The Edge Podcast Financing The AI Boom: How DeFi Is Filling A Trillion-Dollar Gap
David Choi and Conor Moore are CoFounders of Permian Labs, the builders behind USDai.
AI infrastructure is projecting trillions of dollars in CapEx spend, but there's a problem: traditional finance can't keep up. Banks move too slow. Private credit funds can't scale. The most important commodity in the world has no liquid debt market.
USDai is filling this gap by financing AI infrastructure with GPU-backed loans, offering stablecoin depositors 10-15% APR. David and Conor break down how they're using DeFi rails and tokenization to create liquid debt markets for GPUs, enabling institutional borrowers to access capital and retail users to earn yield on productive AI infrastructure.
In this episode, we cover:
+ Why trillions in AI CapEx can't get traditional financing
+ How USDAI structures loans against GPUs, not businesses
+ Why this could become "the interest rate of artificial intelligence"
+ Their two-token model: USDai vs. sUSDai
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💎 THIS EPISODE'S PARTNERS
🔒 KPK | Best risk-adjusted yield through automated vaults
🌅 NEUTRL | The next generation of crypto-native yield
🛡️ ACCOUNTABLE | Real-time financial verification
🕛 NOON | The highest and safest stablecoin yield, built for the long term
⚔️ KATANA | Deep liquidity & real yield
🏦 MANTLE | MNT is now live on Solana
🐡 PUFFER INSTITUTIONAL | ETH staking solutions for scale
⚙️ GEARBOX PROTOCOL | Onchain lending reimagined
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
1:45 - Founders background from NFT lending to AI infra
5:52 - “The more you know the price, the less money you make”
8:51 - The AI infrastructure financing gap, trillions in CapEx, no capital
15:22 - What is structured credit and why does it matter?
19:33 - How USDai GPU-backed loans work
24:54 - Addressing the Pine Analytics critique: Lagging utilization
34:13 - Why AI infra borrowers can use crypto rails
36:00 - Real-time GPU monitoring with Chainlink oracles
36:51 - “Mercenary capital” vs common sense capital
39:14 - Why launch the token before full PMF?
42:34 - Are USDai borrowers riskier to lend to?
45:26 - Warehouse receipts and UCC 12: How USDai tokenizes GPUs
50:58 - Managing GPU depreciation risk
53:28 - What keeps the founders up at night
54:05 - USDai vs. sUSDai, the two-token model explained
58:25 - The CHIP governance token
59:10 - What’s next: The road to $1B in loans
1:00:21 - Closing
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🔗 GUEST LINKS
► USDai website: https://usd.ai/
► USDai on X: https://x.com/USDai_Official
► David Choi on X: https://x.com/0xZergs
► Conor Moore on X: https://x.com/_ConorMoore
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DISCLAIMER: Nothing said on The Edge Podcast is a recommendation to buy or sell tokens or securities. This content is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing shared here is financial advice. Any views expressed by hosts or guests on the show are solely their opinions. Always do your own research. DeFi Dad, Nomatic, and guests may have positions in the assets or other matters discussed in this podcast.