AI-driven Decentralized Finance infrastructure Wayfinder: drop the entry barriers and achieve popularization

DeFi claims to be open to everyone, but its complexity makes it difficult for ordinary investors to enter. From preparing gas fees to understanding complex protocols, many users give up promising investment opportunities due to the cumbersome processes involved.

Wayfinder is an on-chain dedicated AI agent system designed to address these accessibility issues. Users can engage in simple conversations with the agent to execute professional-level investment strategies, ranging from cross-chain trading to basis trading.

Wayfinder will expand its API services in the future, expected to be widely used as an infrastructure to simplify on-chain complexities in various Web3 projects. The Wayfinder API will enhance the user experience across the cryptocurrency industry, making "accessible financial services for all" a reality.

Is DeFi really open to everyone?

Decentralized Finance aims to create an open financial ecosystem. However, it requires complex technical knowledge and advanced financial skills, creating a significant gap between ideals and reality.

Chain abstraction and account abstraction have emerged to reduce the gap. These technologies improve the user experience, but lack standardization, and the supported protocols are still limited. The fundamental issue lies in the complexity of learning, which cannot be resolved by technical improvements alone. Users still need to understand DeFi-specific concepts such as AMM, liquidity pools, and impermanent loss. Therefore, DeFi sets a higher barrier than traditional finance.

The research from the Bank for International Settlements clearly indicates this. In the leading DeFi protocol Uniswap V3, only 7% of liquidity providers control about 80% of the TVL. These professional users skillfully navigate complex systems, achieving returns that are 20% higher than those of average users. This gap even exists in Uniswap, which is the most widely used and has a relatively good user experience, indicating that accessibility issues affect the entire Decentralized Finance ecosystem.

The DeFi ecosystem faces clear issues. It forces existing users into endless learning and decision fatigue, causing new users to completely give up entering. The complex access process deters users, even when there are enticing investment opportunities. As a result, DeFi has become the exclusive domain of professional users, contrary to the original intention of achieving financial innovation through decentralized technology. The promise of widespread participation has still not been realized, and high barriers to entry along with poor usability limit its potential.

Can AI Solve the High Barriers to Entry in Decentralized Finance?

Recent AI breakthroughs have brought new possibilities for dropping the entry barriers to Decentralized Finance. Agent-based AI technology has emerged, surpassing merely providing intelligence, and can now serve as "hands and feet" to execute complex tasks. This could be the key to large-scale adoption of DeFi.

For example, the user requests: "Bridge my ETH from Base to Solana and buy Memecoin BONK." The AI agent analyzes dozens of bridging options in real time and provides clear choices:

• Wormhole: fee $2.50, completion time 3 minutes, high security
• LayerZero: Fee $1.80, Completion Time 5 minutes, there is a risk of Gas fee fluctuations.

Users do not need to learn the complex technical differences between bridges, but can quickly make decisions using the key information provided by the agent. The agent automatically handles wallet connections and transaction execution, as if having a personal asset manager available 24/7.

However, there are fundamental challenges in achieving this vision. Most AI technologies currently lack direct integration with blockchain and cannot even check wallet balances in real-time. Even integrating blockchain nodes and understanding thousands of smart contracts is a challenge. Interacting securely with these contracts is complex, and verifying and ensuring the security of the protocols is an additional challenge.

AI technology requires a dedicated on-chain agent system to create real value in Decentralized Finance. Wayfinder has emerged.

Wayfinder: On-chain Dedicated AI Agent System

Wayfinder provides an AI agent system designed specifically for on-chain environments. Unlike general-purpose agents, Wayfinder agents are directly integrated with blockchain infrastructure to automatically execute on-chain tasks. The AI model is fine-tuned for the blockchain environment, navigating and utilizing Decentralized Finance protocols more efficiently than general models, providing an environment for ordinary users to access the complex DeFi ecosystem.

Wayfinder originates from Colony, an AI-based survival simulation game developed by the Web3 game company Parallel Studios. In Colony, AI avatars operate autonomously, collecting resources, trading, and formulating survival strategies without player intervention. During the development process, Parallel Studios discovered that these AI agents' autonomous on-chain activities could be extended beyond the game, applying to the Decentralized Finance environment, leading to the development of the Wayfinder project.

Wayfinder consists of two core elements: the Wayfinder Shell (, which is the interface for users to interact with dedicated intelligent agents ), and the Wayfinder Graph (, which is the navigation system that helps agents find the optimal path in complex multi-chain environments ).

Wayfinder Shell: Your exclusive Decentralized Finance private banker

Wayfinder Shell(Shells) serves as an interface for users to interact with dedicated intelligent agents, formulating and executing various on-chain strategies. Shells provide dedicated intelligent agents for specific roles, responding to user requests for organic collaboration and efficiently handling complex tasks. Shells support major mainnets including Ethereum, Solana, Base, and Avalanche, enabling smooth asset management in a multi-chain environment.

The biggest feature of Shells is that the agent executes direct on-chain transactions through an embedded dedicated Web3 wallet. For example, when a user requests to diversify an investment of 100 dollars USDC into tokens that have shown an upward trend on Solana over the past week, the agent filters tokens using real-time market data, constructs a portfolio, and executes the investment directly. Users can easily implement their desired investment strategies through a single interface without the need for complex technical understanding.

The Wayfinder intelligent agent system consists of four types:

• Trading Agents: Handle basic on-chain asset transfers and management, including token swaps, bridging, and staking.
• Perpetual Contract Agent: Integrated with the on-chain order book engine HyperCore of the Hyperliquid exchange, supporting spot or perpetual contract trading without the need to understand Hyperliquid. Supports various strategies, including leverage settings, position management, and basis trading.
• Contract Agents: Handle all contract-related tasks, from smart contract writing to deployment and analysis.
• Autonomous Agents: Coordinate multiple agents according to user-defined goals, handling a comprehensive role from strategy formulation to execution, rebalancing, and risk management.

In the future, various specialized agents will be continuously added, such as yield discovery agents specifically for yield optimization, to expand the ecosystem. Wayfinder utilizes a multi-agent system where each agent verifies and collaborates with one another, making decisions more stable and accurate. For operations that require multiple transactions, agents run simulations on the virtual network (VNet) before execution, predicting outcomes and preventing errors or delusions. Important transactions require user approval, and users maintain full control over their assets.

Wayfinder Graph: Google's map for Decentralized Finance

Wayfinder Graph is a navigation system that systematically organizes the complex blockchain ecosystem. Similar to Google Maps, it connects real-time global road, building, and traffic information to guide users to the optimal route. Wayfinder Graph builds relationships between DeFi protocols, smart contracts, and assets across various blockchain networks, helping agents execute tasks through the most efficient path.

The core of the mapping system is the "routing path". Each routing path defines specific tasks step by step, such as "exchanging ETH for USDC on Uniswap" or "bridging USDC from Ethereum to Arbitrum". Each path records details, including the required smart contract address, function call methods, expected fees, and considerations. The agent uses verified routes to quickly and securely complete tasks.

In the future, the paths will be created and managed by the community. For example, when new DeFi protocols emerge, community participants can write and submit paths that interact with these protocols. Submitters must stake PROMPT tokens as collateral, and path validators review the submitted content. Only approved paths will be added to the official repository for all Shells to use. Path creators earn a portion of the fees when their paths are used by other Shells. Incorrect paths will result in losses, and the creators and validators of the staked tokens will be penalized to compensate the victims. This structure operates as a continuous quality management system, going beyond simple rewards. Staked tokens remain locked even after the paths are approved, serving as a security mechanism that provides ongoing incentives for path creators to maintain accuracy and safety.

Wayfinder aims to ensure scalability through the community, rather than adopting a slow and limited approach of direct integration with all protocols. Similar to how Google Maps users can register locations or leave comments to improve map quality, Wayfinder can flexibly respond to the rapid changes and complexities of the Decentralized Finance ecosystem through a community-centric approach.

A New DeFi Experience Implemented by Wayfinder

With Wayfinder, complex on-chain strategies are no longer exclusive to experts. Automated agents handle strategy formulation and execution, allowing beginners to easily manage expert-level strategies, while experts can free themselves from repetitive tasks and focus on more complex designs.

The following case demonstrates how Wayfinder customizes new Decentralized Finance experiences for different user levels:

Complex cross-chain transactions become simple

One of the most troublesome aspects of on-chain transactions is the need to prepare different Gas fee tokens for each chain in advance. For example, Ethereum requires ETH, while Solana requires SOL. Transferring USDC from Solana to Ethereum requires SOL as Gas fee. If there is no SOL, users must go through a cumbersome process: bridging USDC from Ethereum to Solana, and then exchanging it for SOL.

The trading agent of Shells resolves this complexity through the BRAP( best rate aggregation protocol ) engine. The BRAP engine explores multiple liquidity paths to find the optimal route and handle token swaps and bridging. Users can achieve a one-stop experience without complex processes. In addition, Wayfinder supports the unified handling of Gas fees across multiple chains using only Base chain-based PROMPT tokens, eliminating the need for users to prepare native tokens separately for each chain, allowing for efficient cross-chain transactions.

one-stop operation for repetitive investment processes

Wayfinder can execute complex investment strategies beyond simple token swaps or bridging. A representative example is a leveraged DCA( dollar cost averaging) strategy. Investors set conditions once and can continuously execute complex investment strategies without the need for repetitive manual work.

Assuming the user requests: "Every week, invest $100 in BTC through DCA. When the BTC price rises and the collateral value increases, I want to borrow additional funds using that surplus to buy more BTC." The autonomous agent first analyzes the real-time interest rates and TVL of multiple lending protocols ( such as Aave and Compound ), selecting the optimal protocol.

Then, the trading agent sequentially executes the leveraged investment strategy: depositing the held BTC as collateral, borrowing USDC equivalent to a certain percentage of the collateral value, purchasing additional BTC with the borrowed USDC, and then depositing the purchased BTC as collateral. This process repeats, allowing users to operate a position equivalent to 3-4 BTC even with an initial investment of only one BTC.

The intelligent agent executes strategies within the risk parameters set by the user, continuously monitoring conditions ( such as a maximum leverage of 3x and a -10% loss limit ). When the market declines, it tracks the collateral rate, and when the liquidation risk increases, it automatically reduces part of the position to prevent risk.

![In-depth Analysis of Wayfinder: AI Agents Driving the Mass Adoption of Decentralized Finance](