A New Trend in Simplified DeFi Wealth Management

With the development of blockchain technology, complex on-chain activities are gradually being simplified, and the related technological infrastructure has gradually matured. This brings historic opportunities to reshape existing financial models, and new business opportunities have emerged. It is worth noting that emerging technologies such as Intent, on-chain robots, and AI agents all face authorization issues that need to be addressed.

Recently, Glider secured $4 million in funding. The project is able to carve out a niche in the seemingly simple yet actually complex field of on-chain investments, thanks to the support of technologies like Intent and LLM. However, overall, the DeFi space indeed needs to be restructured to lower the investment threshold.

The "Lego" era of Decentralized Finance has passed, and a new era of wealth management that combines security and profitability is on the rise.

Glider originated from an internal entrepreneurship project of a certain company at the end of 2023. It initially appeared in the form of an on-chain robot, aiming to combine different operational steps to facilitate users in investing and using. Although assisting users in financial management is not a new concept, Glider is still in the internal development stage. From its public information, it can be seen that Glider's main ideas include:

1. Connect existing DeFi tools through API integration, including leading projects and emerging protocols in various tracks, to build a B2B2C customer acquisition logic.

2. Allow users to independently build investment strategies and support sharing for follow-up investment, copy trading, or collective investment to achieve higher returns.

With the combination of technologies such as AI agents, LLM, intent recognition, and chain abstraction, building such a tech stack is not technically difficult. The real challenge lies in traffic operation and establishing a trust mechanism.

Products involving user fund circulation are always relatively sensitive. This is also the main reason why on-chain products have yet to fully replace centralized exchanges. Most users can accept the enhanced fund security brought by decentralization, but they can hardly accept the increased security risks associated with it.

As early as 2020, similar projects had already received investment, aiming to help users cope with the confusion of DeFi strategies. However, most users did not use such products for the long term. On-chain yield strategies are an open market where retail investors find it difficult to compete with large players in terms of server performance and capital amounts, resulting in most yield opportunities being inaccessible to retail investors.

Compared to the unsustainability of returns, security issues and strategy optimization are of secondary importance. In an era of high returns, there is almost no room for prudent financial management.

Currently, asset management is entering the era of democratization. ETF tools are not only applicable to the stock market; some trading platforms began experimenting with them as early as 2021. From a technical perspective, asset tokenization has ultimately given rise to the RWA (Real World Assets) paradigm.

Furthermore, how to realize the on-chain implementation of ETF tools has become a focus for entrepreneurs. From the APY calculations and displays of certain platforms to the continuous operation of other projects, it indicates that there is demand in the market for this.

Strictly speaking, some projects are strategic sales and showcase markets, combining precise calculations by a large number of professionals with human and AI-assisted strategic decision-making. However, the transparency on the blockchain makes it difficult to keep efficient strategies confidential, ultimately leading to an arms race where returns tend to balance out.

This could evolve into a new round of competition where big fish eat small fish. However, such projects have always failed to standardize and develop into projects that redefine the market.

From Glider's strategy, it can be seen that on-chain yields are about to transform into an era of asset management for the masses. Just like index funds and retirement plans contributed to the long-term bull market in US stocks, the vast amount of capital and numerous retail investors will create a huge demand for stable income.

This is the meaning of the next generation of Decentralized Finance. There are other public chains beyond Ethereum, and they still need to undertake the innovative responsibilities of Internet 3.0, while DeFi should become the 2.0 version of financial technology.

Glider has added AI-assisted features, but from the initial information display, to early project trials, and now to stable operation, a stable on-chain yield of around 5% will still attract a user base outside of centralized exchanges.

Looking to the future, the on-chain of interest-bearing assets will become a trend. Currently, among the products in the cryptocurrency space, only a few categories have truly gained market recognition, including exchanges, stablecoins, Decentralized Finance, and public chains. Other product types, such as NFTs and Meme coins, are merely phase-based asset issuance models, lacking sustainable self-maintaining capabilities.

However, RWA has been taking root and growing since 2022, especially after some major events, where people have become more focused on returns and stability rather than decentralization itself. Even without governments actively embracing Bitcoin and blockchain, the productization and practicality of RWA are accelerating. If traditional finance can accept digitalization and informatization, then blockchainization should not be excluded.

In this round of the cycle, complex asset types and on-chain DeFi strategies are hindering centralized exchange users from migrating on-chain. But at least the massive liquidity from exchanges can be attracted to on-chain:

• Some projects convert fee income into on-chain income through benefit alliances.
• Other projects are introducing exchange perpetual contracts on-chain through LP Tokens.

These cases prove that liquidity on-chain is feasible, and RWA also demonstrates that asset tokenization on-chain is equally viable. The industry is currently in a unique period; although Ethereum is considered to lack vitality, in reality, many projects are migrating on-chain.

In addition to the aforementioned products, some open-source APY calculation tools have been running for many years. Various platforms have their own focuses, showcasing the APY of project parties, and the emphasis of yield tools has increasingly shifted towards interest-bearing assets over time.

At present, it seems that such tools, if they increase trust in AI, will face the issue of responsibility allocation; if they enhance human intervention, it will lower user experience, creating a dilemma.

A possible solution is to separate the information flow and capital flow, create a UGC strategy community, allow projects to compete with each other, and benefit retail investors. This may be a relatively good way out.

Glider has gained market attention due to well-known investments, but long-standing issues in this field still persist. Authorization and risk issues involve not only wallets and funds but also whether AI can meet human needs, how to allocate responsibility if AI investments lead to significant losses, and other related concerns.

This world is still worth our continued exploration of the unknown. Cryptocurrency, as a public space in a divided world, will continue to thrive and develop endlessly.