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THE DAILY INDEX

Technology, AI, software, security, crypto and business

MARKETS & BUSINESS

TLDR Crypto

BASED AI: AI INFERENCE GATEWAY ON HYPERLIQUID

Based AI has launched as the first commoditized AI inference gateway on Hyperliquid, using the x402 protocol to enable instant, gasless per-request settlement – replacing subscription and credit models with pure pay-as-you-go compute. Users fund a self-custodial wallet with USDC or USDH, then route calls to any supported model through a single integration point, with balances debited atomically per inference request. A Privacy Cloud tier runs open-weight models on self-hosted GPU infrastructure with no data storage, logging, or caching. The architecture is purpose-built for agentic commerce, enabling AI agents to autonomously purchase inference capacity onchain.

AI AGENTS WILL BE PRIMARY BLOCKCHAIN USERS

NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin argues that AI agents will become blockchain's primary onchain principals, autonomously executing payments, managing assets, and participating in governance while humans interact exclusively with the AI layer above. He frames blockchain's role as neutral back-end infrastructure providing settlement, ownership verification, and programmable incentives beneath AI systems, contending that crypto's escape from its finance-only niche depends on this architectural abstraction. DAOs are a cautionary failure, attributing their collapse to being "unbounded," and AI-mediated coordination could resolve governance problems human participation could not.

MOM, FUTARCHY LIQUIDATED MY STARTUP

Token holders on MetaDAO are pushing to liquidate Ranger Finance – which raised $8M through the platform just months ago – by burning $RNGR and returning treasury USDC pro-rata, putting Futarchy's market-driven governance under its first major stress test. Unlike traditional onchain governance, where votes reflect political dynamics, Futarchy prices competing outcomes directly: if traders collectively determine liquidation yields more expected value than continued operations, the proposal passes automatically. The mechanism merges liquidity and governance into a single feedback loop, creating a permissionless kill switch that addresses a persistent retail pain point – getting wrecked in crypto fundraising cycles with no exit recourse.

SLASH REACHES $1B IN ANNUALIZED STABLECOIN VOLUME

Slash reached $1B in annualized stablecoin volume within 12 months by targeting international SMBs locked out of US dollar infrastructure – specifically businesses generating $50K–$500K annually that cannot justify US entity formation costs. Traditional international banking costs an SMB processing $50K/month and roughly $87K/year in fees with multi-day settlement. Slash delivers 2-minute finality at approximately $2 per transaction. It leverages a three-layer stack: USDC/USDT as the USD rail, Alchemy-powered gas sponsorship, and embedded fiat on/off-ramps covering PIX, ACH, and Stripe.

SKY GOVERNANCE VOTE CUTS EMISSIONS WHILE BUYBACKS TIGHTEN SUPPLY

SKY token surged nearly 10% after a March 2 governance proposal executed sweeping deflationary changes, cutting staking emissions by roughly 161.82 million tokens and normalizing the rate to 838.18 million over 180 days. The protocol's concurrent buyback program has spent $114.5 million to retire approximately 1.83 billion SKY tokens, sustaining a removal pace of around 3.6 million tokens per day – a significant supply squeeze given that 67% of circulating SKY is already staked. The proposal also onboarded two "Launch Agents" to build out lending and credit infrastructure around the USDS stablecoin.

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