The Delphi Podcast David Choi & Conor Moore: USD.AI - Financing the Future of AI Infra
May 21, 2025
David Choi and Conor Moore, co-founders of USD.AI, delve into their innovative project—a synthetic dollar backed by AI and DeepEnd hardware assets. They share insights on their transition from traditional finance to DeFi, highlighting unique financing strategies for infrastructure projects. The discussion includes their three-pillar approach, the revolutionary QEV model for liquidity management, and how leveraging hardware can enhance yields. They also explain mechanisms to protect depositors and the potential impact of USD.AI on token emission rates.
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Team's Traditional Finance Roots
- David Choi and Conor Moore met at Deutsche Bank working in traditional finance before transitioning to DeFi and AI infrastructure finance.
- Their combined experience spans real estate investment banking, MEV, private equity, and crypto mining hardware industrialization.
Financing Illiquid Assets Innovatively
- Traditional DeFi finance focuses on liquid tokens, lacking innovation for illiquid assets like hardware financing.
- USD.AI targets capital markets innovation by enabling on-chain financing for illiquid AI mining and telecom hardware assets.
USDAI's Three Pillars Explained
- USDAI's architecture relies on three pillars: Caliber for on-chain physical asset tokenization, modular underwriting for risk scaling, and QEV for game-theoretic redemption.
- This Oracle-free, on-chain structure tackles unique challenges of financing high-value hardware with no marked markets.