ORO Builds a Conversational Interface Layer for On-Chain Finance

Thirty trillion dollars in assets are on a path to tokenization by 2034. Katerina Vdovichenko cited that figure, drawn from research presented at a ZigChain summit in Dubai; however, with that much capital slated to land on-chain, there is almost no accessible interface layer to reach it at the moment.

The DeFi Learning Curve Is "Very, Very Steep"

Vdovichenko has been watching crypto since 2013, when Bitcoin mining machines were being ordered in her social circle and she started trying to understand what decentralization actually meant. She describes those early years as being an observer on a rollercoaster, buying and selling while watching the space grow and fail and grow again. That history gives her a particular view on where the technology has and has not progressed.

The on-ramp, she says, has always been easy enough. Opening an exchange and buying a fraction of bitcoin feels like an accomplishment. But the moment a user wants to do something productive with that asset, things break down fast.

"The moment you want to actually do something with that money, earn yield, sell, lend, borrow, access RWAs, real world assets, it becomes a completely different world. So you're suddenly started dealing with the wallets, with gas fees, with slippage, with bridges, with contract approvals. So the jargon is literally endless, left alone, you know, just to navigate UX, you know, that comes after that."

That gap between holding an asset and doing anything productive with it is what ORO is built around.

The Interface Layer for All On-Chain Finance

Vdovichenko describes ORO's positioning with two analogies. One is Cursor: "What Cursor has done for coding, that's what we're doing for on-chain finance." The other is Robinhood, an accessible entry point that lets anyone reach investment opportunities without needing to understand the infrastructure underneath.

In practice, a user types a plain-language instruction into ORO, something like wanting to put five thousand dollars into a diversified private credit fund. ORO identifies the best opportunities for that intent, calculates the optimal routing, prepares all the relevant transactions across lending protocols and tokenized vaults, and then presents the user with a single signature request. The user authorizes it; the platform handles everything behind that.

Wallet custody stays with the user throughout. ORO has integrations with MetaMask, Phantom, Kepler, and Leap, and recently added Getpar, which allows social login through a Gmail account. Nothing in that setup changes the fact that ORO does not take control of user funds.

The platform targets both newcomers and experienced DeFi users. For someone who has never interacted with a lending protocol, ORO functions as a guided experience that also explains what is happening. For a power user who already knows the space, it removes friction from operations they would otherwise have to execute manually across multiple interfaces.

Shield Engine: Validation Before the Signature

Before any transaction reaches the user for authorization, it passes through what ORO calls the Shield Engine. Vdovichenko describes it as a security and sanity layer that stands between the user and the complexity of on-chain operations.

"Shield Engine runs a full validation sweep, so it checks your intent, it checks the wallet state, every relevant smart contract involved, and then simulates the entire transaction, including gas, to make sure that nothing unexpected happens along the way and only after all of that clears, it only does after that, your signature."

The engine applies to every transaction on the platform, not a select subset. The goal is that by the time a signature request appears, the user can have confidence the transaction has been checked for errors, bad contracts, and unexpected outcomes. Vdovichenko frames it as the mechanism that makes ORO trustworthy rather than just easy to use.

From ZigChain DEX to Every Chain

ORO did not launch as a chain-agnostic product. Vdovichenko and her co-founders started on ZigChain, where they built a decentralized exchange and eventually integrated most of the chain's major dApps, including its lending, borrowing, and staking protocols. That made ORO a super app for that particular ecosystem.

The expansion to a multi-chain model happened about one and a half months before this conversation. The vision had always been broader, Vdovichenko says, but the co-founders wanted the initial AI launch to be grounded before extending it. ORO is now building out support for additional blockchain networks and protocols, with the stated aim of becoming a single interface layer for all on-chain finance regardless of which chain a user's assets are on.

On the developer side, ORO is working toward opening up its APIs so third-party developers can bring its conversational and intelligent layer into their own applications. Vdovichenko also mentioned that ORO is in discussions with a significant fintech company about integrating that layer into a larger product. She did not name the company.