As Wall Street moves onchain, the year's biggest crypto hack and DeFi crisis is forcing a rethink of risk, security and market structure, industry insiders told CoinDesk.
What to know : A $292 million exploit of Kelp DAO rattled crypto lending markets but is seen by industry insiders as a temporary setback rather than a fundamental barrier to institutional adoption of DeFi. Wall Street firms including Apollo Global Management and BlackRock are continuing to push into onchain finance, increasing pressure on DeFi protocols to harden security and governance. Experts say DeFi must adopt stricter baseline safeguards and institutional-grade standards — such as zero-trust architectures, robust collateral frameworks and predictable, auditable smart contracts — before larger pools of capital can safely scale into the sector.
