DeFi offered to start over with the financial system and build it back up. Upgrading is needed to go from early tests to everyday use.
It already moves billions of dollars every day, lets anyone make new assets in minutes, and gives people returns that banks can’t beat. It doesn’t feel like a financial revolution to switch between wallets, chains, and gas settings and use one app to find chances, another to bridge, a third to swap, a fourth to deposit, and a fifth to keep track of your position. It’s more like a flying simulator where an awful lot of people crash on the runway.
That level of complexity must go away if crypto is to improve global banking and beat the early risk-takers. The answer isn’t just one more rule, though. It changes the way DeFi is built and how it is used. One that has both ownerless, modular infrastructure and productized, easy-to-use interfaces.
This relies on the Hyperstructure and the Superapp, which are not present in the current DeFi stack.
The back end of the internet for money is hyperstructures.
A hyperstructure is what this new stack is built on top of. Hyperstructures are protocols that are free to use, useful to rule, and made to last. Jacob Horne was the first person to think of them. In order for a hyperstructure to support superapps, it needs to give makers power, just like it does for users and investors. It works without approval and is spread out, and people are encouraged to make it better and add to it. You can use it for free, but it’s useful to own and run.
You can make hyperstructures for a lot of different purposes, such as trading systems like Uniswap and Curve and creator networks like Zora and Farcaster. At first, these platforms were just protocols, but now they’re changing into environments that will support the next generation of apps, or “superapps.”
Related: Stop making crypto hard to understand
Building a hyperstructure for one of money’s most basic functions—growing itself—is the most important thing that needs to be done right away. Savings, investing, and yield have all been ways to build wealth that have been highly restricted and controlled in the past. Crypto made it possible to send money without permission. Through hyperstructures, we can also make growing money possible without any permissions.
DeFi’s quick growth showed that there was a problem. In order to increase output, a lot of projects used models that relied on centralized APIs, privileged roles, and unclear off-chain arrangements. A small group of users with a high risk tolerance and institutional ties liked the experience. It went against the main ideas that made crypto important in the first place.
If you use permissionless rails, superapps can support smooth UX.
Now this is where the superapp comes in. It takes the scattered mess of DeFi and combines it into a single, easy-to-understand experience. For this to work, the earn layer needs its own system that makes yield more accessible and solves two important issues: how to find things and how to run them.
Discovery automatically shows issuers a wide range of ways to make money using accurate onchain data, so they don’t need to apply, market themselves, or depend on central listings. Execution turns complicated processes into a single atomic transaction, which means that all users have the same superpowers.
To do this, the fast-moving product layer needs to be separated from a neutral, slower base that is naturally much more safe, resilient, and has a lower cost of capital. No one needs to ask for permission to publish, extend, or fork the base. Still, it needs to be able to ship modern primitives that are just as easy to use as today’s centralized systems.
That sounds like fintech to me.
As the base layer becomes more uniform, experience sets you apart. Superapps take basic technology and turn it into things that people want to use. When you open the app, you see tools you’ve seen before, like “Cash Now,” “Savings,” and “Highest Return.” When you tap on one, the app will bridge, swap, and deposit instantly. The fastest, smartest, most helpful, and best-designed superapps will win. People fall in love with the car, and the hyperstructure is its power.
But there is a catch: DeFi could turn into fintech if we only focus on service and ignore neutrality. Vaults in one place. Risk that is hard to see. Silent government. That’s the risk. Hyperstructures are meant to stop that from happening.
Some people will say that users don’t care about being spread out. Others will say that centralization is necessary for good planning. But crypto was never about ease of use in the short term; it was always about power in the long term. We’ll miss the point if we lose that.
In the 2000s, not many people thought that 4K video could be streamed across devices using a single interface. Those days, it was easy. Money will go through the same thing. People are not going to ask if they are “using DeFi.” They’ll just waste money on rails that are open, can’t be seen, and can’t be stopped.
As a patchwork of protocols, DeFi doesn’t grow. It can grow as a new way to access money. Hyperstructures are what hold everything together. Superapps make the experience possible. They make more than just better apps when they’re in sync. It works better now.