Published: August 02, 2024 at 12:41 pm Updated: August 02, 2024 at 12:41 pm
Edited and fact-checked:
August 02, 2024 at 12:41 pm
In Brief
Vasily Sumanov, Head of Research at PowerPool, discusses the innovative DePIN layer, its challenges, and future directions in the Web3 market, emphasizing the transformative potential of automation and AI in blockchain technology.
We are pleased to share with you our discussion with Vasily Sumanov, Head of Research at PowerPool, regarding the innovative DePIN layer. From the initial focus on meta-governance to the latest advancements in automated DeFi solutions and AI agent integration, Vasily offers insights into the current challenges and future directions of the Web3 market, emphasizing the transformative potential of automation and AI in blockchain technology.
Many entrepreneurs are drawn to their field by a specific moment or event. What sparked your interest in this industry, and how has your passion evolved over time?
It was a long time ago, in 2013, when I discovered Bitcoin on one of the developers’ forums. I was particularly interested in what it was and started to dig into it. Since that day, in October 2013, I have developed a real interest in it. I started exploring how to mine and participate in all of this.
I bought some GPUs and started mining Litecoins because it was too late to mine on video cards. But Litecoins were still a promising project, so I started mining Litecoins. I built a mining farm with 120 video cards at that time. I began mining and understood how all this works.
For the first several years, it was more of an enthusiastic vibe. I didn’t consider it as a main business or a full-time work activity; it was more like a hobby that generated some money. I did it with my friends and brother, and we shared all the responsibilities for different tasks.
However, in 2017, when the ICO boom started, I saw how the space had grown over the years. I understood that I wanted to work on this full-time and dedicate all my efforts to growing in this field. In early 2017, I fully pivoted my career and started working in this space.
My first project was more about the direction of work that I decided to pursue. I have a PhD in chemistry and am an academic researcher in this space. I decided to focus on research activities because I understand and like them.
This is my passion. I focused on token engineering and the economics of decentralized systems. After that, all my work was tied to the economics of decentralized systems, such as PowerPool and other projects, token designs, token analysis, and similar tasks.
Can you tell us about your journey to PowerPool 2.0? We know you started in 2020 as one of the pioneers in DeFi indices. How was that experience?
PowerPool started in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. I was early in the community there. In 2021, the DAO officially hired me as the Head of Research because I contributed much to the project. I was particularly interested in the meta-governance concept because it was one of the first token engineering ideas in space. PowerPool started as a meta-governance protocol.
After that, we moved towards indices influenced by Delphi Digital and other top-tier VCs. We had a governance forum. Over the years, the team and the community found that the index is a complicated product to deliver to the market. People like it when indexes grow, but nobody wants to invest in it if the index doesn’t grow. Particularly in crypto, this is even more specific due to the high volatility. It can grow fast or drop fast, and nobody likes that.
This is why the PowerPool community and team started to focus on what could be the next big narrative for PowerPool. We didn’t start with what was popular but with what we could do really well. We identified a gap in the market that we could fill with our services. We found that we could excel in automation – automating smart contracts or triggering contracts according to certain conditions.
This is a significant market, and many projects and retail users need it. Many big protocols, like Yearn Finance, started by automating the compounding of yield in Yearn, for example. This automation is widespread and in demand across different ecosystems, projects, and users.
This is why we focused on automation and built PowerAgent V2, a new version of the automation network or Keeper bot that can automate transactions based on different on-chain and off-chain conditions.
Recently, we updated our vision and made it even more specific. We focused on AI agents because we believe that transaction execution on behalf of AI agents is significant. It can complement the narrative we already have. We are still building the DeFi network, which helps automate protocols, strategies on-chain, and some user activities. At the same time, this DeFi network is suitable for powering the whole AI sector.
This is really big. Almost all AI agents making some decisions and generating triggers to execute transactions need someone to specifically execute the transaction. There is a gap at this moment, and PowerPool can fill it.
Our journey has started from meta-governance to indexes, to PowerPool automated V1, and now to PowerPool 2.0, which focuses on AI agents and multiple roll-ups. It’s a big expansion of the concept.
How does the configurable execution conditions feature of PowerAgent benefit both routine and high-value tasks?
In Web3, tasks that need automation can be categorized as routine tasks and high-value tasks. Routine tasks are those you want to automate but don’t have significant risks of losing money if the automation isn’t successful at a certain point in time.
For example, if you want to compound interest in a wallet, but if you compound this interest a little bit later, say two minutes aft…
For more trending news articles like this, check out DeFi Daily News
