How To Achieve Sustainable, Meaningful Growth

In a recent interview I had with Youtuber and Crypto enthusiast Technology Poet about what we’re building at Fuzion and why (full interview at the bottom of this post), I was asked my opinion about future innovations in crypto. There are lots of areas I think we will see exciting and unexpected innovation that would make for interesting discussions (and possibly some new product briefs for our Fuzion team) but her question got me thinking about a different question altogether; what needs to happen for DeFi’s to become ubiquitous?

There are many reasonable answers to that, and this being a content platform for the Kujira community, I thought my first post on WinkHub should focus on three elements which community itself directly impacts.

After all, there’s a lot of smart, connected and motivated people building out the infrastructure and architecture to expand DeFi right here on Kujira. However, without adoption DeFi is destined to be a digital ghost town. And the power to make that happen resides in you, the reader. So let’s talk about how you make that happen.

I view these three as mutually re-enforcing; each supports the other two, and is supported in turn. No one “leg” is more vital than the others.

Access For Everyone

Irrespective of device, location or income level, DeFi needs to be within the grasp of every willing participant. Barriers to entry contradict the notion of DeFi transcending institutional control and economic barriers.

For that to happen, DeFi products need to be device and platform agnostic, working everywhere irrespective of the machine, OS or application the interface happens to be through. And that’s a really long list to tackle. Fortunately, it’s a task that can be devoured one bite at a time. And while Elon brings payments to X, someone else might be building a micro-loan platform using Whatsapp. It’s all DeFi, and every bit counts. Every time a new piece is added to the puzzle, we need community to embrace it, share it, use it, and help make it better.

Resilience Through Hydra-fication

The biodiversity of ecology is a defense mechanism, with numerous overlaps to ensure any severe changes within the ecosystem always remain within the tolerance of at least a few species, and no matter how many perish, enough remain to continue. This overlap looks like redundancy, but it’s actually resilience.

A fundamental characteristic of any thriving ecosystem is the ability to withstand adversity, and DeFi is no exception. Similar services or offerings in different permutations is evidence of a diverse and healthy system.

For DeFi to thrive, overlaps should be encouraged when they’re a net-positive to overall resilience. This demands variety at every level, from support infrastructure to codebase and communities. In traditional economies we talk about entities being too big to fail. This is counter-intuitive. DeFi works when there aren’t any chokepoints that can strangle development, enabling DeFi to act like a Hydra, growing two new heads whenever one is chopped off.

From a community perspective, this means seeking out and creating as many interconnections as we can, encouraging iteration and development, and striving to avoid any monopolistic development. The more connectivity, the more options, the better.

Education At Every Level

This is probably the place where community can have the biggest impact! We’re so early. I’m reminded of this every time I teach someone to send a token, set up an address on a freshly downloaded wallet app, provide liquidity, make their first bid or place a limit order. Wherever you may be on your journey, helping someone means they’re a few steps behind you on that same path, and able to help someone further back from them.

DeFi will explode when we act exponentially, not linearly. It’s not enough for each new convert to teach another; we need to make it really easy for tens of thousands of people to learn how to use these facilities. And we need access to education for every level of user, from the brand new recruits approving their first Tx to the veterans coming to grips with new technology and protocols.

The easiest way to go from 1 to 1 teaching to 1 to many is through content. Every post, video, podcast, app, seminar, webisode and course that helps people understand the premise DeFi offers brings it a step closer to fulfilling it’s potential. Knowledge should behave like a virus -encode it in as many forms as you can and let it distribute itself.

Education is a cheat code we should all be using to win (and this is one of the reasons I’m bullish on WinkHub’s future).

As a community, you do this by making your knowledge sharable: Start a Youtube channel, Write something here on WinkHub, get on Reddit or on X, or any other social platform where you knowledge can be stored, discovered and shared. And the good news is, this huge task is no one person’s responsibility. Our common goal is closer to a reality with with every contribution.

Tall Towers Need Firm Foundations

There’s no guaranteed formula for taking DeFi mainstream, but I’m confident these three ingredients are part of the recipe for success. I don’t believe a silver bullet solution to DeFi ubiquity exists. No Killer App prevents a place on the shelf of obscurity alongside betamax and laser discs. I think there’s a long road ahead, with setbacks and obstacles aplenty.

However, I also believe that it’s an idea whose time has come, and building a solid base including the three principals I’ve briefly outlined is critical if we want DeFi to reach its potential.

And that, Ms Poet, to answer your question, is a future that excites me.