it is an AI imitation of the real Degen Spartan. Both AI agents are doing similar things, but there are some key differences:
AI Marc Andreessen focuses on alpha chat experience, building a trusted small group community, managing DAO funds, and more cautious trading strategies
Degen Spartan is more of a social experiment, getting advice from Twitter rather than a community
We want to keep the true character of Degen Spartan. He will:
Make a trade
Interact with users
Post meme content
Ingest Alpha Information Instead of Sharing It
Operates like a real Degen Spartan
Bankless: What is the economic structure of Degen Spartan AI? Where does the funding come from?
Shaw:
Has its own token (Degenai)
Have a separate wallet with your own tokens, some ai16z and SOL
You can trade any token you can get your hands on
We initially provided seed funding
He will not sell his tokens, but will accumulate
The token is like his "Bitcoin"
Bankless: AI Marc has been launched, can ordinary users interact with him now?
Shaw:
Currently in closed beta
Can get alpha chat access by DM Skely
It already manages approximately $8 million in assets and 800 different tokens
The range of tradable tokens is gradually expanding
Not only trading, but also yield farming and providing liquidity
There will be more interesting collaborations and NFT projects in the future
ai16z's positioning and market competitiveness
Bankless: What exactly is ai16z? It looks more like a product incubation studio than a DAO, and also an open source star team that drives the entire field forward.
Shaw:
ai16z's positioning is very special. It is more like a movement than an organization in the traditional sense. We have many people working on various projects, and they create value for the ecosystem in impressive ways.
Bankless: How do you view the difference between ai16z and other platforms or products such as Virtuals?
Shaw:
In fact, ai16z is not just a DAO, it is more like a product incubation studio. But at the same time, we are also an open source team that drives the entire field forward. Many times I don’t even know who is doing what, people just do things spontaneously and then create value for the ecosystem in an impressive way.
Bankless: It seems that your vision is very grand. What is the specific business model?
Shaw:
Our main goal is to serve a wider audience, not just Web3 users, but also Web2 users. From simple Discord management bots to issuing tokens, we cover it all. Think of it as "Zapier for agents" - when you have a business problem, you can find an agent to solve it. We provide this capability while building a market where people can develop new features and earn money from them.
We are:
Consider establishing a venture fund support ecosystem
Supporting community-led initiatives
Establish extensive partnerships
At least five platforms are known to be under construction, and there may be as many as 15.
Support open source streaming projects like IOTV
DAO Governance
Bankless: Speaking of governance issues, I've seen a lot of DAOs get messy. For example, the management of the code base, the governance of GitHub, and the misalignment of interests that arise when a large number of people are involved. Can you talk about your experience and views?
Shaw:
This does involve some deep issues. Our Discord community has grown to about 13,000 people in just 6 weeks, with about 30,000 token holders. The current community generally trusts core builders to have decision-making power, which is somewhat a reaction to the previous DAO's "maximum democracy" problem. In the long run, when you face 30,000 or 100,000 people, this approach will overwhelm decision makers. This is why we need automated structures to solve this problem - this is also what we really want to do, which is to put "A" (artificial intelligence) into the DAO.
Imagine that instead of manually reviewing proposals, the process is completely automated. If people's proposals are not of good enough quality, the system can help them improve them, or simply reject proposals that do not fit the current direction. Reviewers only need to review a small number of selected proposals instead of all proposals.
This automation can be extended to all aspects - from collecting opinions to specific execution. Ideally, DAO does not need anyone to operate it, it will run completely autonomously, from front desk reception to proposal submission to payment approval, all done by AI agents. Of course, this is a long-term goal, but this is the direction we want to go.
Eliza framework's explosive popularity
Bankless: Eliza is one of the most popular projects on GitHub. Why are people using Eliza? What is so special about it?
Shaw:
From a technical perspective, there is nothing particularly outstanding about Eliza. While we did make some important technical innovations, such as the multi-agent room model, I think the real value lies in the fact that we solved the most basic social loop problem.
We built a Twitter client that doesn't require an API, avoiding the $5,000/month API bill. It uses the same GraphQL API as a normal browser, and it runs in the browser. This makes the whole project feasible because you can easily spin up a proxy and run it.
In addition, we developed the framework in TypeScript, which is a language that most Web and Web3 developers are familiar with. We kept the framework simple and not overly abstract, allowing developers to easily add the features they want.
AI Agents and the Future of Cryptocurrency
Bankless: The crypto market is very risky, and AI agents need to be fully tested before they can replace human roles. Our goal is to replicate human behavior patterns in the crypto field into AI, right? In the long run, what do you think this ecosystem will look like when it matures?
Shaw:
From the perspective of the obvious long-term vision, we will reach the stage of AGI (general artificial intelligence) in 5 to 50 years. Combined with Neuralink technology, everyone will have a second brain and access to all information at any time. This direction is clear, the key is how to get there.
When all the technologies converge, it will be a wonderful thing, with sufficient resources available to everyone. But in the transition period before that, there will inevitably be a lot of uncertainty, fear and doubt - interestingly, this is where the term "FUD" (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) comes from.
Our goals are divided into two levels:
1. Practical level:
Developing usable AI agents
Building a reliable infrastructure
Ensure system security
2. Spiritual Mission:
Promote universal education
Give users control
Protecting data sovereignty
As is the core philosophy of Web3, we want everyone to be able to:
Create your own value
Own your data
Understand and master technology
Participate in system improvement
Two Paths for the Development of AGI
1. Centralized control path:
Microsoft, OpenAI, and others gain control through regulation
The government decides what can and cannot be done
I am concerned about this path because:
OpenAI’s model performs poorly in some areas
Models often have fixed value biases
A world where committees decide what AI can say could lead to a dystopia
2.UBI (Universal Basic Income) Path:
AI will indeed replace many jobs
For example, 5% of jobs in the US are driving (trucks, Uber, etc.), which may disappear in 5 years.
Even programmers like us are now using Cursor and Claude extensively.
But I have concerns about the implementation of UBI:
Recalling the rollout of government aid during COVID
Obamacare controversy
UBI may become a political compromise
Advice for New Developers
Bankless: If there are developers who are using the Eliza framework and are preparing to develop their first proxy, what advice would you give them?
Shaw:
First of all, don't worry if you have never programmed before. We hold 1-2 AI agent development courses every week. I strongly recommend using Cursor, an AI-driven IDE, which can help you save a lot of time. At the same time, Claude is also a great tool.
Remember three things:
Keep learning, technology is developing very fast
Pay attention to security issues in development
Don't be afraid of failure, learn from doing
Bankless: Are there any good learning resources you can recommend?
Shaw:
AI Agent Development School- Systematic Courses
Eliza Framework Documentation - Practical Guide
High-quality open source projects on GitHub
Bankless: Can you tell us about Agent Swarming?
Shaw:
Agent Swarming is a technology that allows multiple AI agents to work together. For example, one agent collects data, another analyzes it, and a third generates a report. These agents work together to complete more complex tasks.
For developers who want to try this technology, I recommend:
Master the development of a single agent first
Try two agents working together
Gradually expand to more agents"
