Ep. 747 The Future of Trading Is AI Agents & Crypto with Public CEO Leif Abraham

Leif Abraham discusses the innovative approach of Public in helping users build and compound wealth through sophisticated investment strategies and advanced technology. He highlights the platform's differentiation from the first wave of FinTech, which was largely speculative, by focusing on a trustworthy investment environment that offers a wider range of asset classes and deeper fundamental analysis for serious investors.

Abraham notes that user behavior varies between web and mobile interfaces, with web users typically making larger deposits. He emphasizes the impact of market volatility on user actions, particularly during downturns, and points out that many individuals in the bottom 75% of income live paycheck to paycheck, limiting their investment capabilities. Public targets the top quartile of earners, who are more likely to compound wealth due to surplus income, and he cites that 84% of the great wealth transfer will go to the top 25% of digital natives.

Younger generations are increasingly engaging in investing, with cryptocurrency playing a significant role in enhancing their financial literacy. Abraham explains that crypto is unique as the first asset class designed for retail and fractional investment. Public has launched crypto IRAs, allowing users to hold crypto in retirement accounts, and offers access to around 60 coins for trading, integrating AI agents to automate trading strategies.

While staking is not currently available on Public, Abraham mentions that it may be introduced in the future, supported by a partnership with Zero Hash to enhance the platform's crypto infrastructure. He predicts continued growth in younger investors' participation in markets and stresses the importance of trust in AI systems for users to engage with them using real money.

The AI agents on Public are designed for enhanced security and reliability, providing a deterministic flow that adheres to user instructions. Users can review and approve the workflow of these agents, which are built with radical transparency, offering a full history of actions. Abraham discusses various applications for AI agents, including automating trading strategies, managing risk for options contracts, and tax loss harvesting, noting that users often start by setting up AI agents as alerts.

Looking ahead, Abraham anticipates that future AI trading agents will evolve to assist users in refining their trading ideas more effectively. He highlights a shift in trading value from technical skills to the ability to express intent in natural language, with plans for a marketplace for sharing and customizing AI agents to inspire users.

Abraham also addresses the evolving role of AI agents in trading, particularly their potential transition from brokerage accounts to utilizing crypto wallet functionality for decentralized finance (DeFi). He notes that the decision-making capabilities of these AI agents are expected to shift from deterministic actions to more autonomous behaviors, although the quality of data sources may decline as access to open data increases. Chainlink is mentioned as a provider of verified data sets that could enhance the performance of AI agents requiring decentralized data.

Public is currently tracking over 60 private companies to provide retail investors with institutional-grade data prior to their IPOs. Abraham points out that companies are going public later in their lifecycle due to the maturity of private markets, resulting in a decrease in the number of public companies in the U.S. over the past two decades. He expresses concern that this delay in public access could negatively impact the health of financial markets and advocates for more innovation to improve retail investors' access to private companies.

Abraham discusses the growing interest in prediction markets within both traditional finance and crypto, noting their historical use for hedging since the 1990s. He acknowledges regulatory challenges faced by retail access to these markets and argues that the perception of prediction markets as mere gambling tools overlooks their value for sophisticated investors. He believes the opportunity in event contracts is significantly larger than in the sports betting market, with institutional investing volumes being approximately 100 times greater.

Additionally, he mentions that Public's technology stack offers a safer alternative to traditional banks and reveals plans for a marketplace for copy trading to launch soon. Looking ahead, Abraham predicts that crypto gaming will gain traction, contingent on the successful implementation of the right concepts by companies in the space. Public has a comprehensive roadmap that will keep the company engaged for the next decade.