DeFi's True Purpose: A Treasury Infrastructure for AI Agents
Raoul Pal, Founder of Real Vision, suggests that DeFi was not built for humans but rather for AI. He points out that most people have a wallet on their phone with leftover tokens from dead liquidity mining projects, and it's clear that managing these wallets is too complex for human beings.
Pal believes that the next economy will be driven by billions of AI agents performing real economic work at machine speed, trading with each other without any human intervention. He notes that this agent economy is not an option but a necessity, as developed nations are aging and burdened with debt, making it impossible for humans to generate growth.
DeFi's complexity aligns perfectly with the requirements of the agent economy, which can execute continuous monitoring, instant rebalancing, and emotionless execution. Pal argues that DeFi is not a consumer product but rather the treasury infrastructure for agents, lending, exchanging, and hedging at machine speed.
The future of finance will be rebuilt on-chain with agents embedded within it, starting with the most basic functions like treasury management. This will lead to an economy where capital can be raised and deployed at machine speed, operating at a scale that's invisible to humans.