Decentralized finance (Defi) used to be crypto’s wild child — especially during the infamous “Defi Summer” — but now, according to Dan Tapiero, it’s quietly matured into something even more powerful: boring and reliable.
“You said Defi has been boring. I mean, the revenues coming out of Defi dwarf what they were during Defi summer — more than 10x,” said Tapiero, Founder and CEO of 10T Holdings and 1RoundTable Partners, during a Roundtable discussion with Scott Melker on institutional crypto adoption. “It just kind of ticks along and it works and nobody talks about it anymore.”
Tapiero is a long-time macro investor, entrepreneur, and digital asset advocate who co-founded Gold Bullion International and has held senior positions with legendary investors like Stan Druckenmiller and Julian Robertson.
But if Defi is quietly winning, what’s holding big institutions back from jumping in?
“Some of the businesses out there, the more forward — I call them Web 2.5 — businesses already are using stablecoin and crypto rails,” he explained, citing Stripe as an example. “Over the weekend, they do settlement on Stablecoin rails.”
That said, traditional finance still has a long way to go. “There are still plenty of people in institutions out there that have no idea about even Bitcoin,” he added. “They’ve heard about the ETF… but they don’t really get it.”
So will major banks go full-on Defi anytime soon? Probably not. “Do I think a bank in the Midwest is going to all of a sudden be active in Defi? Probably not. But it’s all early signs.”
For institutions that do get involved, risk management is the name of the game. “Survival really here is a lot about risk management,” Tapiero said. “Even this sleeve in our new fund… it’s only going to be 15% of the fund and it’s only going to be in four or five of these protocols — very controlled.”
With altcoins still down as much as 90% from their highs, the message is clear: this isn’t a game for gamblers anymore. “You really have to know how to manage risk,” he said. “Everything goes down 50 to 80% every three or four years.”
