The last few years have seen massive growth and adoption in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem. From almost nothing in 2018, DeFi has grown to more than $200 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL) across the wide variety of projects represented in the space. Ethereum alone services over 4 million users, seeing a whopping 8x growth just in 2021.

The fervor surrounding DeFi is unmistakable, with young investors rushing in, fueled by the storied success of their peers and many others scrambling to make sense of what this all means for the future of finance. But while its success has been remarkable, DeFi’s failure to assimilate some of the more attractive attributes of traditional finance has so far prevented it from truly penetrating the mainstream. Take fixed interest rates, for instance — a virtual non-entity in DeFi. Retail lenders and borrowers seek out fixed interest rates to build wealth steadily and predictably over time. The floating interest rates of DeFi eschew this approach to investing in favor of a more “wild west” environment that, while filled with earning potential, is far too volatile for the appetite of the average retail investor.

READ full article