Host: Blair Zhu, Brand Director of Mint Ventures
Special Guest: Navin Vethanayagam, the Chief Brain of IQ.wiki
Blair: Hey everyone, welcome back to Web3 Founders Real Talk, where we dive into unfiltered conversations with movers and shakers in the industry. Today we’re thrilled to have a true pioneer of AI and crypto, Navin, Chief Brain of IQ.wiki. Welcome aboard, Navin.
Navin: Thank you for having me. It’s great to be on.
Contents
Mission and Inspiration
Blair: Thank you so much for coming. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? How did you land in crypto blockchain?
Navin: Yeah, so a little bit about me. I lead IQ.wiki and BrainDAO as well. I’m the Chief Brain of IQ.wiki and the Galaxy Brain of BrainDAO. BrainDAO is fully governed by the IQ token holders, and we developed a suite of AI and blockchain knowledge DApps around the IQ token, including IQ.wiki, the world’s largest blockchain encyclopedia. IQ GPT.com, the AI agent for blockchain knowledge, which is trained in all of IQ.wiki’s databases. IQ Social is an AI-powered social forum for blockchain use. And we’re currently working on IQ Code, the first AI for smart contracts. And to take it back, how I got into the space was I joined IQ.wiki in 2016. At that time, though, we were known as Everipedia. The original vision was around making an inclusive encyclopedia that was designed for everyone. So it was all types of knowledge, but at the same time, we’d always been passionate about blockchain technology. For example, one of our founders, Sam Kazemian, he paid his tuition by mining Dogecoin. So he was always telling us about crypto. And we had some other co-founders who were really into crypto early on. But we never really saw the connection until around 2018, when crypto was really growing quickly. And there was the start of the ICO boom. We kind of realized how crypto could be the perfect solution in terms of governance because one of the issues with encyclopedias and wiki in general, is that people have to work together to govern the platform. One of the issues with Wikipedia, for example, is that people were frustrated with how exclusive it was. For example, it’s tough to put up wikis about new projects with blockchain technology. Like Cardano, only got a page once it became a multi-billion dollar token. So we wanted to kind of open up the moderation. A lot of times, in Wikipedia, there are issues with censorship because people don’t know who is editing and who is behind it. We wanted to do different things differently. We figured blockchain is perfect because everything is transparent on chain. So every edit can be recorded on chain. There’s evidence there. We use a DAO structure so that people can see and vote on decisions in terms of governance. That’s kind of how we got the idea of moving everything on chain. And that’s what we did in 2018. That’s when we also launched the IQ token as a reward mechanism for everyone contributing content and getting involved.
Encouraging Engagement, Ensuring Quality
Blair: Wow, that is so impressive, because I was actually about to ask what inspired your team to start this mission early on. Because we’ve seen those recent AI buzzes everywhere. But apparently, you guys found out those missions back in 2018, when everyone was so into ICO, like you said, all those speculative topics. That’s so impressive. And as you said IQ.wiki welcomes all those individuals from all backgrounds, whether newcomers, coders, NFT traders, or anyone, is there a predominant user base right now? How does the platform cater to users with varying expertise levels? And how do you encourage knowledge sharing among diverse users to be more engaged in your platform?
Navin: Great question. That kind of gets to how IQ GPT came about. One of the issues that I always had with IQ.wiki is that people really appreciated it. It was a great resource because we had built up so much great content. We have thousands of articles ranging from NFTs to DeFi to AMMs to concepts to even the theory of improvement proposals, stuff like Dencun. So really like niche stuff and technical stuff, as well as really basic stuff like just a wiki about Bitcoin itself or Satoshi. So there is a wide user base. One of the things we found was that AI technology can really democratize knowledge and make it easy to understand. Because one of the issues we had was that people were busy. They don’t have time to read a 5000-word wiki, even though they appreciate the content. We realized that IQ GPT could be a great solution because people can use it and ask questions and get quick answers right away. So that’s how we’ve helped, make it easier for people who are new. With IQ GPT, I think that helps a lot in terms of making it easier. And just in general, there’s a range of topics and a range of levels. Then one of the cool features is we’ve brought the products together on IQ.wiki. There’s a box for the IQ GPT. So for example, on the Bitcoin page, you can click a box and it will say, click a button to explain like I’m five, the “ELI5” button. So it can really cater to a lot of different users.
Blair: Yeah, I use it and had a great experience using it. Can you also let us know how can you make sure that all the information and contents are accurate and reliable? I guess that’s more like a source of information kind of thing. Are you noticing any notable challenges in this process? Or even any plans for IQ GPT expansion or product enhancement?
Navin: Yeah, there are a lot of interesting questions there. I think on terms of the content side, we have great BrainDAO employees, a great editorial team to make sure that the content is high quality to help new editors out, and do a lot of tasks like that. So that way, we ensure that the content quality is high and we onboard people who are really interested in cryptocurrency. We work with a lot of projects themselves. For example, like project founders, they all want to make sure that their page is correct and everything’s up to date. We work with projects, people in the crypto media, VCs, and all kinds of different people to ensure that the content is of high quality. In terms of expansion, there’s a lot of really cool stuff happening with IQ GPT. I think we just hit over 60 protocols that have integrated IQ GPT, just a couple like Frax Finance, Ankr, and Cluster, all of these guys have integrated IQ GPT into their communities because IQ GPT is not only a chat interface like ChatGPT, we’ve also expanded to a Telegram bot and a Discord bot. So we’re seeing a lot of communities integrated into their Telegram. So you don’t have to answer those same questions over and over like when buying it, like where can I buy the token? Now people can just go slash AI and ask the question and get a quick answer. So that’s one cool feature that we’ve brought in. We’ve also just very recently launched something called Fact of the Day to spark those discussions up. IQ GPT will generate a random fact from our database. For example, for the IQ.wiki Telegram, it will be from IQ.wiki page or from Frax’s page for the Frax page. So there’s been a lot of new features there. Longer term, what I’m really interested in and really excited about, actually not too long term because it’s currently in testing right now, is we’re going to expand it to X.com or Twitter. So that’s going to be really fun. It’s going to be able to respond to Twitter threads, just something that I’m pretty excited about because there’s so much that happens on Twitter. So just getting in there and having AI be able to get involved is going to be really interesting to see.
Progress on IQ Code
Blair: That is so awesome because Twitter is definitely another major information hub of crypto. When we wake up, we just open up X and start browsing to see what we’ve missed. that is so impressive. Also, as far as I know, you have been building IQ Code as well because it sounds to me like you’re not only removing the barrier for all those newcomers, but you’re also removing the barrier for developers. The IQ Code empowers developers to effortlessly craft secure and efficient smart contracts. And I would say potentially it could be a game changer to builder communities. Imagine we can make all those operations costs much lower, and make the entire building process easier and seamless. Can you share some latest progress on this?
Navin: Yeah, absolutely. IQ Code is really coming along quickly. There are two elements. The first element is going to be auditing smart contracts. So that’s currently what’s coming out. Vitalik himself had spoke on Twitter about the most exciting application he sees for AI in crypto is going to be the AI auditing of smart contracts. So preventing those billion dollar hacks, that’s going to really help Ethereum and the ecosystem as a whole. That’s our first main focus. And that’s coming along well in terms of the development side there. I think that’s going to be the first product. It’s going to be really exciting because right now you only have two solutions in terms of preventing hacks. One of them is to have a bug bounty, which maybe you have to put up a couple hundred thousand to get a lot of people in front of it. But the issue there is it takes a lot of time and you can’t do it every time you ship code. It has to be maybe like a big launch. Then you have a bug bounty program and it’s continuous. Or the other option is you hire an auditing firm. But again, you have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to hire the firm. It doesn’t make sense for every time you ship code. So what we’re envisioning with IQ Code is that as projects build, as you ship code, you can audit the smart contracts. You can find those bugs earlier and much faster. So I think that’s going to be one of the really exciting applications of IQ Code. That’s kind of where we envision it first on the smart contract side.
Blair: Well, I would say this is actually moving the needle because, as you said, optimizing smart contracts internally without relying on external parties is definitely a substantial pain point. Is that everything you want to share with the IQ Code? Or is this just the first product?
Navin: I would say yes. So that’s the first half. That’s going to launch in 2024. Actually, both parts are going to launch this year. We’re planning to launch both. The second half is going to be helping people generate code, kind of a GitHub Copilot for Solidity. So that’s what’s really going to help you code faster for developers. You will be like a junior developer, to help out with the senior developer or product manager. So that’s kind of how we see IQ Code filling in on the coding side. We could see it really make it easier to build smart contracts, making it easier for developers to build much faster, which is what we’re going to need with the rate that crypto is growing. And there’s a lot of new people being on board, a lot of new DApps need to be created. So I think IQ Code can really be a part of that.
Blair: Yeah, that sounds a little bit intimidating as well, because it sounds to me, we no longer need that many engineers, right？
Navin: It’s true that IQ Code and AI tools are going to make developers much more effective. But I think we are not going to see a reduction in the amount of developers. What we’re going to see is the access greatly increase, we’re going to see there will be a need for a lot more developers, because there’s going to be a lot more DApps that need to be built as more people come on board, there’s going to be more appetite for more DApps, more products. I think we’re actually going to see a growth in the amount of developers. I think if you are a developer, and you’re concerned about this, I would say definitely learn to use these AI tools because then you will have an edge.
Revenue Generation and IQ Token
Blair: Yeah, that’s true. I guess the next step is, how can we master those tools to really improve the work efficiency. Because we’re always talking about, oh, where is our next billion users in crypto? I guess that’s the way to go. Just build the next billion applications first to have mainstream adoption. Okay, so my next question is about your revenue generations, and your tokenomics. How does IQ.wiki generate revenue? And how does it benefit token holders right now? How do you ensure the proper governance, the proper transparency of incentives on IQ.wiki?
Navin: Great question. So BrainDAO has a treasury of about $30 million in assets. So that’s all up on the BrainDAO site. So you can see how those assets are invested. The largest position outside of the IQ token itself is Ethereum, staked Ethereum. So we have some good revenue there, which can be used for further development. We also have a good mix of stable coins to ensure the safety of the capital long term. But we have that exposure through our IQ token itself, though Ethereum, the growth potential. We also have a lot of protocols on Liquidity. We have a couple of million dollars in IQ/FRAX pools. So that way, people always have access to the IQ token, even through decentralized finance. We also have Binance, Upbit, so the token is easily available there. But it’s available both on centralized and decentralized exchanges. In general, the BrainDAO as a whole, as a DAO, has a huge amount of funding through that. We have a long-term vision. Our plan is to really develop the DApps, like IQ.wiki, IQ GPT, IQ Code, really grow those out. IQ Stakers already have early access to IQ GPT and all of our tools. So that’s one incentive to increase the value of the token, which increases the value of the treasury. And then in the long term future, we’re also looking at some different models. For example, with IQ GPT, a lot of products or projects are adopting it. So currently, it’s free, but I think in potential as it scales, there could be some fees involved for projects that want to customize it. We recently got a grant from ICP to do exactly that. So we’re working on a custom IQ GPT bot for their Korean community. So that’s kind of how I see revenue scaling.
Development of BrainPass
Blair: Wow, you’ve probably partially answered my next question as well. As you mentioned, BrainDAO, the one behind IQ tokens, announced the launch of the BrainPass in 2024 to really increase the utility of IQ tokens. Can you provide more insights into its current development, potential impact on your token, or anything that you want to cover?
Navin: Yeah, absolutely. So in terms of BrainPass, we’re looking at a couple of different options. BrainPass is the original idea we had in terms of gating access to our products with IQ GPT and IQ Code. We’re still looking at that as one method where people could stake IQ tokens and maybe receive a BrainPass, or there’s a purchase of a BrainPass to access all of these AI tools. But I think that the growth we’re seeing on the enterprise side with AI tools being so useful to protocols with IQ GPT, I think we could go with a different model. I think one of the things that I’m most excited about is one of the things that we’re exploring——IQ chain. We’re exploring the idea of moving these products onto a central blockchain. So we’re thinking of creating our own rollup called IQ chain, where these products would be built on there. And then IQ would be the gas token of that chain. So that would be the monetization for IQ. But to really scale things, what we do is offer incentives for AI developers. Like for AI training, to bring other AI developers on board. Because there are a lot of great AI developers who don’t necessarily want to work at Google or Microsoft or OpenAI. Most of the AI development right now is taking place in these massive corporations and nonprofits. There are a lot of developers who want to be independent. I think IQ chain could be a great home for people who want to develop decentralized technology, decentralized AI.
Competition and Differentiation
Blair: Wow, that sounds like very extensive planning. Looking forward to seeing more development, and more impact that IQ would provide us in the future. Here’s another question that I’d say is a bit tricky, because we’ve seen a lot of crossovers between AI and crypto. And also, we have seen some competition with other cryptocurrency knowledge platforms as well. How does IQ.wiki view these competitions with other players? How does it differentiate itself? What could be the unique differentiator? And what are its plans for the future product development and market expansion overall?
Navin: Great point. I think there is not a lot of competition, I would actually say, because of our unique advantages. We built IQ.wiki back in 2018. So we’ve had the largest blockchain encyclopedia, and really the only blockchain encyclopedia that’s actually on chain. So we have a huge database, thousands of wikis. So we were the first to train on that. We are the only ones who have trained on that. IQ GPT is the only model trained on IQ.wiki’s database. So it has a huge edge in terms of the crypto content. And to give you an example, with ChatGPT, there was a question, like, if you asked it, what is Pepe, it wouldn’t give you the meme coin. I think now it does, but initially it wouldn’t. And then with us, it would immediately pick up that it’s a meme coin. So it’s context-specific. There’s a lot of training like that that we’ve done, in terms of meme coins, NFTs and DeFi, just make sure it’s tailored for those specific things. And we’ve been able to do that because we have that large database to train on. We have a community from that as well. So our editors are always updating our Wikis and showing that the content is fresh. And that also goes into making IQ GPT better. Another example is that we’ve just been building for a long time. In 2018 we launched the first blockchain encyclopedia. So that’s over six years of experience directly working with smart contracts, which I don’t think a lot of teams have that experience. Because again, when you’re developing, you need a lot of smart contract experience to be able to find those potential bugs, those vulnerabilities, to be able to code and develop these solutions. You really need that base of experience, which is I think something that majorly differentiates us. In terms of where we see the market going, I think IQ Code is very exciting because it has a huge application for really any team that’s developing. So I think that’s going to give us something really unique for the market. In terms of IQ GPT, we’re seeing a lot of growth in terms of integrations already with Telegram and Discord. I think Twitter is going to open up a lot of avenues. Also what I’m excited about in terms of IQ GPT is having it more being an agent where we have multiple IQ GPTs, where it’s customized. For example, one idea we’re experimenting with is having an IQ GPT with a meme vibe. So it responds to threads with jokes and meme coin threads and stuff like that. But you could also have an IQ GPT that the main IQ GPT would probably be more around research and analyzing what’s going on on Twitter, like analyzing the different DeFi threads, and what’s coming on to the market. So you can have a more serious analysis. You could also have different IQ GPTs that have different goals. For example, you could have an IQ GPT that’s very focused on DeFi, one that’s focused on AI, one that’s focused on Ethereum, and one that’s focused on Bitcoin. And you could have the agents themselves do research and debate so that you can come to a great conclusion. So we could really automate a lot of the existing research that’s going on at funds. For example, my sister, she’s a trader at UBS. And every day what they do is each person uses their own experiences, does their research, they come with five ideas in terms of where they need to shift in terms of the markets. What we could see, which would be really exciting, is to have five different IQ GPT AI agents with different approaches to the market. They’re all covering different sectors. And then you have a call where they all debate each other. And then you come up with the best solution. So there’s really a lot of room for expansion for IQ GPT, IQ Code, and then IQ Chain is the hub for all of that.
Blair: Yeah, so IQ Code will be the next focus, right? Because it sounds like it’s going to be your secret recipe for your growth. But is that what it is?
Navin: Absolutely, IQ Code is one of the main focuses for development that should be launched this year.
Views on AI and Crypto Crossover
Blair: Okay, we will see. And since I mentioned when we started off this podcast that you guys have been building this product since 2018, and definitely early, even before the whole entire crossover between AI and crypto kind of conversations. So what are your thoughts on this crossover between AI and crypto overall? Because currently, we’re seeing multiple good use cases. We’re seeing some fraud production. We’re seeing, like you said, maybe AI-powered smart contracts use case. Is there any good use case that you have been seeing and you’d like to share with everyone today?
Navin: Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s a lot of different exciting applications for AI. I think the first thing that we’re seeing is the decentralized development of AI. That’s the first stage. For example, with BrainDAO, what we’re doing is we’re developing AI tools, but we’re developing it with community ownership and community interest. So if you’re interested in the direction of where we’re building, where you want to see BrainDAO go, where you want to see AI development go, you can get the IQ token, you can stake it, that way people can earn rewards and get involved in governance. So I think that’s one positive shift. I think an interesting platform is Image AI. They’re also using a DAO model, I believe, and they’re building tools for image generation. So that’s kind of another project. So we’re seeing more teams take this model. Artificial superintelligence, I believe, is also a similar structure. So it’s cool to see the first stage of AI and crypto as we’re seeing DAOs and the decentralized development of AI, I think we’re seeing development of AI applications. So that’s with IQ GPT, IQ Code. When I see things going in future, I see people building out AI chains. So I think Near is going in that direction. We’re very interested in what they’re doing as well. So we could see IQ chain being a collaboration with different parties. We’re really interested in the DA side. We’re very interested in a lot of different projects. I think we can see tailored chains for AI itself and for AI applications. So I think IQ chain could be the leading hub for AI applications. So we could have these AI applications. A lot of them are not on chain yet because of the cost. But I think if we build out a really fast blockchain like IQ chain, specifically designed for AI, I think we can definitely see those AI applications move on chain. So I think that’ll be the next step there. After that, I think I see the AI and crypto, the connection developing even further where we have AI models perhaps trading on chain. So you have an AI model that has a specific thesis around staking at the highest APR, for example. And the AI agent itself is moving in between and building on chain, like moving funds around on chain. So you have autonomous management of on chain assets because I think crypto is a good differentiator here because obviously agents can’t have bank accounts. They don’t have KYC. So the much better solution is blockchain technology for that, for trading. And I think to benefit AI, we can see resource sharing. For example, AI inference. I think we could see some incentives around that in terms of the purchase and the usage of AI models. I think we could see that happening on chain as well.
Blair: Okay, so here’s my next question. This one could be really tricky as well, because we’ve seen a lot of speculations or fluctuations recently in the market right now. And everyone’s trying to figure out what could be the deciding factor here. What sector will be the next driver of market performance in crypto and Web3? So how do you foresee this AI and crypto crossover evolving in this market cycle? Do you think we’ll eventually see an AI summer, or is it still very nascent? We are seeing so many experiments in this cycle, but it’s still very early to say which one will be the driver of the cycle.
Navin: It is quite early in the sense that I think it’s still very early on in the adoption of AI, the broad usage of AI. The AI boom has only just recently started. But I think that crypto itself is a relatively new technology. So I think these things will take time, but I do think that the next cycle of growth could potentially have a real AI boom, AI crypto boom specifically, because there’s so much synergy between AI and crypto, in terms of the different applications, in terms of onboarding. I think AI has really had a huge onboarding, hundreds of millions of users, I think that people are really getting experience with AI. So I think that we can see that same growth happen with crypto. Crypto has had the same growth, we have tens of millions of people, even hundreds of millions of people using crypto. But it’s been a lot slower, but I think AI can really accelerate that. So I think you are going to see this AI crypto boom, it’s a good time in the market if you’re looking at this sector, because I would say AI is more developed in terms of the stock market. The number one company is an AI company. And most of the top stocks, because they have AI exposure with Meta, with Apple, not just NVIDIA, even if you look at those stocks, they are really growing quickly because of this AI narrative. So I think there’s a huge room for growth in the crypto space. I think the AI crypto sector within crypto is extremely undervalued like you look at Near is the absolute largest AI token, that is only like an 8 billion market cap, whereas, the crypto market as a whole is over a trillion market cap. So there is a unique opportunity here, because I think it is very early on. But I think people are watching, I think if you are interested in the sector, I would recommend trying out the products, seeing what projects are real, having real products and real code. Like with us, you can try our products like IQ GPT. But I think just trying out like Imagen AI, there’s a lot of good projects that have actual real stuff that you can try out and use. So I would say, try it out and see the product, then maybe invest, versus like, because I think a lot of people are concerned about vaporware and hype. But there are a lot of real builders and real projects you can get involved with.
Blair: Yeah, I would say this is a perfect time for us to experiment with different types of innovations. You get to experience all those use cases yourself, and you’ll know which ones will actually last after all the speculations. I have one last question for today. There’s no doubt that the whole entire integration of AI and blockchain would hold tremendous potential. But we do notice there are several significant challenges that could hinder this widespread adoption and development in this very niche market. Are there any challenges on your radar? Like you said, even from your project, we have to validate all those source of information to make sure it’s accurate. And it could be really challenging because cryptocurrency could be really fast-paced. And there are a lot of things involving so we need to make sure everything is up to date. So content engagement and maintenance could be really demanding. Did you notice any other challenges that would stop us from seeing AI Summer?
Navin: I think one of the biggest challenges right now is the speed of the blockchains and data availability. But I think there’s a lot of innovation on the data availability side. Increasing that as well as increasing the speed of the blockchains. If we’re going to have tons and tons of AI applications, there’ll be tons and tons of transactions, and a lot of growth in that aspect. I think we’re going to need to see some new blockchains, new technology, fast technology. With IQ.wiki, we actually kind of were at the forefront of this. A lot of people ask, why was it not built directly on Ethereum? The main reason is because of cost. If you haven’t been added constantly, the cost is extremely high. But what we did was we took an innovative approach where the data itself is stored on IPFS and there’s a record on chain. So the record of the hash, the hash is what’s stored on a chain. So you can check that data against the IPFS, which is decentralized storage. So you have that record on chain, but you do not have to store everything on the block. So we’re going to have to see some innovations like that to get around this issue. I think that’s the biggest issue that I see. There are also some issues in terms of the computing power required. But I think we’re going to see the other option as well is to shrink the size of the models. So we’re already exploring that because, for example, with IQ Code, you don’t need to analyze the whole world of content. Like we don’t need trillion petabytes of YouTube’s data for IQ Code. So I think one of the options is to also shrink the size of the models, so you don’t need as much training data. So you can have the models be smaller parameters, run more efficiently. So those are two kinds of solutions to this challenge.
Blair: Well, thank you so much for sharing all those insights. Also, we’ve learned a lot about IQ Code, and IQ GPT, and we would love to see the final version of IQ Code in one day. Hopefully, that’s the way we can onboard the next billion applications plus the mainstream adoptions in the near future. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much for your time.
Navin: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I’m definitely happy to come back once we’ve got IQ Code out here. Thank you again for having me.
