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Distribution as a Moat: Securing DeFi’s Next Chapter
Key Insights
- Power users remain the backbone of DeFi activity, with the top three wallets on Aave borrowing $24.6B in the past year and the top ten wallets on Uniswap V3 driving 53% of trading volume over a single week.
- Brand and product iteration defend market share, as seen with Uniswap, but unlike fintech’s regulatory moats, DeFi’s open-source code weakens these defenses.
- Wallet–protocol integrations are proving to be powerful distribution engines, with Morpho’s Coinbase partnership and Phantom’s Hyperliquid integration driving rapid growth in lending and perps trading.
- Tokenized RWAs are creating new distribution channels, with Aave’s Horizon enabling stablecoin borrowing against U.S. Treasuries and funds, and treasuries like Sharplink diversifying staking strategies across L2s.
A Turning Point for DeFi
For years, DeFi has felt like a giant casino. Liquidity mining wars, vampire attacks, and mercenary farmers chasing short-term yields turned protocols into battlegrounds for users. Forking was trivial, and the majority of crypto play resembled a PVP game to lure whales with the biggest incentives. That chaos made DeFi exciting, but also fragile.
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Alice is a Research Analyst on the Protocol Services team. She previously worked as a Research Analyst at The Block and was an Investment Intern at Variant Fund. Alice graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied Economics.
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