The most interesting and useful applications for decentralized finance have not even even been created yet and, unfortunately, they will take years to implement due to massive changes in laws and regulations required to make them legally feasible.
The end game of defi is not yoloing into random meme coins, staking tokens for network security and consensus, or even loans collateralized by tokens.
The end game for defi is a decentralized and permissionless version of what happens in real finance every day - buying stocks, borrowing money for a house or car, and lending money to a startup through convertible debt.
To get there, we need massive changes in regulations and law that will enable stock to be tokenized, titles to assets (houses, cars, boats, etc.) to be tokenized, and that kill off or significantly modify our "accredited investors" laws.
The promise of defi and crypto is not an online casino; the promise is equal access to the financial system through permissionless blockchains, low cost transactions, and easy onboarding.
No one should ever be able to limit your access to the financial system because of what you believe, the charities that you support, how your spend your money, which legal businesses you work with, or which political party you support.
Likewise, your access to risky, but high return, investments should be NOT be gated by the size of your bank account, but rather by knowledge.
It should not take days to send money around the world, let alone down the street. You should not be charged for having multiple accounts, and a financial institution should never be able to limit your access to your own money.
All of these problems and more can be solved through the permissionless and decentralized nature of crypto. All of these problems can be solved - today - by blockchains, self-hosted wallets, and permissionless systems.
We do not face a technology problem in making the financial system more fair, less expensive, and easier to use; we face a regulatory problem that stems from laws like the bank secrecy act (requiring overly-burdensome KYC),
the various securities acts (limiting the ability to tokenize stocks due to exchange and custodial requirements), "accredited investor" rules (limiting who can invest in startups, based on bank account size), and a host of regulations implemented by government agencies.
We must continue to fight back against the government creating anti-crypto rules and laws, but more than that - we must push the government to pass laws that enable blockchain technology to truly reach it's potential.
Merely saving crypto from the governemnt will not change the world; we must push the government to embrace crypto and blockchains and the positive systemic changes that they enable.