I've neglected DeFi for too long so I did a deep dive.
Here are my learnings from a week in the the weird world.
Returns are wild
30-100+% APYs are normal. Double digit returns on stable coins is absurd. I get that we are cutting out banks' fat fees, but these returns have to be competed down in time. Until then enjoy and hopefully this doesn't all blow up.
Community is great
People live in discords. This would be impossible on your own. Everyone is helpful and figuring it out together. Making money puts people in a good mood I suppose.
User experience is horrible
Everything is difficult and complicated. Defi needs a whole new interface. On-ramps have to become 100x easier for the average person to use/trust this.
Security is tough
You need a physical wallet to be secure. The password shouldn't touch the internet. Basically a sophisticated way of stuffing money under your mattress. Except it is a steel password split into security deposit boxes & a little thumb drive.
We are in the early days
Everything is still buggy. Solana & Arbitrum went down for a day. Polygon was dropping my transactions. Sky high gas prices. Wallets don't always connect. Feels like the Twitter fail whale days.
Speed is crazy
I wasn't around for the early web days, but I imagine this is what it felt like. New cool projects are popping up everyday. Tons of smart people are moving into this.
This is going to be huge
Defi has gone from $1B to $100B in under a year. Cutting out the middleman and effortless cross-border transactions are clearly the future. Kids today will setup crypto wallets before they get bank accounts. Traditional login/passwords should go away.