The Cosmos ecosystem seems to be quiet again since Celestia. The new chain Berachain has not yet been launched, and the attention of old projects such as bad kids is getting lower and lower. In this slightly low-key period, the announcement of Kava AI is just in time.
In the process of continuous upgrading of the main network, Kava is also actively laying out the latest narrative in the industry. At the just-concluded Token2049 conference, Kava announced Kava AI and launched the first AI chatbot.
In this regard, BlockBeats talked with Scott Stuart, co-founder of Kava Labs. He also shared his views on AI + Crypto, as well as the new ideas of combining native USDT with WBTC and AI on Kava.
Current situation of Kava
BlockBeats: Kava is already a public chain that everyone is very familiar with in the market. Can you briefly sort out the main progress of Kava this year?
Scott Stuart：KAVA launched Kava AI on Token2049. Kava AI is a decentralized AI developed on the Kava network to drive the cross-chain AI market.
Kava AI unlocks the industry's best AI tools for the existing massive DeFi ecosystem, and this ecosystem is connected to all mainstream EVMs, Cosmos ecosystem projects, native USDT, WBTC, Binance, etc.
Many emerging AI projects face cold start problems because they do not have a ready-made ecosystem. Kava has built an ecosystem for more than 5 years and has established connections with every major network and centralized player. Kava can use this ecosystem and its connections to quickly promote and use its AI technology throughout the ecosystem.
The first product we launched on Token 2049 is an AI chatbot that allows users to easily launch meme coins on Kava.
BlockBeats: Kava has now upgraded to the Kava 16 mainnet. Can you tell us what major upgrades Kava 16 has made compared to before?
Scott Stuart: All current major features are designed to expand the capabilities of Kava AI and integrate USDT exclusive cooperation. Kava will attract more users to join the network by investing in innovative technologies such as AI and BTC staking. USDT is an important cooperation that will drive more Kava adoption and increase the liquidity of native tokens on Kava (such as USDT and WBTC), and work with Binance, Coinbase, Fireblocks and Bitgo to export to Cosmos and Ethereum ecosystems.
Advantages of Kava AI
BlockBeats: Some time ago, Coinbase CEO announced that the first "AI to AI" Crypto transaction was completed on the Base network. This event has attracted a lot of attention and is regarded as the beginning of the Agent Economy era. What do you think will be the future development of the combination of Crypto and AI?
Scott Stuart: Kava believes in the future of AI and has made a huge bet on this track. Unlike many "pure" AI crypto projects, Kava has an existing user base that will grow as AI tools develop. Kava is investing a lot of resources to build the best decentralized AI to benefit the crypto community.
There will be more major announcements about Kava AI coming soon.
BlockBeats: What is the original intention of Kava AI? What role do you hope it will play in the Kava ecosystem?
Scott Stuart: Kava AI will inject strong momentum into the existing DeFi ecosystem on Kava and drive rapid growth of the ecosystem. Kava AI has just been launched on Token 2049, but has already attracted a large number of users to deploy meme coins. AI is the future and will cover every industry. Kava is actively planning to become the most widely used decentralized AI.
The key is that Kava already has a huge partnership with all major crypto projects and has a thriving DeFi ecosystem. This is why we see Kava AI being able to gain significant immediate use, as developers and users can use Kava AI today and have the potential to attract more users in the future. We will also work closely with Tether to promote Kava AI to attract more USDT users and liquidity to Kava.
BlockBeats: Kava AI supports advanced reasoning, code generation, language processing and other functions across models. What are the biggest technical challenges encountered in the process of implementing these functions? How to overcome them?
Scott Stuart: We have 7 years of industry experience in building more secure blockchain functions and have considerable funds for research and development. It takes a lot of time, energy and talent to launch new innovative features. After years of hard work and accumulation, Kava is ready to bring these new products to market. Later, we will have a brand upgrade and will announce it with Binance, hoping to promote these new AI features to a wider user base.
BlockBeats: Compared with other similar decentralized Chatbots, what are the unique advantages and innovations of Kava AI?
Scott Stuart: The biggest advantage lies in the existing DeFi ecosystem. Unlike many projects that have no users or only provide third-party services, Kava AI is directly integrated into the Kava DeFi ecosystem. Users can directly access chat.kava.io to deploy meme coins and other projects on Kava. More tools will be launched in the future to make it easier for developers and users to participate in Kava's Web3 ecosystem.
Kava Lend 2.0 Upgrade
BlockBeats: The new version of Kava Lend 2.0 supports EVM compatibility and RWA asset lending. What market needs and business considerations are these new features based on?
Scott Stuart: Kava Lend is the most mainstream lending market used in the Cosmos ecosystem. Kava is bringing years of accumulated security and usage experience to the EVM stage, and is working with Tether and Bitgo to provide secure and liquid native assets (such as USDT and WBTC) directly to users, bringing real benefits. This is an important milestone for the HARD community.
BlockBeats: What are your expectations and goals for the future development of Kava Lend 2.0? For example, in terms of market share, number of users, etc.
Scott Stuart：Native assets with real-world yields like USDT and WBTC are the future of online lending and can continue to bring traffic. Tether chose Kava to import USDT into the Cosmos ecosystem. Bitgo chose Kava to import WBTC into Cosmos. Kava Lend benefits from this exclusive cooperation, and Kava is one of the three blockchains that have both native USDT and WBTC.
And Kava's cooperation with Binance makes Kava one of the only two chains on the Binance platform with native USDT and WBTC. This will have a huge impact in the upcoming Kava Lend V2.
The future of the track
BlockBeats: Ethereum has been criticized a lot recently, mainly because of the weakening of ETH's value capture ability, coupled with the strength of SOL, which has given people more ideas about the future of the public chain. How do you view the current competitive landscape of the public chain market? How does Kava stand out from the competition?
Scott Stuart：The market wants to see significant progress, and minor improvements are not enough. Therefore, Kava is investing heavily in AI and BTC staking. Kava is working closely with Tether and Binance to plan a major upgrade at the end of the year to increase the usage of Kava AI products and drive growth in Layer1. There is still plenty of room for excellent teams to extract value from Ethereum and expand the share of the crypto market as a whole.
BlockBeats: Will the DeFi ecosystem have a second spring? At present, it seems that only RWA is supporting the expectations of DeFi projects. What do you think the future development direction of DeFi should be?
Scott Stuart：Cryptocurrencies need to continue to innovate to drive new uses. Now use cases like AI and USDT are the main drivers for users, and Kava is going all out in these areas.
