breaking down the many ways decentralized finance and other crypto efforts have gone awry. A version of the talk reposted on Twitter also seems to have struck a nerve.
But it doesn’t seem like we’re further along on that front. In some ways, the theater has gotten more surreal. But, in reality, most DeFi projects can be controlled, censored and stopped by a bunch of dudes in a room. Whether it's via control of the project's admin keys or because a handful of people control all the validators or nodes. The vast majority of DeFi projects retain the ability to enter “God Mode” and unilaterally make changes to the protocol.
The truth is that most people are buying governance tokens because they treat them as a proxy to owning a stock in a protocol or Dapp. Data shows the vast majority of holders don't care about governance — very few actually participate in it — they care about making money. Projects often perpetuate this trend by treating governance tokens as part of their marketing and customer acquisition strategies.
Again, crypto is disconnected from real economic activity and almost all of the millions of dollars in funds that look very impressive on paper is used for speculation. And given the hurdles of getting involved in DeFi — from the UX to Ethereum’s transaction fees and that fact you’re competing against whales — it’s really only useful for technically savvy traders with high risk tolerance.