WEF 2022: Terra were offering unsustainable yields; DeFi can support financial inclusion

cointelegraph.com:

Reporting from the inaugural day of the Blockchain Hub Davos 2022 conference, Cointelegraph’s editor-in-chief, Kristina Lucrezia Cornèr hosted a panel discussion centred around decentralized finance (DeFi) titled ‘Programmable Money is Here — and It’s Changing the World as We Know It’.

Panelists included Chief Partnership Officer of SwissBorg, Alexander Fazel; Global Markets Lead of Kraken Europe, Lucian Aguilar; Co-founder and CEO of CasperLabs, Mrinal Monahar; and Managing Partner of Coral Capital, Patrick Horsman.

In the opening remarks of the conversation, Aguilar reflected upon his attendance of the event two years ago, assessing the differences in receptiveness and attitude to crypto. He also noted how the prevailing narrative has evolved, stating: “Last time [there were] a lot of projects here that were trying to sell and present. This time when I look around it’s more talking about building, adopting, and innovating.”

All of his fellow panelists concurred with this viewpoint. Horsman shared that DeFi’s total value locked (TVL) was $1 billion in May 2020, but has since grown 150 times — a healthy barometer of success for the industry by his account.

Engaging the audience in a hand-raising exercise to determine their entry-point into the space, SwissBorg’s Fazel stated that “in TradiFi people are thinking [that] I don’t want to lose money — how can you help me keep my wealth regardless of markets? So, it’s very risk-management orientated. While in DeFi, the degens are like ‘gimme those triple-digit yields wooo!’”

He argued that protocols within the space should adopt higher transparency standards for the risk associated with annual percentage yields (APYs), advocating that additional education could also support in