Low-risk DeFi: Ethereum’s “search”

Who do we trust, the boring but safe, or the fun but risky?

Last week we published an introductory article about DeFi on Ethereum. We won’t repeat all of those concepts here. In this piece, we want to focus directly on what Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s founder, wrote in his recently published blog post: “Low-risk defi can be for Ethereum what search was for Google”. If you need more context about what DeFi is, we recommend first reading our previous article.

The comparison might sound strange at first, but it helps organize ideas. Google has a wide variety of products and areas of development. Some became almost basic, like the search engine, and others look more futuristic, like the latest advances in artificial intelligence. The same happens in Ethereum: from the most elementary, like sending a transaction, to sophisticated protocols with AI, flashbots, or complex DeFi strategies.

Both extremes are part of the same ecosystem, necessary and valuable. But where is the real heart that sustains everything? According to Vitalik, in Google it’s the basics —search and the associated ads— that generate the revenue to support other projects. In Ethereum, that role could be played by low-risk DeFi: payments and savings, the simplest and most universal functions, but also others a bit more complex and already tested, like fully collateralized loans or synthetic assets.

It’s worth clarifying that talking about “boring but safe” versus “fun but risky” is an exaggerated, almost unfair simplification. It works only as a narrative resource within this text. What we want to show is that what seems less flashy might be what actually sustains the whole.

Vitalik argues that we should pay more attention to these options. Not just to the promises of high yields or the most experimental applications, because perhaps what truly sustains Ethereum, economically and socially, is the simplest: sending money, storing it safely, and accessing basic financial instruments without asking for permission or depending on arbitrary regulations.

What’s interesting is that, even if it sounds elementary, this use of Ethereum still holds immense value. Payments and savings on the blockchain are global, censorship-resistant, accessible 24/7. For people living in contexts of financial exclusion, inflation, or bureaucracies that complicate daily life, this “simple magic” can be transformative. And at the same time, it generates enough economic volume to sustain the ecosystem and create room for more innovative proposals to flourish: private identity, transparent governance, traceability, research, education.

This possibility, so simple but so magical, as Vitalik himself puts it, for millions of people living on the margins of the system, is already becoming the option that can drive Ethereum’s mass adoption. Not only can it sustain its economic model, but it can also give space for the development of much more experimental areas, many of them even more important for humanity and for Ethereum, but with less chance of generating sustainable revenue. Decentralized social networks, privacy-focused identity protocols, transparent governance and voting mechanisms, supply chain traceability, document certification, healthcare systems with on-chain medical records, validation of papers, or funding of research outside big corporations. All of this can have a deep impact, perhaps greater than the simple act of sending money from one place to another —even though that is already a huge step. The challenge is that many of these proposals will struggle to find a business model that ensures long-term sustainability and impact.

Vitalik also notes that this journey doesn’t stop there. A solid ecosystem of payments and savings can lead to more advanced options: undercollateralized loans based on reputation, prediction markets used as hedges, or new forms of stable money like the so-called “flatcoins.” All of these possibilities depend on first consolidating the basics.

Just like a Google search for how to make a pizza, accompanied by an ad for yeast, ends up financing advanced AI developments, in Ethereum, everyday transactions and the use of stablecoins could be the foundation that funds everything else. This doesn’t mean that experimental projects don’t matter. On the contrary, those developments are vital to imagine fairer and more creative futures. But maybe we need to accept that the silent engine making everything else possible lies in what is simplest and most stable.

In his text, Vitalik also points out something worth remembering: over time, Google became a corporation focused on maximizing profits, losing part of its original spirit. Ethereum cannot fall into that trap. Decentralization, and the fact that rules are written in open-source code, are the guarantee that economic growth aligns with a broader social purpose. On top of that, there’s an external obstacle: regulation, which often punishes those who provide transparency more than those who speculate without creating value. This context helps explain why certain forms of DeFi took longer to mature.

Vitalik’s post doesn’t change reality overnight, but it does work as a reminder: Ethereum already has in its hands a concrete and powerful solution, as simple as sending or saving money without permission, and as valuable as opening that possibility to billions of people. That could be the autopilot that sustains adoption, revenue, and at the same time the ecosystem’s credibility. Everything else will keep growing on top of that base, and at Kipu we’ll continue to accompany this educational and narrative journey, from the basics to the experimental, always with a Latin American perspective.