Berlin Blockchain Week 2024 witnessed a groundbreaking moment for the world of co-owned AI with the unveiling of Pearl by OLAS core contributor, Valory. David Minarsch, CEO of Valory, and Oaksprout the Tan, CPO, introduced this revolutionary product at the Operate Launch via the Agents Unleashed talk, where over 100 eager attendees — many of whom are Olas devotees — gathered to learn about this innovation.
“Agents Unleashed in Berlin was great fun. More than 100 people showed up to discuss @autonolas and learn about the latest launch,” Minarsch tweeted after the event.
Pearl simplifies the process of participating in co-owned AI and staking on Olas, making it accessible to everyone. With a charmingly long standing origin story, the app’s user-friendly design has the potential to demystify co-owned AI and crypto for mainstream users.
Simplifying Crypto for the Mainstream
For years, the crypto community has grappled with a significant pain point: The complexity of accessing the benefits of various crypto protocols.
“We’ve been painfully aware for several years that it’s very unlikely that the mainstream is ever going to be able to access the complex benefits of many crypto protocols,” Minarsch explained during our sit-down interview. “This complexity has often kept the broader public at bay, preventing widespread adoption and understanding.”
Pearl: The Accessible Solution
Enter Pearl, the one-of-a-kind desktop app designed to make staking on Olas and participating in the autonomous agent economy as simple as possible, for everyone.
“Pearl is the approach we’re taking, a productized approach where it’s very, very easy to run. It’s way more accessible,” Minarsch said, emphasizing the app’s user-friendly nature. “Many people will never dive deep into the technicalities of crypto, and that’s precisely where Pearl comes in. It appeals to a group of users which we haven’t really approached before.”
The Origin Story
The journey of Pearl began in early 2022, rooted in an idea detailed in Valory’s Olas white paper.
“We had this idea of one quick yield solution. DeFi/crypto Twitter was still enamored with very complicated yield products at the time. We recognized that agents could essentially do much more powerful things than what you could do purely on-chain in terms of yield aggregation,” Minarsch said. Despite having advanced designs, the team initially lacked the capacity to build this fully-fledged product. “But now, it feels like we’ve come full 360 here, in the sense that Pearl is a one-click product.”
How Pearl Works
The magic of Pearl lies in its simplicity.
“You put some funds in and then in the background, your agent spins up and starts participating in this autonomous agent economy,” Minarsch explained.
This ease of use means that anyone, regardless of their technical knowledge, can engage with and benefit from co-owned AI. Essentially, using Pearl is like having your very own AI employee.
“When you run Pearl, you’re creating an agent, which goes off and actually participates in Olas Predict — which is a bit like a company made up of AI agents that make predictions,” Minarsch elaborated. “So, when you run Pearl, you’re essentially spinning up a robot worker to go and work in that company on your behalf. Then, that agent has a chance of being rewarded with OLAS tokens.”
The real beauty of Pearl is how it distills the complex processes of crypto and AI into an intuitive, user-friendly interface. Rather than grappling with the intricate details of running an agent or understanding the deep technicalities of staking, users simply download the app, deposit their OLAS tokens, and watch as their agent starts working.
This seamless experience allows users to dive straight into the benefits of the autonomous agent economy, without needing to become crypto experts. Pearl handles all the heavy lifting, making advanced AI and crypto technologies accessible to a broader audience, turning what once seemed like a daunting task into a straightforward, almost effortless activity.
Demystifying Crypto
One of Minarsch’s primary goals with Pearl is to alleviate the fear and confusion often associated with crypto.
“When people ask what we do, we mention Valory and Olas. If it’s somebody who doesn’t understand crypto, we have to explain all of that. Then they ask about mining or other technical things. Often, I say to them, ‘You don’t need to start there. You don’t understand how Facebook makes their money, right? You just understand the experience you have,’” he shared. “Pearl is like that. It aims to provide a straightforward, beneficial experience powered by crypto, without requiring users to grasp all the technical details.”
Looking Ahead
The potential impact of Pearl on the AI and crypto ecosystems is immense.
“Pearl leads to more people using agents, hence more agents and as a result more and better AI systems,” Minarsch said.
As more users engage with Pearl, the autonomous agent economy grows, leading to advancements in AI systems and increased participation in the OLAS ecosystem. This new app represents a huge step forward towards making co-owned AI accessible to everyone. Whether you’re a tech enthusiast or someone who just wants to dip their toes into the world of crypto and co-owned AI, Pearl offers an inviting entry point. With its launch, the vision of a more inclusive, user-friendly crypto world moves closer to reality. The world truly is our oyster, and Pearl is the key to unlocking its potential.
To engage with the community and be part of the journey of Pearl click here: olas.network/operate.
About Olas
Olas is the platform for co-owning AI. Olas enables everyone to own a share of AI, specifically autonomous agents. One of the first Crypto x AI projects, founded in 2021, Olas offers the composable Olas Stack for developing autonomous AI agents, and the Olas Protocol for incentivizing their creation and co-ownership. Olas’ mission is to incentivize and coordinate different parties to launch autonomous agents that form entire AI economies serving all humans. Olas is giving rise to agent economies across major blockchains with over 500,000 transactions. In Olas Predict, AI agents predict the future, using state-of-the-art AI models, then apply their predictions to on-chain markets. Learn more at olas.network.
About Valory
Valory is a research and deployment company at the intersection of crypto and AI. Its mission is to enable communities, organizations, and countries to co-own AI systems, beginning with decentralized autonomous agents. Valory is the VC-backed team of engineers, researchers, and commercial executors that co-founded the Olas DAO^, contribute to the Olas stack, and built the first services using it. Valory is the pioneer of co-owned AI and the expert in decentralized off-chain systems for DAOs. They collaborate with those interested in decentralizing & owning their own apps.
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