Validation Cloud Debuts Mavrik-1 AI Engine on Hedera to Democratize DeFi Data Analysis and Web3
Despite DeFi's promise in revolutionizing finance, its complexity has long acted as barrier against widespread adoption. For DeFi users, the learning curve is steep, requiring knowledge of complex terminologies such as liquidity mining, impermanent loss and staking. Many Defi platforms require users to interact with command-line interfaces and complex web applications.
With Mavrik-1, users can ask questions like "Which trading pairs have the largest spreads and which stablecoin has the highest on-chaintransaction volume?." Imagine chatting with your personal AI advisor.
The ability to seek information via natural language queries represents democratization of data analysis and marks a shift in how investors interact with the blockchain protocols.
"This is a pivotal moment for the Hedera ecosystem,' Viv Diwakar, Chief Information Officer at Hedera Foundation, said in a press release shared with CoinDesk. 'Validation Cloud's Data x AI platform brings an entirely new way to engage with blockchain data. It's a novel experience that unlocks usability and insight for builders, enterprises, and users in our ecosystem.'
Validation Cloud is the AI platform powering Web3 finance, delivering products across Data x AI, Staking, and Node API.
Mavrik-1 is deeply integrated with the Hedera-based DeFi applications, such as hUSDC, Karate Combat, and leading DeFi applications, the press release said. It is specially trained for blockchain environments, ensuring contextually relevant responses to queries.
"We built Mavrik because you shouldn't need a PhD in Web3 to access and understand what's happening on-chain," said Andrew McFarlane, CTO of Validation Cloud. "By surfacing real-time intelligence in natural language, we're making Web3 accessible to everyone."
The launch on Hedera is the first step, which will be followed by integrations with other blockchains and a full public rollout, dubbed Mavrik 2, later this year.
Hedera debuted in 2021 and is a leaderless proof-of-stake network with aBFT hashgraph consensus. Hedera Foundation fuels the development of the Hedera ecosystem through grants and expert support for decentralized applications across DeFi, NFTs, and more.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Wall Street is finally embracing crypto—but the real payoff will come when it embraces DeFi
The global financial system, or what we broadly refer to as TradFi (Traditional Finance), is a $30+ trillion behemoth. Its reach spans commercial banking, global banking assets, insurance, capital markets, wealth management, and asset servicing. It touches every person, business, and institution, underpinning how value flows through the world. Meanwhile, DeFi (Decentralized Finance), despite being the most transformational innovation to hit financial services in decades, remains a mere rounding error in that picture. Depending on how you measure it, via Total Value Locked (TVL), DeFi token market cap, protocol revenue, or institutional activity, DeFi's footprint barely scratches $150 billion on a good day. That's less than half a percent of TradFi's scope. This is not a failure. It is a testament to just how early we are. Seen more optimistically, it is an opening that holds the blueprint for the future of finance. Already, we've seen DeFi recreate core banking functions entirely on-chain, including borrowing, lending, insurance, trading, asset management, and structured products. And it's working. Millions of users, thousands of developers, and hundreds of projects are coalescing around this future. DeFi's growth, however, has been largely inward-looking, driven by crypto-native users rather than institutional money. And despite DeFi's rapid-fire innovation, leading TradFi figures have mostly elected to watch from the sidelines, or worse, confine themselves to dismissive skepticism. This underscores the need for a bridge between the old and the new. TradFi must integrate with DeFi, not just observe it. Not to co-opt it, but to scale it. Fortunately, there is a precedent for such integration. Consider BlackRock's game-changing embrace of Bitcoin ETFs in 2023–2024 (and later ETH). It didn't just lend legitimacy, it unlocked institutional access at scale. Today, BlackRock has become the single largest TradFi driver of crypto adoption. It manages over $87 billion in spot Bitcoin ETF assets and $10 billion in ETH ETFs. BlackRock is also leading in DeFi-adjacent areas. Its BUIDL fund, a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund issued mostly on Ethereum via Securitize, holds over $2.4 billion, almost 10% of the $25 billion tokenized asset market on-chain. It's a direct example of TradFi using DeFi infrastructure without compromising regulatory standards. Meanwhile, JP Morgan's Kinexys division is working to bring financial assets on-chain. It has tested on-chain FX, repo, and tokenized bonds using permissioned DeFi liquidity pools. It is building infrastructure that mimics DeFi mechanics while staying within institutional compliance rails. This isn't a crypto experiment; it's the beginning of institutional DeFi. Then there is Fidelity, long known for its crypto-forward stance, which is quietly expanding its digital assets platform and exploring staking, custody, and tokenized financial products. It has the trust of pension funds and family offices—the very cohort most likely to embrace DeFi once it's wrapped in a familiar product interface. Fidelity could lead by building regulated DeFi index products or permissioned vaults for clients. Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon are also making moves with pilot projects to tokenize money market funds, with fast settlement and interoperability across digital networks. Goldman's private blockchain and BNY's LiquidityDirect are testing tokenized fund redemptions, a gateway to replicating DeFi yield mechanics inside TradFi. UBS, Citi, HSBC, and Standard Chartered have participated in tokenized bond issuances, on-chain settlement pilots, and custody infrastructure projects. These banks are particularly well-positioned to onboard emerging-market clients and sovereign wealth with DeFi-wrapped TradFi products. Not every TradFi sector, though, is equally ripe for a shift to DeFi. The two verticals where adoption is most likely to break through are the Asset Management and Treasury Markets, as well as the Securities Lending and Repo Markets. Tokenized treasuries, like BlackRock's BUIDL, are just the beginning. Expect asset managers to create programmable yield products, combining DeFi vault strategies with real-world assets (RWAs). This is attractive for institutions sitting on large cash balances, because DeFi-native strategies offer higher yields and transparent collateralization. On the Lending and Repo side, DeFi can enable instant, auditable, and programmable collateral exchanges with reduced counterparty risk. JPMorgan's experiments in tokenized repo trading are just the start. A permissioned version of Aave or Morpho could gain traction here. Just as crypto exchanges wrapped peer-to-peer transactions in slick UX, TradFi needs to wrap DeFi in user-friendly and compliant interfaces. That's the blueprint for TradFi and DeFi collaboration. TradFi doesn't need to reinvent the wheel. But it can add polish, regulatory clarity, and scale to existing DeFi primitives. Custodians can integrate liquid staking. Banks can offer tokenized money market funds on-chain. Asset managers can issue yield-bearing DeFi vaults with KYC wrappers. All of the ingredients are in place. For now, TradFi has the balance sheets and DeFi has the blueprints. The future belongs to those who build the bridge. This story was originally featured on
2 hours ago
Profits drop at Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway as it writes down its Kraft Heinz investment
OMAHA, Neb. -- OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Warren Buffett's company reported less than half as much profit in the second quarter as it took a $3.76 billion writedown on the value of its stake in Kraft Heinz, as that iconic food producer considers largely undoing the merger that Berkshire Hathaway helped bankroll. Berkshire said it earned $12.37 billion, or $8,601 per Class A share, during the quarter. That's down from $30.248 billion, or $21,122 per Class A share, a year ago, because it recorded a much smaller paper investment gain this year. Berkshire's earnings can swing wildly from quarter to quarter because it has to record the current value of its massive investment portfolio even though it doesn't sell most of the stocks. That's why Buffett has long recommended that investors pay more attention to Berkshire's operating earnings, which exclude those investment gains. Although last year Berkshire did surprise shareholders by selling off a huge chunk of its Apple stake which inflated the investment gains then. By that measure, Berkshire's operating earnings were only down slightly at $11.16 billion, or $7,759.58 per Class A share. That compares with $11.598 billion, or $8,072.16 per Class A share, a year ago. Most of Berkshire's myriad assortment of companies — major insurers like Geico, BNSF railroad, a group of utilities and a collection of manufacturing and retail businesses — generally performed well despite the uncertainty about the economy and President Donald Trump's tariffs. The four analysts surveyed by FactSet Research expected Berkshire to report earnings per Class A share of $7,508.10, so the Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate's results were ahead of that. Berkshire owns more than 27% of Kraft Heinz' stock and, for years, it had representatives on the company's board. Buffett has said previously that he believes the company's iconic brands will do well over time, but in hindsight, he overpaid for the investment and underestimated the challenges branded foods face from retailers and the growth of private label products. This spring, Berkshire's representatives resigned from the Kraft Heinz board shortly before the company announced it is exploring strategic options that may include spinning off a large part of its portfolio of brands. Over the years since Berkshire helped Kraft buy Heinz in 2015, the company has been hurt by changing consumer tastes and a shift toward healthier options than Kraft's core collection of processed foods. Buffett's is still sitting on a massive pile of $344.1 billion in cash, although the company's reserves dipped slightly from the $347.7 billion cash it was holding at the end of the first quarter. Buffett told shareholders in May he just isn't finding any attractive deals for companies he understands. Buffett surprised shareholders at the annual meeting when he announced that he plans to give up the CEO title at the end of the year and hand over operations to Vice Chairman Greg Abel, but Buffett will remain Chairman. Berkshire shareholders might be disappointed that the company didn't repurchase any of its shares this quarter, even though the price has fallen more than 12% since just before Buffett announced his retirement. Many investors are watching Berkshire's BNSF closely after rival Union Pacific announced a plan to buy Norfolk Southern earlier this week to create the nation's first transcontinental railroad. The speculation is that BNSF needs to pursue a merger with eastern rail CSX to be able to compete. But CFRA Research analyst Cathy Seifert said it isn't Buffett's style to jump into a deal just because the market thinks he should. Over the decades, he has built Berkshire by finding strong companies selling for less than they are worth. CSX is trading near its 52-week high at $35.01 amid all the deal speculation. 'He wants to do it because he found an undervalued franchise -- not because the market says you need to do a deal,' Seifert said. 'I think one of the reasons why that cash hasn't been deployed is that valuations run through the Berkshire M-and-A model tend to be too rich. But if there's a logical case to be made they'll accept it.' And BNSF appears to be doing fine right now on its own. The railroad recorded a 19% jump in its operating profit this quarter at $1.47 billion as it cut costs and delivered about 1% more shipments.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Saturday Spread: How to Use Descriptive Math to Play the Hand, Not the Dealer
Suppose that you're the manager of an MLB team and it's the bottom of the ninth of the World Series. You're down to your last out. Do you go with the player who has a great career batting average but can't perform well under pressure or elect the guy who had a relatively average season but consistently comes through in the clutch? If you're into baseball or just sports in general, the answer is obvious: you go with the competitor that contextually gives you the best chance to win. Ultimately, your job is to take home championships, not dabble with math exercises. More News from Barchart How to Buy KO for a 2% Discount, or Achieve a 17% Annual Return Coinbase Shows Huge Unusual Options Volume After Lower Results Stop Missing Market Moves: Get the FREE Barchart Brief – your midday dose of stock movers, trending sectors, and actionable trade ideas, delivered right to your inbox. Sign Up Now! However, what seems so obvious isn't that way in the financial sector. Practically every western approach — from Black-Scholes-Merton-based models to the efficient market hypothesis — utilizes prescriptive financial modeling. Essentially, these methodologies dictate what should be, which theoretically sounds enticing. However, my contention is that this prescription is flawed. In contrast, I prefer a Markovian approach, which models behavior based on a descriptive framework. Such methodologies demonstrate what has been, not what should be. As such, we don't need complicated formulas rooted in stochastic calculus and other difficult concepts. A key reason why I'm not a fan of prescriptive models like Black-Scholes (aside from its inapplicability with American options) is that the underlying probabilities are based on the entire distribution of the dataset. That's like trying to predict hurricanes based on the last ten years' worth of weather reports. Instead, to accomplish this, you would focus on the immediate conditions that cause hurricanes to be more likely. With that said, below are three stocks that are potentially flashing buy signals based on a descriptive framework. Kroger (KR) Quantitatively, Kroger (KR) makes for an intriguing idea for bullish speculators. In the past 10 weeks, the market has essentially voted to buy KR stock four times and sell six times. Throughout this period, KR enjoyed an upward bias. For brevity, we can abbreviate the sequence as 4-6-U. At first glance, it may seem silly to compress the price magnitude of KR stock into a simple binary code. But what we have accomplished here is to define KR's price discovery process as a behavioral state. Through the study of past analogs, we can determine how the market responds to the 4-6-U sequence relative to the baseline. It's just like card counting in blackjack. If the deck favors us, we bet big. If it doesn't, we bet small (or in this case, not at all). On any given week, the chance that a long position in KR stock will rise is only 51.74%. It's an upward bias but a very modest one. However, this statistic stems from the derivative probability of upside across the entire distribution of the dataset. But our contention is that because the deck is flashing a 4-6-U sequence, the odds of upside are actually 72.73%. Barchart Premier members gain full access to the platform's options pricing tools, which can be incredibly powerful when integrated with a Markovian approach. Here, we can identify that the 72/73 bull call spread expiring Aug. 29 may be the least expensive multi-leg strategy that has a realistic chance of being fully profitable. Cinemark (CNK) For extreme contrarians, Cinemark (CNK) may be an intriguing name for its implied discount. On Friday, CNK stock dropped nearly 4%, while for the trailing week, it hemorrhaged almost 11%. On a year-to-date basis, the security — which is tied to the struggling movie theater business model — is down 16.49%. It's a mess but it has the potential to be meme-able. In the past 10 weeks, the market voted to buy CNK stock four times and sell six times. Throughout this period, CNK incurred a downward trajectory. For brevity, we can label this sequence as 4-6-D. Through past analogs, we can identify that this sequence has materialized 46 times on a rolling basis since January 2019. In 58.7% of cases, the following week's price action results in upside, with a median return of 3.87%. As a baseline, the next-week upside probability is only 51.16%. Therefore, assuming that the implications of the 4-6-D hold up, there's a compelling incentive to place a wager. With CNK stock closing at $25.87, it could swing close to $27 in short order. It's a terribly risky idea but for hardened speculators, the 26/27 bull call spread expiring Aug. 15 could be attractive. Confluent (CFLT) It's no exaggeration to say that Confluent (CFLT) got obliterated this past week. On Friday, CFLT stock dropped 3%, which would be notable in and of itself. However, the real drama occurred the day before. Following a second-quarter earnings print that left investors severely disappointed, CFLT opened sharply lower against Wednesday's close. When the dust settled, the security had lost almost 38% in the trailing five sessions. Generally, it's best to avoid enterprises exhibiting such extreme volatility. However, the market has enticingly printed a relatively rare 6-4-D sequence. It's unusual because, despite the number of accumulative sessions outweighing distributive, the overall trajectory is negative. This quantitative signal has flashed 23 times since the company's public market debut in 2021. Notably, in 65.22% of cases, the following week's price action results in upside, with a median return of 3.79%. As a baseline, the chance that a long position in CFLT stock will rise is only 53.49%. Subsequently, there appears to be a clear incentive to place a wager. With CFLT closing at $17.20 on Friday, it could jump to $17.85, perhaps close to $18, in short order. With that said, the most aggressive idea that you can arguably consider while still being rational is the 17/18 bull spread expiring Aug. 15. On the date of publication, Josh Enomoto did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
