I did not get into crypto because of price charts.

I got into it because I saw a system that let people participate instead of just observe.

Decentralized finance feels important to me for that reason. It is not just a new set of tools. It is a shift in who gets to access financial infrastructure and who gets to benefit from it.

I Care About Access

Most of the world interacts with finance through layers of permission.

You apply. You wait. You get approved or denied. You are subject to geography, credit history, minimum balances, banking hours, and institutional policy.

With DeFi, access starts with a wallet.

No application. No approval committee. No region lock. If you have an internet connection, you can lend, borrow, trade, or provide liquidity.

That matters. Especially if you have ever been on the outside of a system looking in.

Open access is not a marketing line. It is a structural difference.

I Care About Ownership

In traditional systems, users generate value and institutions capture it.

Deposits fund loans. Activity generates fees. Growth benefits shareholders.

In DeFi, users often are the capital base. Liquidity providers earn fees. Token holders can vote on protocol direction. Treasuries are visible. Revenue can flow back to participants.

It is not perfect. Incentives can be misaligned. Token designs can be flawed.

But the direction is different. The default assumption is that users should have a stake.

I believe that alignment changes behavior. When people have ownership, they think long term.

I Care About Transparency

I have spent enough time around governance to know how little most people can actually see.

In traditional finance, balance sheets are summarized. Risk is abstracted. Leverage can hide in corners until it surfaces.

Onchain systems are not invisible.

You can see collateral ratios. You can see reserves. You can see treasury balances. You can see governance proposals before they execute.

Transparency does not eliminate risk. But it removes the illusion of certainty.

I would rather operate in a system where I can verify the rules than one where I am asked to trust them.

I Care About Programmable Infrastructure

One of the reasons DeFi resonates with me is that it treats finance like software.

Rules are encoded. Liquidations are automatic. Interest rates adjust algorithmically. Strategies can be built on top of other strategies.

That composability is powerful.

Developers can build without asking for integration agreements. They plug into existing primitives and extend them.

Finance becomes a toolkit instead of a closed platform.

That unlocks experimentation. And experimentation is how better systems emerge.

I Care About Global Coordination

Capital should not stop at borders.

Traditional systems are fragmented. Settlement is slow. Cross-border transfers are expensive.

DeFi runs continuously. Settlement is near-instant. Participation is global by default.

For builders, investors, and communities operating online, that matters.

The internet is global. Financial infrastructure should be too.

I Do Not Ignore the Risks

Smart contracts fail. Protocols get exploited. Governance can be captured. Markets can unwind quickly.

None of that should be minimized.

But the risks are visible. You can read the code. You can track the flows. You can see the incentives.

In many traditional systems, risk accumulates quietly until it becomes systemic.

In DeFi, the system is open for inspection.

That is not a guarantee of safety. It is a commitment to transparency.

Why It Ultimately Matters

To me, DeFi represents something larger than yield or speculation.

It represents a belief that financial infrastructure can be:

• Open by default
• Transparent by design
• Owned by its users
• Governed in public

I spend a lot of time thinking about governance, incentives, and coordination. DeFi sits at the intersection of all three.

It is not finished. It is not stable. It is not perfect.

But it is directionally aligned with a future where participation is broader, ownership is more distributed, and financial systems are built like open networks instead of closed institutions.

That is why I think it matters.

And that is why I continue to build in it.