# Did We Bank the Unbanked Yet? | Nikola Vukovic - DeFi Saver - Channel: [Ethereum Denver](https://streameth.org/ethereum-denver) - Date: 2026-03-09 - Duration: 14:12 - Topics: ETHDenver, Crypto, Web3, Blockchain, Event, Conference, ETHDenver 2025, ETHDenver 2024, Bitcoin, Ethereum - Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-7gkCCpjTNz4 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gkCCpjTNz4 ## Description πŸš€ Get Ready for ETHDenver 2026! πŸš€ We're already hard at work preparing for next year's biggest Web3 event! Keep your eyes peeled for more info on ETHDenver 2026β€”it’s going to be epic! 🌟 ## Transcript All right. All right. Let me see. All right. Sounds good. All right. Hi everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon. Uh my name is Nicola. Uh I've been building with Defi Saver for quite a while now. uh we have been in this PL in space since 2019 2020 or so um and frankly there's been this nagging question in my head that I kind of wanted to I guess put some time in time into answering and it's really about whether we are actually still building the thing that we sought out to build. Um so the original web 3 promise um the the original web 3 I guess the idea it was really a a movement that had a a technology as its catalyst but it was really a a value based movement. It was a movement around uh kind of uh transparency uh openness, equal uh equal rights and and universal access and and DeFi uh as a movement kind of appeared in well it it was born in this ecosystem and it carried this this ethos uh with it. It was meant to be this um financial system that didn't really care who you were or where you were from. Uh it was uh maker DAO was this I guess the the poster child of DeFi. It was the the project that really coined the term uh and it was very uh what I'm trying to say is it was very aligned with the the centralized DTOS of of web 3 in general. It was uh this uh fully transparent fully onchain project that had a stable coin whose peg was fully owned by the community. Um it kind of proved that this unbanked mission was actually a reality that it was that it was actually possible. Uh however, fairly quickly we realized that the project of that kind is kind of hard to scale uh in the sense that um well we needed to to execute some some compromises uh to actually get to to the millions in the the the billions. Uh first off it was uh kind of different types of collateral then it was USDC with a shared peg uh essentially tethering die to a fairly centralized stable coin um then it was RWAS um and then finally essentially government bonds as backing for uh die savings rate yield. So finally after a few years uh D actually uh and maker turned into this um fairly uh institution first inst institution focused uh organization uh with a stable coin that's actually fairly centrally controlled and has all these uh kind of powers over the the holders. So there's this thesis uh for brands uh catering to enthusiasts, how they will inevitably kind of betray their um their their users because we as enthusiasts, we're actually a pretty pretty bad uh customer to to cater to. We're uh very demanding. We're very fickle. We're very um happy and quick to point out when things aren't uh perfect. we're very uh quick to find flaws and we're very happy to try the next thing and trying to move on to to something that we might that that we think might be better. Um so for these brands whether it's you know enthusiast phones or whether it's finance or really any technology um in order for uh those products to scale that actually need to move on to these um larger markets and thereby kind of sacrifice what made them great uh in the the first time. sacrifice what made them attractive for the kind of early adopters and the the enthusiasts and um same kind of goes for DeFi. I actually heard a this hot take um that uh DeFi will eventually all the projects in DeFi will eventually either become infra or they'll be competing with Robin Hood. Um so the thesis is essentially you either become a uh a backend for institutions and banks or you become uh uh or you try to kind of uh on board uh everyone's grandma essentially or or you know you make these kind of weird videos. Uh but either way DeFi just becomes like a tab uh in your favorite banking app. Um so the numbers kind of confirm this. Uh we have these kind of record uh TVL numbers. We have millions and and billions and trillions of of capital coming into D5. But if you look at um the poster child of D5 right now. So a allegedly has well the top 100 depositors in a allegedly hold 85% of the the total total value locked. Uh, and the numbers for Mofo are allegedly even worse in the sense that the top 100 holders actually hold over 90% of the TVL. I didn't check these numbers. Uh, I found them online. I didn't calculate them on hand, but I'm pretty sure it's uh it would be somewhere in that ballpark. And these are institutions. These aren't um these aren't retail users. So, does DeFi still make sense? Is this the future of DeFi? Are we kind of done? Should we all kind of, you know, go work for Black Rockck essentially? Well, a lot of smart people actually think DeFi does have a future. Uh, Vitalik recently made a case that DeFi could be Ethereum's killer use case the same way search was for for Google essentially. Uh, and safe DeFi or low-risk DeFi uh meaning um collateralized loans, savings protocols, stable coins, things like that. So uh uh a uh Stani Kuchov famously very uh all in on DeFi. Obviously a has its uh institutional avenues. Uh it has RWA markets. has um it's consumerf facing app but uh very much opposed to charge of defi still and um well frankly me me as well uh I the thing is uh coming back to the the original thesis um both of the paths for for scaling D5 make a point that uh to scale D5 will have to become CFI or something in between and kind of sacrifice the ideals it made it great actually. Uh the thing is the values for DeFi aren't necessarily idealistic. They're actually very practical, very tangible. Uh take transparency uh for example. It's not an ideal. It's uh it's this force that actually keeps us on the right path. It keeps us from making bad decisions. Kind of like open source software is uh ironically more uh more secure and more safe because it's out there in the open because everybody can see it. Um, in the same way, uh, when everything is open to scrutiny, uh, we're kind of safer from making a a bad choice because we got the feedback. Um, it's essentially this kind of systemic safeguard that uh, keeps DeFi from uh, creating another 2008 scenario. Um, similarly, openness u enforces competitive products. It's uh, this forest that doesn't really allow for a closed uh world of gardens and closed ecosystems in in in DeFi because being part of this global open ecosystem financial system is really makes for a better product. Uh it it's that's the the actual force. We could go on and you know replicate all these traditional finance systems on chain but that would just be scratching the surface of DeFi. It's uh it just doesn't scratch the it doesn't begin to cover the potential of of DeFi is what I'm saying. And in a heavily centralized world, in a heavily monopolized world where where all these industries are kind of centered around um a couple of large players, uh this feels uh more important than ever especially for a industry as crucial as finance. self-s sovereignty similarly uh protects us as users from government and corporate overreach. This is the the kind of um on the on the flip side if you're a product owner this is what protects you from a hostile uh governing uh climate. If because in in a hostile governing climate actually the best thing you can be is non-custodial because you're hands off and you can't do wrong and you can't do evil even if you whether you wanted to or whether you were coerced to uh in in some way and obviously this balance uh of of self-s sovereignty uh takes um implies some sort of self- responsibility as well and a lot of people would be happy to hand off uh outsource their responsibility to a bank in exchange for some of their uh independence and I think that kind of makes sense for a lot of people. I don't I don't think that's a a wrong choice. But even um even in in that case, putting uh banks on blockchain rails essentially makes them um more efficient. It makes them more transparent and makes oversight easier. So generally a again a net positive for um us as consumers. Um the obvious thing about the A numbers if A has like around 115,000 depositors uh that means there's like around a 100,000 users kind of like us uh normal users that have like four to six digit TVLs portfolio balances um and they just kind of use this product they get value out of it and uh the infrastructure is there uh transactions are fairly cheap uh the protocols are fairly battle tested and fairly safe and secure. We know how to make them now. Um even wallet wallet UX is uh getting fairly good and all these wallets are um using all these D5 products behind the scenes and actually um providing for example um savings protocols to um well to so many people that actually didn't have them beforehand and uh yeah but uh I mean if somebody tells you about wallet UX and crypto UX and how it's like this bottleneck and it sucks and you know it's it's like this bottleneck for adoption just uh I mean frankly tell them to shut up because it works. We're doing the thing. We are out there. We're banking people. People are actually using this and there's so there's so many advancements actually being made that actually implemented in the real world that actually make this UX pretty smooth. So you maybe they should go out there go out there and actually use these products and uh try them and talk to the people and see what they can do better in their own their own yard and figure out who they're building for. So if you got into DeFi a while ago um based on this promise that you were going to make a difference whether it's like even on like some minuscule level and now you're kind of asking yourself deep down if that was a farce and if we're kind of doing uh just stratfi on chain uh don't uh defy is making a difference. It's making a real difference. It's this large equalizing force uh in the sense that well take stable coins sure they provide efficient payment rails in the developed nations on the west but they also provide access to the global um financial system in uh places where inflation is very high and access doesn't actually exist. um savings protocols. Never before did you have uh savings options that actually gave out the exact same yield whether you had a position of $100 or $100 million. Uh it just doesn't didn't exist. They get the exact same equal yield. Um even access to investment tools. uh the fact that I can use DeFi saver to uh execute as a as an individual uh a delta neutral funding fee uh farming yield strategy the same strategy that it or vinm use on like a giant corporate level the fact that we can do the exact same thing it's like this huge equalizing force we have the equal opportunities equal visibility equal quotes all these equal things regardless of who we are where come from and what our position size is essentially. So don't believe the hype no matter what you're building. Uh it's been claimed that DeFi is dead numerous times before. Uh dexes are dying, stable coins are dead. Um uh overcolateralized lending is dead. Uh crypto is dead, web 3 is dead. We've all we've heard these things for years now. So just focus on what you as a person feel that makes sense. uh and where you see value and same for the product you're building. Uh figure out what the value that you are providing is and focus on maximizing that focus on actually providing that value and not scaling the TVL. Um and finally know who you're building for. Uh you might be building for yourself, you're probably not building for your grandma. Um, but the audience that you're building for might be bigger than uh what you think right now. All right, have a nice day.