[RETRO ROUND] Conversational AI Agent for CoW

CoW Grants Program Retro Round
1

Title

Introducing Helva: Conversational AI Agent to Access CoW Ecosystem

Author

@gicappaemme

Experiences and qualifications

The team behind Helva’s development brings a strong mix of technical expertise and hands-on experience in incubating DeFi protocols:

  • Giacomo – Engineer, Fullstack Python Developer. Previously worked within the Hedera ecosystem and co-founded Sirio, a DeFi protocol that raised over $720,000 across grants and pre-seed rounds, reaching a TVL of $2M in less than a week. LinkedIn, Github

  • Andrew – PhD in Data Science, AI developer with deep expertise across AI systems (Agents, CV, LLMs, etc.). Collaborated with Giacomo on a Machine Learning system for liquidation detection on Sirio. LinkedIn, Github

  • Marco – Engineering student with strong knowledge of blockchain architectures and extensive experience across JS-oriented programming languages and frameworks (Solidity, Vue, React, etc.). Provided significant contributions to Sirio’s Front-End components. LinkedIn, Github

Introduction

Helva is an AI agent that makes EVM-compatible DeFi ecosystems radically more accessible through a simple conversational prompt. Helva connects her smart LLM to major DeFi protocols and make their functions accessible through Natural-Language. With Helva, users can:

  1. Trade via standard swaps or leveraged perpetuals

  2. Perform, manage and optimize yield strategies based on risk profile and token category (e.g., stablecoins, bluechips)

  3. Run technical or fundamental analysis across ecosystems

  4. Automate repetitive DeFi tasks

  5. Combine tools (e.g., analysis + trade) for a seamless user experience

We already built most of Helva Architecture, althought we didn’t start to promote her. We can summarize the Methodoloy and Technologies used in the following Points:

  1. Interaction Layer: A stateless API or an easy-to-use User Interface will allow customers to use Helva and trigger CoW operations.

  2. AI Layer: We will use LangChain to manage natural-language understanding and planning. A dual‑LLM setup will handle prompt interpretation and transaction execution.

  3. Web3 Infrastructure: Cow integration will be built in Python using web3.py like any other protocol already integrated.

Proposed Work & Intended Outcome

Our proposal is to integrate the CoW suite of services into Helva, making her CoW-centric and granting CoW exclusivity over specific prompts/functions within Helva (If appreciated, we would always show CoW logo on the beside of Helva’s one):

  • CoW Swap (Exclusivity) – Every time a user requests a swap on Helva, we will leverage the CoWSwap infrastructure and perform a swap through CoW.

  • CoW AMM – Integrate CoW AMM LPs for all Helva users who want to create yield strategies with the supported tokens.

  • CoW Token – Integrate the CoW token to enable advanced analytics and yield strategies, including staking.

  • Additional Integrations – We are open to discussing any further integrations that could strengthen the collaboration.

Our intended Outcome with Helva is to make her a CoW-Centric DeFi Product, more accessible and safe for all the customer segments we target (Retail Users, B2B Customers). We can summarize our goals in the following points:

  • Lower Barriers for Retail Users: A beginner can type “swap 50 % of my USDC for ETH” and Helva will use CoW to execute it, hiding complexity and reducing user error.

  • Expanded Ecosystem Reach: Wallets and CEXs integrating our API will funnel more volume into CoW, increasing its liquidity and market share.

  • Push on the CoW x AI Integration: Integrating CoW with AI would be a great upgrade for the brand itself, that could be leveraged in co-marketing and businesses opportunities as well, and is perfectly aligned to the priorities of this program.

Expected Impact

We believe that integrating Helva with CoW Protocol could deliver significant adoption benefits for the CoW Ecosystem. In more detail:

  1. Onboard New Users: Helva’s conversational interface lowers the barrier to entry for both novice and experienced traders.

  2. Increase in volume: By routing swaps and yield strategies through CoW, every Helva user becomes a CoW user, driving up transaction counts and overall liquidity.

  3. Better user experience → higher retention: A simple prompt system, MEV‑resistant settlement via CoWSwap, and automated yield strategies will make users more likely to stick with CoW-backed services.

  4. Expanded B2B adoption: The REST API we plan to build allows wallets, custodians and centralized exchanges to offer CoW services to their customers. This opens the door to B2B partners, expanding CoW’s reach.

  5. Increase in CoW Token Adoption: Expanding Analyses and Staking to Helva users, CoW Token can significantly improve its usage and adoption.

Grant Category

We believe Helva perfectly fits in the AI Agents & UX Improvements Categories.

Impact Metrics

We propose to track the performances of Helva using the following metrics

  1. Unique Users: Measure adoption of Helva’s conversational DeFi interface as users migrate from traditional dApps to AI-driven interaction.
  2. New Active Users: Track onboarding effectiveness as Helva simplifies complex actions like swaps, staking, or lending through natural language.
  3. Monthly Volume: Assess total transaction flow generated by Helva’s users.
  4. Prompts Submitted: Quantify platform intelligence usage — each prompt represents a DeFi action, analysis, or strategy request executed through Helva.

Support During Development Period

The best support we can receive during the development period is in marketing and business development to accelerate awareness and adoption of Helva within the CoW ecosystem. Specifically, we would appreciate:

  • Co-marketing campaigns on CoW’s official channels (X, Discord, and community newsletters) to announce Helva’s main releases, integrations, and milestones, helping increase visibility and credibility among DeFi users.

  • Participation in ecosystem showcases and events, such as joint X Spaces or partner spotlights, to present Helva’s vision and progress directly to the CoW and DeFi community.

  • Warm introductions to CoW’s strategic partners enabling us to explore deeper technical and commercial synergies where Helva’s AI execution layer could add value.

Timeline

We plan to start work immediately upon approval of the proposal on the CoW Swap integration. From that commencement date we estimate the full program will require 15 weeks (about 3.5 months) to complete. This window covers all development, integration and testing tasks, as well as the initial roll‑out of our user and partner onboarding.

Should our launch marketing strategy require additional coordination with partners, we may request (if possible) a length exception of up to 5 additional weeks. This would extend the overall duration to a maximum of 20 weeks.

Gnosis Chain Address

0xFAe2dac0686f0e543704345aEBBe0AEcab4EDA3d

Other Informations

We already made significant steps forward on Helva’s Development, both technical and stategical. Here’s a Demo on how Helva works and her Documentation (Architecture, Prompt Engineering etc.):

Terms and Conditions

By submitting this grant application, I acknowledge and agree to be bound by the CoW DAO Participation Agreement and the CoW DAO Grant Agreement Terms.

Notes

We have strategically chosen to launch Helva on Polygon to leverage better support and familiarity with that ecosystem (and we can readily continue our CoW integration there), but any other EVM-Compatible Ecosystem is welcome upon request from CoW DAO.