Exclusive Interview with Core Contributor of Pundi AI: From Payment to AI Technological Leap, Production Efficiency is the Key to AI Agent Breakthrough

Author: Nancy, PANews

Not long ago, the decentralized AI data layer Pundi AI underwent a transformation through token swap and brand upgrade, attracting market attention. As the hype around Web3 AI Agents gradually wanes, this well-established payment project demonstrates its determination to pivot and its firm belief in the long-term development of AI.

Recently, PANews interviewed Danny, a core contributor of Pundi AI. He reviewed his multiple entrepreneurial journeys from payments to AI, sharing the team's technical solutions, insights into the Southeast Asian Web3 industry, and profound thoughts on VC models and AI development. From Indonesia's QR code payment experiments to now breaking through the global AI data bottleneck, the story of Pundi AI is both a microcosm of technological iteration and a vivid portrayal of innovative exploration in Southeast Asia's Web3.

Indonesia opens the entrepreneurial path, from QR code payments to AI data layers.

From 2016 to 2017, Indonesia was one of the focal points of the digital economy in Southeast Asia. During that time, the internet development in the region was booming and strong. According to data from the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII), the number of internet users in Indonesia surpassed 130 million during this period, accounting for over 50% of the national population (approximately 256 million).

The rapid popularization of mobile internet, the accelerated advancement of infrastructure construction, and the rise of the young consumer group... this allowed the Pundi X team to keenly capture market opportunities and subsequently launch QR code payment services in Indonesia. This entrepreneurial experience is a strong validation of the potential of the Indonesian payment market but exposed a reality at the time: a large number of Indonesians still did not have bank accounts, making the convenience and inclusiveness of digital currency payments particularly important. This experience laid the seeds for his subsequent exploration.

In 2017-2018, when the blockchain boom swept in, the Pundi X team decisively changed the rudder and launched the Pundi X project and successfully completed the $50 million IC0. It is a blockchain-driven device developer that provides a point-of-sale solution XPOS that enables merchants and consumers to transact on a blockchain supported by physical stores, and the payment feature is not only supported by multiple blockchain networks such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain and Polygon, but also adopted in more than 30 countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America, making positive progress in market impact and product adoption.

After years of deep cultivation in cryptocurrency payments, Pundi X has set its sights on the AI track in 2024. This year, AI technology continues to make breakthroughs in various directions, with industrial applications thriving. "AI is a 'great cause'." Danny admitted in an interview. Therefore, based on insights into AI data issues, Pundi X began to create a decentralized AI data layer aimed at solving industry challenges such as data monopoly, uneven quality, and privacy protection.

launched a three-tier data quality filtering system, with Web2 and Web3 businesses running in parallel.

From breakthroughs in upstream technology to the implementation of applications in the mid and downstream sectors, the main narrative of AI is continuously evolving, gradually reshaping the competitive landscape of industries, with countless scenarios and sectors embracing intelligent empowerment. However, the core bottleneck in AI development is not computing power, but data—the scarcity of high-quality data, the barriers of data monopoly, and the challenges of privacy protection have become key pain points restricting industry progress.

"For AI start-up teams, the scarcity of free data in the market is a problem: not only is the quantity small, the update is slow, and the quality is uneven; And the cost of getting data from the giants is very high. At the same time, data providers are often faced with the dilemma of meager remuneration, unprotected copyright, and no right to share in the income generated by subsequent works. Danny noted.

To address these pain points, Pundi AI has innovatively launched a three-tier quality filtering system to ensure high standards and reliability of data. The first tier is "continuous peer review," which employs a cross-annotation mechanism, allowing different annotators (such as A, B, C, D) to repeatedly validate samples. For example, A annotates 1, 2, 3, B annotates 2, 3, 4, and so on, ensuring consistency; the second tier involves an AI Agent conducting automated reviews, providing a comprehensive examination of all annotated samples; the third tier consists of manual sampling audits by nodes, further enhancing the credibility of the data.

"AI improves production efficiency, and blockchain optimizes the distribution relationship. With the help of blockchain technology, Pundi AI realizes the on-chain confirmation of data rights and revenue distribution. Data contributors receive a proportional amount of revenue after the data package is sold; What's more, if the package spawns a new data product, the contributor will still be able to share in the reward. According to Danny's description, this transparent and traceable mechanism not only ensures the copyright protection of data, but also enables all contributors to share the value-added results, which can inject new vitality into the sustainable development of the AI ecosystem.

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

In the Web2 model, after developers publish AI data tasks on the platform, annotators worldwide complete the annotations according to the task requirements and receive compensation after quality inspection. Once the data is completed, it enters the public market for sale, allowing other developers to purchase and use it. This process is similar to the subtitle group system in mainland China, where tasks are published and data is exchanged through an on-chain crowdsourcing system. However, unlike traditional annotation platforms, the copyright of the work completed by annotators belongs to the annotators themselves.

In the Web3 model, developers can not only train their AI agents by buying data on the open market, but also issue tokens for the agents through the Pundi AI platform. After the token is issued, developers can also host their tokens to Pundi AI's AI MM Agent for on-chain market making. In addition, developers can also apply to participate in Pundi AI's funding voting protocol (similar to Aerodrome's ve model). Once the project has received support from community members, it will be able to receive weekly liquidity support.

Among them, compared with traditional market makers, the AI MM Agent system launched by Pundi AI shows unique advantages in several aspects: (1) Low cost of capital: Traditional market makers usually rely on two ways to obtain coins: one is to buy coins at a discount, and the other is to buy coins through options, which has high capital and communication costs. The AI MM Agent automates the operation and is more efficient. (2) Low communication costs: Traditional market makers need to manage trading 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 hazard: Traditional market makers may not provide services due to losses, while AI MM Agent ensures the continuous provision of market liquidity; (4) Memopool transactions: Pundi AI is the first market-making system on the whole network specifically for on-chain memopools, which can respond to market changes faster; (5) Additional financial support: Through on-chain voting and recognition, excellent projects can also receive liquidity blessings.

In the interview, Danny also revealed Pundi AI's collaboration with Nvidia. Pundi AI has officially joined the NVIDIA Inception program, which aims to support startups that are using technology to revolutionize the industry. 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 by holding AI competitions.

A comprehensive upgrade opens a new narrative, the ideals and perseverance behind non-VC financing.

Currently, Pundi AI has announced a comprehensive upgrade through token replacement and brand renewal. The official website shows that Pundi AI's dataset has exceeded 103,000, and the total number of users has surpassed 134,000.

"This is a time-consuming and labor-intensive decision that is thankless (except for shell projects), meaning that the previous brand accumulation needs to be completely rebuilt and requires reapplying for legal opinions and other documents. At the same time, there is uncertainty about whether exchanges and partners (such as data statistics websites, nodes, browsers, wallets, etc.) will support it, as well as potential delays." Danny admitted in an interview.

Nonetheless, Danny sees the change as far-reaching: at the brand level, it provides an opportunity for Pundi AI to re-tell the story, allowing it to renew its brand identity and bring about a new market positioning; Technically, the previous token contract cannot be upgraded, so a completely new token contract is required. In addition, Pundi AI has also made precision modifications that allow the new token to be differentiated from Pundi X in terms of price, avoiding confusion in the market. Danny also revealed that the newly launched dual-token model references Aerodrome's ve(3,3) mechanism: $PUNDIAI: for transactions, payments, and governance; $vePUNDIAI represents long-term holding and voting rights.

It's worth noting that, unlike many crypto projects that rely on external funding, Pundi AI is not currently making any public fundraising. According to Danny, since the launch of the DeFi project Function X in 2019, the Pundi AI team has never received external funding, 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, Pundi AI does not want to be coerced by capital, and frequently receives reminders from investors about when to issue coins and list on the exchange. The team wants to focus on what they really want to do, and not be swayed by the outside pressure of commercialization; Secondly, there may also be a drive of veteran feelings and idealism. Pundi AI firmly believes that if the goal is only to monetize and go public, the road will get narrower and narrower; And if the original intention is to create value for the industry and users, there will naturally be countless supporters on the road.

"In our view, financing is essentially building a product of the present with the trust of the past and the selling pressure of the future. As for VC coins in the current market environment, our attitude is complex and prudent. There is no right or wrong way to VC as a model, and it does accelerate the evolution of the market and technology. However, today's VC model seems to have changed its flavor and has become synonymous with 'to exchange', becoming a game for all parties, but there are also VCs who sincerely support the construction of the project. Danny said bluntly in the interview.

Although AI is penetrating various fields at an unprecedented rate, challenges remain, especially in the crypto field, and the AI agent track has cooled down 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 a MEME in the guise of technology. Pundi AI chooses to rely on the technical advantages of AI and on-chain transactions to build 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 wave and even a 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 certainly emerge. In the short term, applications closely related to trading are the most anticipated, such as AI Agents that enhance trading efficiency, increase profits, or improve security," Danny stated.

The Web3 landscape in Southeast Asia shows a tiered differentiation, with Malaysia having a greater advantage.

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

Danny pointed out that the Web3 industry in Southeast Asia can be divided into several tiers: in the first tier, Vietnam has emerged due to the rise of local projects, while Singapore has become a regional hub by attracting a large number of executives and teams; the 1.5 tier is represented by Malaysia, where it is rumored that several exchanges have set up branches in Kuala Lumpur; the second tier mainly consists of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Among these Southeast Asian countries, Danny believes that the Malaysian Chinese team has unique advantages: in terms of temperament, Malaysia has shown strong resilience and adventurous spirit; Fast learning speed and ability to quickly master cutting-edge technology; Language advantages, fluent Chinese and English, make it easy for them to connect with the Chinese-speaking circle and international resources; In 2020-2021, a large number of engineers from China, Europe and the United States poured in, injecting experience into the local team. In addition, Malaysia's development and operating costs are low, and the time zone advantage makes it easy to collaborate.