If you're into the wild world of meme tokens and crypto trading, you've probably heard of DegenCapitalCIO – the AI-powered platform dishing out signals for crypto and stocks. Built by Mardo (Miko) @mikocryptonft, it's all about giving traders an edge with instant token research, KOL tracking, and narrative insights. And if you're holding $DEGENC, their native token on the Base chain, you get premium access to the good stuff.

Recently, Miko dropped a tweet announcing play-by-play updates on building the platform, shared in their Telegram channel. These updates are gold for anyone curious about how AI agents come together in the blockchain space. Check out the original tweet here. He plans to turn these into full engineering blog posts soon, but for now, let's break down one of the key optimizations he's teasing – a backend revamp that's speeding up project summaries big time.

Streaming and Backend Rewiring for Speed

In the update, the team is adding streaming to project summaries. What does that mean? Streaming lets the AI render text on the front-end as it generates, instead of waiting for the whole thing to finish. It's like watching a video buffer in real-time rather than staring at a loading screen. This, combined with backend tweaks, is slashing the time to generate summaries.

For context, project summaries in DegenCapitalCIO pull together insights on crypto projects – think meme tokens like $DEGENC itself – including market narratives, KOL mentions, and growth drivers. Faster summaries mean quicker decisions in the fast-paced meme token market, where timing can make or break a trade.

Breaking Down the RAG Query Bottlenecks

A big part of the slowdown was in the RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) query, which took about 13.6 seconds – over 43% of the total time. RAG is a fancy AI technique that combines retrieving relevant data from a database with generating responses, making answers more accurate and up-to-date without retraining the whole model.

Here's a quick table summarizing the breakdown:

Component	Time	% of RAG	% of Total	Status
Config Check (Postgres)	56ms	0.4%	0.2%	Negligible
Entity Extraction (OpenAI)	7.909ms	58.0%	25.0%	Major Bottleneck
Neo4j Graph Query	1.520ms	11.2%	4.8%	Acceptable
Create Embedding (OpenAI)	241ms	1.8%	0.8%	Very fast
Pinecone Vector Search	3.899ms	28.6%	12.3%	Moderate Bottleneck
TOTAL RAG	13.627ms	100%	43.1%	Slow

The entity extraction step, powered by OpenAI, was eating up over half the RAG time. That's where the AI identifies key entities (like token names or projects) from the input. Pinecone, a vector database for fast similarity searches, was another chokepoint at 28.6%.

Planned Fixes: Removing Unnecessary Steps

The team's solution? Trim the fat. They're ditching entity extraction for project summaries because the token to analyze is already predefined – no need to hunt for it. Similarly, Neo4j (a graph database for handling relationships between data) is getting the boot here since its benefits are minimal for these predefined prompts. These changes are incremental but add up to big speed gains.

The result? Users should see summaries loading in 3-4 seconds, down from 15-20 seconds. That's a huge win for anyone scanning meme tokens on the fly, especially in volatile markets where narratives shift hourly.

Why This Matters for Meme Token Enthusiasts

DegenCapitalCIO is part of the Virtuals protocol ecosystem, focusing on AI agents that supercharge crypto trading. With $DEGENC as the key to premium features, these optimizations mean holders get even faster access to tools like the Ecosystem Radar, KOL signal tracking, and AI-driven narrative summaries. Whether you're eyeing the next big meme pump or tracking KOL calls, quicker insights could translate to better trades.

If you're tech-curious, jump into their Telegram for more updates – it's a front-row seat to AI agent development in blockchain. And keep an eye on $DEGENC; as the platform evolves, so does its utility in the meme token space.

Stay tuned for those engineering blog posts, and remember, in crypto, speed is everything. What do you think of these tweaks? Drop your thoughts below!