AI: Friend or Foe of Crypto Investors? (SingularityDAO)

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1:31It's Web3 Wednesdays on Crypto Daily Briefing. GM, GM, everyone. I'm Elaine Lee, your friendly crypto host and producer at Real Vision. I'm joined by Marcello Mari, co-founder and CEO of Singularity Dell. Marcello, welcome back to Real Vision. Thank you, Elaine. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm just going to go into a little bit of the price action this morning because there have been some movements. BTC currently over the past seven days, it's staying in the 30 ,000 mark. It's cooled off, however, over the past 24 hours, down by 2 % on the day, hovering at around 30 ,300. We're still in the green, baby, still in the green.

2:07But over to Ethereum, we must talk about ETH, staying solidly in the 1 ,900 mark, up over 2 % over the past seven days. Not much happening over there, but I want to talk a little bit about this token. Today, we're seeing Singularity Net. The token is, well, lots of movement there. The last time I looked was over 4%. But who knows in the world of crypto, press a refresh and God knows what you expect. But the thing that's interesting to me, it is up over the past year. So that's an interesting one to take a look at. And by the way, for the viewers who are joining me this morning, put your questions down in the chat.

2:47You know we'll take the best one on air. And remember, Real Vision members take priority. And if you're not a Real Vision member just yet, go on to realvision.com forward slash crypto to sign up. And it's absolutely free and will remain so. And then this is where you'll be able to watch the latest Rauphouse Adventures in Crypto before anyone else. A new episode premieres every Friday. All right, over to my conversation for the day with my guest. So, Marcello, last year when Santiago Velez, our very good friend of the show, spoke to you back in February, and I was at the back producing that piece.

3:27And I sort of was listening to the conversation and I secretly whispered to myself, this man might be a little bit crazy for taking on this task. And this was, you know, before AI became mainstream, the explosion of chat GPT. I'm sure you're sitting on the front row seat of this. And, you know, people really embracing the support of AI tools into their everyday work lives. And, well, here we are a little bit over a year. I think it's very clear that you and your team are serious about using AI to build out an organization that aims to bring safety to DeFi using AI. So, first of all, well done for surviving the blockchain and the crypto industry.

4:08How are you doing, sir? Thank you, Len. I'm doing pretty well, although, as you noticed before the interview, I got a few more grays in my head. I mean, a one more year in crypto took a toll on me, but I've been here long enough to call myself a survivor. So actually, since 2017, when I joined SingularityNet at the very start, I was part of the funding team. has been a very interesting ride. And I got exposure to this industry full of mad scientists and crazy pioneers. And then, as you rightly said, into 2021, I went on into funding Singularity DAO within the Singularity Net ecosystem. And I had a very good memory of my chat with Santiago over a year ago.

4:55And it really seems the other day, although we've done so much and so much water went under the bridge. But it's been a very fun ride. And yes, it's a crazy, crazy ride. Yeah, I mean, in the true words of Destiny's Child, you are a survivor. So I know you've seen like CeFi explode, centralized exchanges collapse since we last spoke. I mean, just bad actors in general. How has that made you felt over the past year? Because I mean, just as a peer-to-peer talking to you of people interested in blockchain, how has that been for you over the past year? Very interesting question. So, I mean, every major blow up had its own reason and its own history, which I think backs very much the vision that we have in Singularity Net and Singularity Dow, especially in Singularity Dow because we operate in the decentralized finance sphere, right?

5:48So let's take FTX, for example, like a centralized decision-making failure because of the collusion between two entities run by the same person, basically. So this kind of thing shouldn't happen and don't happen in the decentralized world, especially when you have a DAO that back you up. So our narrative has always been the one of trusting smart contracts, trust the blockchain, right? If you put trust into technology, if you put trust into code and communities, then you avoid these major fails. Singularity DAO by its nature trades only on decentralized exchanges. So our users don't have to trust a third-party entity with their funds.

6:40Their funds always stays with them and they're locked in the blockchain into smart contracts and they can always access it. They can always withdraw at any time. So we don't take custody. So even if tomorrow Singularity DAO explodes for some reason, our app will still be running and anybody could take their funds out. So all these major blow up in crypto, Celsius, FTX, all centralized party failure actually back the vision behind Singularity DAO. So it's been a rough year in crypto, so many bad actors. But for veterans like you and I, we've seen so many coming and go, and there's always been a cleanup in the industry.

7:22So we actually see this with favor, and we're very happy that it backs, again, our vision into the future. A veteran. Speak for yourself, Marcello. Still a spring chicken at heart. I love you. GM Samantha watching from Canada. That's our community joining in on our conversation this morning. So now you mentioned there is SingularityNet, which I remember my good friend, Ash Beddington, spoke to your CEO not long ago of SingularityNet. But then there's Singularity Dow, which you are the co-founder and the CEO of. What is the difference? And explain to me what is Singularity Dow is and what is its mission?

8:00Yeah, absolutely. So SingularityNet, as I was saying earlier, starts in 2017. So I can see that you're displaying Singularity Dow. first. So Singularity DAO tackles the vertical of decentralized finance and uses artificial intelligence to augment and support human decision making when it comes to wealth management, asset management, right? So we use sophisticated artificial intelligence tools and we are working on more and more of these tools to eventually, right now we are supporting human decision making, Eventually, we want to automate the whole asset management process. So think of Renaissance, right?

8:44One of the most successful hedge funds in the world. If you want to access the opportunities that Renaissance offers to its investors, you need to be part of a very selected niche. You need to have capital to invest. You need to have a network. It's not easy to join these opportunities. In Singularity DAO, anybody can join our strategies, our own chain strategies powered by artificial intelligence. So we are sort of like democratized and tokenized version of renaissance. And we want to spread this opportunity to as many people as possible. We are permissionless so anybody can join as far as they have a Meta Musk wallet.

9:24We have no restriction based on wealth income or provenance. We obviously do checks, but so far we are permissionless. So unlike centralized funds, we are democratic and we offer this opportunity to anybody. Democratic, which is... Sorry. Go ahead. ...tackles DeFi. Singularity net is the umbrella ecosystem. Okay. So it's fun. I'll keep it short, but it's fun. So we started in 2017 with a crazy dream of democratizing artificial general intelligence. So this was way before AI was cool, right? So way before the release of CharGPT, way before OpenAI, way before DeepMind's approach. Ben, Ben Gortzel, the founder of SingularityNet, realized immediately that AI and AGI will be the last invention that humankind would have to make.

10:28So it's the most important technology of our generation and perhaps of all time. Can we afford to let centralized entity and big Silicon Valley giant develop AGI? I don't think so. We need to ensure that AGI is developed and controlled by the people and for the people. And this can only happen through the use of blockchain technology that provides the perfect base layer to a decentralized governance system, full transparent and AI interoperability. So SingularityNet had this huge vision of creating a marketplace where different artificial intelligence algorithms can cooperate with each other, similar to neurons within a human brain.

11:14And in order to seed the offering and the demand of this artificial intelligence algorithm, SingularityNet eventually became an ecosystem of companies. SingularityDAO is the first one of this company that took off and spun off independently. After SingularityDAO, we had NUNET, which tackles hardware, decentralized hardware, so engine computing. We had Rejuve, decentralized health to support longevity medical research. We had Cogito, a new version of an algorithmic stablecoin. We have HyperCycle, a new layer one that allows AI interoperability. So we are becoming the world's first and largest artificial intelligence ecosystem in the world, supported by Singularity DAO, which is becoming a sort of decentralized and tokenized investment bank for the Singularity net ecosystem.

12:14So in a way, like a very small but ambitious version of BlackRock. Hey, everyone. We're going to take a quick pause and hear our word from our partners. We'll be right back.

12:29That's a really big, big statement and a huge task, but you said it here on Real Vision, so I'll definitely check in with you a little bit more after. Now, you mentioned investment. So tell me how Singularity Doubt is using AI to come up with an investment strategy. How is Singularity using AI to create a sort of new ecosystem of digital asset managers? Yeah, so there are many ways. So at the first layer, you can automate execution through artificial intelligence. So make sure that you call algorithms that can actually execute automatically on chain based on metrics set by human strategy. So that's the first layer, automation, very easy to achieve.

13:13Second layer is support and augment human decision making. How can you do that? You can use artificial intelligence to try to predict price fluctuation within crypto markets. You can take and analyze historic market data from previous year and apply to new patterns and see if price moves in the same way. You can do sentiment analysis and see how different community sentiment interferes with price actions and price fluctuation. You can use reinforcement learning to recreate certain market condition and see how previous trends will apply to new market conditions. This is obviously a little bit more complicated.

13:59So the second layer is augmenting human decision making with prediction. And this prediction are not only in relation to price fluctuation, can be also in relation to new liquidity pools, where best API is, how to navigate the intricate world of decentralized finance, where you have so many data, but not so many analysts. Sorry. And this is one of the ways. You can also use artificial intelligence for analytics and understand how money flows on-chain between different wallets, between different liquidity pools, between different decentralized exchanges. And AI can really provide insights for humans in order to amend their decision-making again.

14:50And you can also use AI to do counterparty risk analysis. So when you have data about how funds flows on chain, you can identify where these funds flows. So basically who owns these wallets, you can tag them and you can see whether these wallets are interacting with third parties that maybe are not that clean or have been flagged before or have been red flagged, right? So you can immediately understand if there is any counterparty risk associated interacting with certain pools or certain investors or certain wallets. And AI can help understanding all of this. Yeah. And now I won't go into too much technical detail because you can go onto the website and assume all those features that you sort of mentioned there is sort of like with the dynasets that I see on the websites with the vaults that you mentioned.

15:46And it really is a big, big playground that you are offering to crypto traders out there. Am I right in saying so, when you look at that sort of what's available on SingularityDAO.ai right now? I mean, our main audience are, you know, any crypto users, anybody who wants to get exposure to the world of cryptocurrencies, but doesn't have time or knowledge to manage their own assets. So they can simply use our strategies and we take it from there. And our artificial intelligence together with our team of quants and traders take it from there. So we're really aiming to those users that don't really want to take the hassle of finding the best APIs, finding the best trades, following the market news, following market use every day.

16:36So those are the primary users of the platform. Then strategies and traders can come in on the platform and create their own strategies and serve them to our users. And all of this happens in a permissionless and decentralized way. So we're just providing the base layer technology for these parties to interact. Okay. I mean, just out of curiosity, and because I'm such a princess, where the hell are you? Because it's very noisy where you are. Is it very noisy? I'm really sorry. So I'm in a hotel in Geneva. What are you doing in Geneva? Yes. Number one, eating chocolate. Number two, I'm here for the AI for Good Summit by the United Nation.

17:20Interesting. Yeah, we have three robots presenting on stage tomorrow. And 40 people from the Singularity Net ecosystem attending the event. So we use it also as an opportunity to come together and see each other face to face from time to time. It's a beautiful place. And this conference organized by the United Nations, I think, is a great testimony into the fact that AI is becoming more and more relevant. Let me ask you this. Since you're there on the ground, what's the most important or fascinating conversation that you've had with someone there? I arrived one hour ago so probably with the receptionist so far nothing special the event starts tomorrow but I'm really looking forward to connect with Peter Diamandis with Yuval Harari among the many others all our previous friends on Real Vision and therefore you've just told me you've answered that question incorrectly because the most fascinating conversation should be the one with me right now.

18:31Okay. Let me ask you this. Obviously, the structure of a DAO is all about bottoms up. So what is the government structure of Singularity DAO? How can users participate? Is there a recent vote that your community has participated in to make a decision within Singularity DAO that you can tell us about? Yeah, sure. I mean, we involve our community in as many decisions as possible, trying to be as transparent as possible in our decision making. The most recent one, if I'm not wrong, was to include different stablecoins into our strategies, given the shock the market got from the USDC, the pagging.

19:13So in case any stablecoin that we use into our strategy, the pags, suddenly we asked our community the freedom to be able to use different stablecoins, because that's very important. And that's a foundation into our strategies. I'm testing you now at the top of your head. Do you know how many people voted in that proposal? No, I don't remember. But in the order of, I think we have about between 500 and 700 participant average into our voting, which is actually a pretty good turnout. We have a very engaged community, which I'm super proud of. But we try to keep the engagement very high with the community, and fortunately, they love participating.

20:01We're trying to foster that democratic participation more and more because we truly believe in the bottom-up approach. We're also in the process of writing a new white paper where we're going to outline our new governance structure, which is going to be more sophisticated than what we have now. And we'll include, for example, and I don't want to bore you to that with these details, but we're going to have protocol managed liquidity, for example. So we're going to assign part of our treasury to be managed by the DAOs so that they can self-organize, create sub-DAOs and devolve funds as they please, based on voting.

20:38Hey, everyone. We're going to take another quick break and hear a word from our partners. We'll be right back to the Real Vision Crypto Daily Briefing.

20:49You know, I know you said, oh, you don't want to bore me to death. But actually, if you have a functioning system of a doubt, people are engaging at this time in this current climate. That's actually saying quite a bit. Okay, let's put it that way. Okay, so you mentioned a few things about, it's sort of like what you're building out there is to support human behavior on how they trade. So how can AI sort of be utilized in crypto trading to mitigate damage and maximize returns from volatile market movements? I mean, sort of talk me through the risk management in the world of DeFi, because that is such a scary space.

21:27Yeah, it is. Yes, it is. So first of all, Singularity DAO was conceived because I am a terrible trader, right? So every time I move funds, I lose money. And like me, I think 85 % of retail traders lose money when they trade. So you may like the thrill of the gamble, but eventually at the end of the day, most of us lose money. So we wanted to create a system that leveraged AI and human knowledge to actually mitigate the risk of trading cryptocurrencies. And I think we've done that pretty effectively. I mean, our strategies have performed extremely well, and they're way more stable than the underlying tokens.

22:14So artificial intelligence can definitely help. As I said, we use it for price prediction, for on-chain analytics, for sentiment analysis, all of these techniques combined gives users a better understanding of crypto markets. And then behind you have humans that push the buttons, basically. But our mission is not to overload users with all these signals and data. In the future, we might make it available. But what we want to give our users, it's an easy and safe way to manage their crypto assets without worrying too much about anything that goes behind. So that's our vision. Well, you know, at the rate you're sort of building, what is the most pressing issues that keeps you up at night?

23:09There are many, right? There are many. I mean, there's in this market, there's so many opportunities that you would like to tackle them all at the same time, but you obviously have limitations of team and resources. It's very much like nailing down, prioritizing opportunities and what the best cost benefit is for us. I would love to do so many things, but I have constraints and resource constraints. For example, our strategies are currently called dynasets. Okay, so are going to be packaged into DynaVaults, which are like multi-strategy vaults. I would love to have DynaVaults with real world assets as strategies, for example, with NFT strategies, having a sort of tokenized NFT fund that people can invest on.

24:00But unfortunately, we are limited in time and resources. Also Singularity DAO became so important into the Singularity Net ecosystem to launch a new project and to support new project to act as an investment bank, as I mentioned earlier, that, you know, almost like 50 % of our resources are now dedicated to support the singularity net ecosystem and realize the vision of creating the world's largest AI ecosystem, which is extremely important, right? So if we are to see AI as the most disruptive technology of our generation and perhaps the number one tech industry or industry in the next five years, then it's extremely important that we set the ground now for the emergence of decentralized AI and decentralized AGI.

24:47I think the success of our ecosystem has also been dictated by the fact that users are keen to engage with AI projects, but there is nothing out there that they can engage with. There is nothing that they can trust. They can buy into Microsoft, they can buy into Google, they can buy into NVIDIA, but other than buying shares, there is not much they can do. In crypto, they can, of course, purchase our token to participate to our governance. They can participate in our community. They can use our product. They can help us in the directions. We have so many different projects they can get involved in.

25:24So I think it's the strength of our ecosystem is the bottom-up approach and the engagement with the community compared to any other AI products in the world. That's why we believe in blockchain and crypto in general. Well, just a kind reminder for you crypto bullheads out there that none of this is investment advice. But like in the words of, excuse my Italian pun, Rome wasn't built in a day. Let's just put that out there. And I'm very glad to still see you a year later, as you mentioned, And last time I saw you, you had the same hair color as me. So, OK, we had to do a little bit of stalking on Twitter because, you know, crypto Twitter is huge.

26:07And we came across a tweet where we saw at Sophia versus launching a Singularity DAOs launchpad. Can you tell me a little bit about that? What's going on there? Yeah, that's pretty amazing. So you're familiar with Sophia. Yeah, you've seen Sophia. I'm sure that some. I know Sophia. Look, if you don't know about Sophia and you're messing around with AI, let's just put it this way. Sophia is OG. And if I correctly remember, your team is directly worked on Sophia. Yeah. Yeah, that's correct. So Sophia is the most human-like robot out there in the world, right? and was built by Hanson Robotics in Hong Kong, and specifically David Hanson.

26:57And the AI of Sophia was created by Ben Gortzel, who is the CEO of Singularity Net. So together, Ben and David Hanson came together and they founded Singularity Net. So it was basically the decentralized AI for Sophia. So with time, the team behind Sophia started to realize that the natural prosecution of SOFIA was into the digital world. So you have physical representation of SOFIA, but we also want to have a digital representation of SOFIA. And therefore, they've been working on the idea of launching a metaverse for quite some time. So SOFIAverse is the metaverse of SOFIA. However, it's one of the applications of the core AI lab that is behind the SOFIAverse.

27:50So it's an AI lab that collects human intelligence together from different interaction with the labs through the video game, through NFT collection and so on, to finally awaken Sophia. So anytime you play the metaverse, yeah. and the whole brand new ecosystem out there i just want to quickly uh breeze through though because i'm coming up to the end of the show because i have so many questions but i do have to hand over the platform to my community which is samantha uh samantha who is watching the show live with us on the rv website she is asking us um does the ai factor in the current state of geopolitics or climate impacts in its analysis does the ai factor in the current state of climate impacts?

28:42I think very interesting. So geopolitical, definitely, yes. I mean, it's such a big topic, but there is definitely a race into regulating artificial intelligence. And I figure there is more like wrestling between the United States and the EU as usual on who to regulate first and how to regulate to the point that some of the main thought leaders of Silicon Valley, they were in Europe during the summer to try to influence these regulations. So the EU came out with a framework that is fairly stringent for now and will probably slow down the release and adoption of new artificial intelligence tools.