---
title: "Surf"
publisher: Khala Research
canonical_url: https://www.khala.io/surf-ai
source_reports: [https://www.khala.io/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence]
---

# Surf

*A crypto AI platform that puts onchain, social, market and prediction market data behind one API, serving analysts, app builders and autonomous agents.*

Company coverage from "Surf: A Data Platform for Crypto Intelligence" (April 3, 2026): https://www.khala.io/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence#surf

Cite as: Khala Research, "Surf", company coverage. https://www.khala.io/surf-ai

## At a glance

- **Category:** Crypto AI intelligence platform and agent data infrastructure
- **Launched:** 2025, as a crypto research assistant; Surf 2.0 in March 2026
- **Team:** Ryan Li (CEO, co-founder); fewer than 30 employees
- **Funding:** $15M seed (Dec 2025), led by Pantera Capital
- **Scale:** 600K+ users, 80K MAU, 5K+ paying subscribers (Mar 2026)
- **Revenue:** ~$3M ARR, team-reported; $10M target for end of 2026
- **Token:** None; equity-funded through Surf AI, Inc.
- **Research:** CAIA crypto AI benchmark, co-authored through Cybertino Lab; AAAI oral
- **Web search chosen:** 55.5%
- **No tools:** 12% to 28%
- **Best model with tools:** 67.4%
- **Human analyst:** 80%
- **Finance tasks:** 48.3%
- **Surf vs no-tool models:** 4x

## 01 What is Surf?

Surf is a crypto AI platform built on the finding that general AI models pick the wrong data source for crypto questions. It combines a multi-chain indexer, a real-time social monitoring pipeline and its own surf-1.5 model family behind a single OpenAI-compatible API. Its data layer covers 10+ blockchains, 100+ DeFi protocols, 100M+ labeled addresses, 40M+ parsed crypto posts on X and about 1B prediction market trades from Polymarket and Kalshi.

It launched as a research assistant that turns a question into a structured, sourced report. Surf 2.0, launched in March 2026, added two products on the same data:

- **Surf Studio:** turns a natural language prompt into a deployed, live-URL crypto web app on a surf.computer subdomain, with no code required.
- **Surf Agent Stack (SAS):** 90+ API endpoints across 12 data domains, packaged as an MCP server and as Skills for Claude Code, OpenClaw and similar coding environments.

[Product and data stack →](https://www.khala.io/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence#surf)

## 02 How accurate is Surf on crypto tasks?

On the CAIA benchmark (17 models, 178 tasks), the best general model with tools reached 67.4%, against an 80% human analyst baseline, and models chose web search 55.5% of the time when specialist tools were available. Surf reports 4x outperformance against frontier models without tools; against the best tool-augmented general model its lead is about 1.2x.

Surf co-authored CAIA through Cybertino Lab, its internal research arm. AAAI oral acceptance and Princeton co-authorship validate the method, not Surf's own scores, and no independent team has yet replicated the results with Surf as a tested model.

**Exhibit: AI model tool selection**

*General AI models route crypto queries to web search instead of onchain data, and accuracy suffers.*

- Web search chosen, 55.5%, Share of tool selections that pick web search when specialist tools are available.
- No tools, 12% to 28%, Frontier model accuracy without tools.
- Best model with tools, 67.4%, Best general model, with the correct tools available.
- Human analyst, 80%, Baseline on the same task set, 12.6 points above the best model.
- Finance tasks, 48.3%, Best general model (OpenAI o3) on Vals.ai Finance Agent; none passed 56%.
- Surf vs no-tool models, 4x, CAIA outperformance; about 1.2x against the best tool-augmented model.

Example query: "Is contract 0x742d…f2bF3e8 safe to interact with?" Web search returns press coverage and misses a phishing drainer; a block explorer flags the deployer and blocks the interaction. Surf co-authored CAIA through Cybertino Lab.

*Source: [CAIA benchmark](https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.00332) (17 models, 178 tasks), [Vals.ai Finance Agent Benchmark](https://www.vals.ai/benchmarks/finance_agent) (Apr 2025). Data: [CSV](https://www.khala.io/data/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence/surf2-f2.csv) · [JSON](https://www.khala.io/data/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence/surf2-f2.json)*

[The benchmark and its caveats →](https://www.khala.io/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence#the-crypto-ai-accuracy-problem)

## 03 Who uses Surf?

Surf reports 600K+ total users, 80K monthly active users, 5K+ paying subscribers at a monthly ARPU of $30+ (excluding enterprise clients) and 3M+ research reports. Active and total user counts were checked against Google Analytics data; reports, ARR and ARPU are team-reported and unverified. MAU was about 80K in December 2025 and 80K in March 2026, flat across a fundraise and a major launch.

With Surf 2.0 the user base widens from analysts to app builders and autonomous agents. Within days of launch, community members had built Studio apps including a 2026 US midterms odds map on live Polymarket data and a token buyback and burn tracker.

[Traction and retention →](https://www.khala.io/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence#surf)

## 04 How does Surf make money?

Through subscriptions and API credits. Plans run from Free to Plus ($9 a month billed annually), Pro ($29) and Max ($299), with custom Enterprise pricing; Max unlocks Studio credits and SAS API trial credits, and enterprise API keys are sold directly. Surf reports about $3M ARR with a $10M target for the end of 2026, and has published no further revenue breakdown.

[Revenue model and pricing →](https://www.khala.io/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence#revenue-model)

## 05 How does Surf compare with competitors?

Surf competes in AI research, onchain analytics and no-code app deployment at once. Nansen ($9.1M revenue, 106 staff) is the closest directional competitor after its January 2026 Agentic Trading launch. Dune ($9.5M, 103 staff) is the most credible threat to Studio, having shipped natural language to SQL querying. Messari (an estimated $21.5M, about 120 staff) is the most direct threat to SAS, with x402 pay-per-request access for agents launched in March 2026. Surf reports about $3M ARR with fewer than 30 people and $15M raised; if those claims hold, it earns about a third of Nansen's or Dune's revenue with under a third of their headcount.

**Exhibit: The efficiency gap**

*Revenue, headcount, capital and productivity by platform.*

- Messari, $21.5M
- Dune, $9.5M
- Nansen, $9.1M
- Surf, $3.0M
- Messari, 120
- Nansen, 106
- Dune, 103
- Surf, About 30
- Nansen, $88.0M
- Messari, $61.0M
- Dune, $21.0M
- Surf, $15.0M
- Messari, $179.2K
- Surf, $100.0K
- Dune, $92.2K
- Nansen, $85.7K

*Data: [CSV](https://www.khala.io/data/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence/efficiency.csv) · [JSON](https://www.khala.io/data/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence/efficiency.json)*

[Competitive landscape →](https://www.khala.io/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence#competitive-landscape)

## 06 Does Surf have a token?

No. Surf is equity-funded, and revenue flows to Surf AI, Inc., which raised the December 2025 round as its own entity. The $CYBER governance token belongs to the wider Cyber ecosystem and carries no claim on Surf revenue; the team has confirmed no contractual or governance link exists. Surf grew its user base without a token, airdrop or points program.

[Token and corporate structure →](https://www.khala.io/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence#revenue-model)

## 07 Who founded Surf and who backs it?

Ryan Li (CEO, co-founder) began building with AI at UC Berkeley and built two earlier crypto startups. He co-founded Cyber with Shiyu Zhang, Wilson Wei and Zhimao Liu, and the founding team previously built CyberConnect, a decentralized social graph protocol. Surf AI, Inc. has its own equity and cap table and no shared liabilities with CyberConnect. Its $15M seed in December 2025 was led by Pantera Capital with Coinbase Ventures and DCG.

[Team and backing →](https://www.khala.io/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence#team-and-backing)

## 08 What are the main risks?

- **Frontier model improvement:** OpenAI, Google and Anthropic are working on domain-specific tool selection, which could close the gap before SAS switching costs take hold.
- **Dune competition:** Dune already has natural language to SQL; matching Studio would still need hosting, a non-SQL data layer and an app framework.
- **Flat MAU:** about 80K in December 2025 and 80K in March 2026, despite the raise and the Surf 2.0 launch.
- **Self-certification:** every product performance claim rests on a benchmark Surf's team co-authored.
- **Cyber association:** the corporate separation is clean, but the shared founding team means CyberConnect controversy could create headline risk for Surf.

[Full risk factors →](https://www.khala.io/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence#risk-factors)

## 09 What should we watch next?

- **SAS adoption:** Surf Skills GitHub stars and forks, and SAS appearing in open-source agent framework documentation.
- **Enterprise customers:** a named institutional integration, particularly from the Coinbase institutional stack; YZi Labs' cohort onboarding is confirmed.
- **SOC 2 Type II:** Type I is approved; Type II was scheduled for completion by the end of April 2026.
- **CAIA at COLM:** acceptance would add validation beyond the AAAI oral.
- **MAU and ARR:** whether Surf 2.0 lifts MAU off 80K and ARR toward the $10M target.

[Catalysts →](https://www.khala.io/surf-data-platform-onchain-social-prediction-crypto-ai-agent-intelligence#catalysts)

## 10 Primary sources

- [agents.asksurf.ai](https://agents.asksurf.ai)
- [Surf docs](https://docs.asksurf.ai/)
- [Surf Skills (GitHub)](https://github.com/asksurf-ai/surf-skills)
- [CAIA benchmark paper (arXiv)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.00332)
- [CAIA dataset (Hugging Face)](https://huggingface.co/datasets/cyberco/caia-0927)
- [@SurfAI on X: Surf 2.0 credits campaign](https://x.com/SurfAI/status/2042087718654730461)