As Bitcoin returns to the hundred thousand dollar mark, the market capitalization of the AI concept tokens zone has increased by 14.22% in the last 24 hours, also strongly breaking through the 10 billion dollar barrier. The heat of the DeAI track continues to rise, becoming the core focus of market attention. Against this backdrop, a recent exclusive interview was conducted with Scott Stuart, co-founder of the L1 public chain Kava, which focuses on Crypto+AI development.

Scott analyzed the logic behind Kava's strategic shift, the technological system and core advantages of DeAI, as well as the innovative practices in key areas such as security and architectural collaboration. With his deep background in mathematics, economics, and technology, combined with the strategic thinking developed over many years of professional poker career, Scott clearly depicted how Kava evolved from a DeFi pioneer to an explorer and leader in the DeAI zone.

In the face of pain points in the DeFi field, such as high user barriers and complex operations, Kava keenly captures the huge potential of AI technology. By seamlessly integrating AI into blockchain operations, Kava aims to dramatically simplify the way users interact with the decentralized network and automate complex blockchain operations, thereby truly lowering the barrier to entry for DeFi and benefiting a wider user base.

By empowering DeFi with AI, Kava is committed to building a more inclusive, efficient, and secure decentralized digital economy future. This interview will give you an in-depth understanding of Kava's strategic layout, technological innovation and future vision in the DeAI field, and get a glimpse of how this former DeFi powerhouse is riding the wind and waves on the new track and creating a new pattern of DeFi and AI integration and development.

From DeFi to DeAI: Kava's Strategic Shift

: Please briefly introduce your background and what prompted you to enter the cryptocurrency industry and establish Kava?

Scott: My journey began with the study of mathematics and economics, followed by years of working as a professional poker player, during which strategic thinking, probability assessment, and quick decision-making were crucial. After bidding farewell to my poker career, I founded AppEase, gaining valuable experience in scaling technology-driven businesses.

Around 2016, I developed a keen interest in blockchain and was attracted by its potential in empowering decentralized finance. We recognized the transformative power of Ethereum and Cosmos, and in 2017, we founded Kava Labs, dedicated to democratizing financial services and achieving transparency, fairness, and global accessibility.

: Kava was initially positioned as a DeFi platform, why did you decide to shift the core strategy towards decentralized AI? Can you introduce the overall architecture of Kava and several key milestones currently?

Scott: We initially focused on DeFi and gradually shifted to decentralized AI, aiming to address the complexity of DeFi, which is a common barrier for mainstream users.

The introduction of AI is a logical step, as it greatly simplifies user interaction processes by automating complex blockchain operations. Today, Kava's architecture has seamlessly integrated decentralized AI systems into blockchain operations. Recent significant developments include the launch of a decentralized AI model based on DeepSeek R1, which has quickly achieved over 100,000 independent user interactions, demonstrating strong market demand for intuitive, decentralized AI solutions.

Kava AI's Technical System and Core Advantages

: In February of this year, Kava launched a native decentralized AI model powered by DeepSeek R1, surpassing both OpenAI and DeepSeek itself in Web3 benchmarking. What are the core capabilities of this model? What is the strategic significance of its release for Kava?

Scott: Kava AI strategically utilizes various powerful AI architectures such as Llama and Qwen, and optimizes specifically for DeFi scenarios. Our AI is capable of executing a range of blockchain-specific operations, including wallet interactions, cross-chain compatibility, smart contract calls, and completing DeFi transactions through natural language. Its excellent performance in various benchmark tests fully demonstrates its reliability and efficiency in the decentralized finance sector, making Kava an innovative leader in practical, executable AI blockchain solutions.

: Many AI projects that claim to be "decentralized" still rely on centralized APIs and private models. What do you think is the fundamental difference in architecture between Kava and these projects?

Scott: Unlike many AI solutions that rely on centralized APIs or proprietary models, Kava adheres to the true principles of decentralization by running AI inference tasks on decentralized infrastructure networks like Akash.

Our platform combines the transparency of open-source application layers with the flexibility of model integration capabilities—whether open-source models or proprietary models—to ensure system performance and reliability. At the same time, Kava promotes the development and decision-making of the platform through a community governance mechanism.

: What key role does Oros play as the first decentralized intelligent system capable of understanding natural language and directly executing on-chain operations within Kava's AI infrastructure? How does it break through the limitations of traditional AI assistants or DeFi interfaces in automation and execution?

Scott: Oros is the core component we developed for an intuitive blockchain interaction experience. It understands natural language commands and directly executes on-chain transactions. By automating complex processes such as Token exchanges, staking, and yield strategies, Oros significantly lowers the entry barrier for traditional DeFi interfaces, providing users with a more effortless and smooth operational experience.

: Kava, as an ecosystem that has always followed DeFi, has lowered the threshold for ordinary people to participate in DeFi using AI. Is this the ideal direction for the development of DeFi and AI?

Scott: Integrating AI into DeFi not only simplifies the user interaction process but also makes financial strategies that were once only accessible to experts available to everyone. This integration promotes financial inclusion, lowers the barriers to entry, and allows ordinary users to easily participate, which aligns closely with the core values of fairness and openness pursued by decentralized finance, and points to a promising developmental direction for future AI-driven DeFi solutions.

The Security, Architecture, and Synergy of Kava

: The security of funds is always the bottom line in the DeFi space. How does Kava's decentralized AI model ensure the safety and traceability of user assets during transaction execution?

Scott: Security and transparency are the cornerstones of Kava AI. All transactions executed by the AI are completed on-chain, achieving full traceability and auditability, ensuring the credibility of operations. Our decentralized infrastructure guarantees the robustness of the system, while community governance implemented through Kava DAO ensures that all system updates possess transparency, verifiability, and security, creating a trustworthy environment for users.

: Is it reliable for AI to save private keys?

Scott: We always adhere to strict security standards and would never allow AI systems to directly control users' private keys. Instead, we adopt a secure and decentralized custody approach to ensure that users always have full control over their private keys, with AI serving only as an auxiliary tool for executing transactions and a decision-making assistant.

: Besides the model itself, how is the "high-performance computing network" that Kava AI relies on constructed? How does it collaborate with Layer 1 public chains like Ethereum?

Scott: Kava AI relies on globally distributed nodes to build a decentralized high-performance computing infrastructure, enhancing the system's scalability and redundancy capabilities. This infrastructure can seamlessly integrate with Ethereum and other Layer 1 blockchains, ensuring that blockchain AI tasks achieve optimal performance in terms of cross-chain interoperability and execution efficiency.

What will the future of Kava look like?

: You have pointed out that many AI projects have taken an NFT-like meme path, while Kava emphasizes pragmatism and structural innovation. In your view, what is the "core value" of decentralized AI?

Scott: The core value proposition of decentralized AI lies in transparency, user empowerment, and community governance. Unlike centralized AI systems that operate in closed environments controlled by private entities, decentralized AI achieves verifiable operations, auditable governance mechanisms, and user-led continuous evolution. This aligns closely with the principles advocated by blockchain, establishing an AI model that prioritizes serving user interests rather than corporate or centralized interests.

: What new actions or expansion plans of Kava AI are worth following next?

Scott: Future plans include further promoting the development of our AI-based blockchain execution layer, enhancing the AI Launchpad to provide a more intuitive user experience, and expanding cross-chain integration with major blockchain ecosystems. In addition, we will also innovate in fully decentralized AI model training, aimed at promoting transparency, system robustness, and community collaboration.

: What do you hope Kava will be like in ten years? What do you most want to see realized?

Scott: In ten years, I hope Kava becomes the cornerstone of global infrastructure, empowering billions of people to interact seamlessly with decentralized services. My vision is for Kava to support an inclusive and transparent digital economy, reshaping global financial interactions through intuitive, user-friendly, AI-driven methods, promoting the adoption of decentralized finance and services, fostering innovation, and ensuring large-scale decentralized governance.

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