Low-Risk DeFi Is Ethereum’s Google Search

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said low-risk DeFi could become Ethereum’s main revenue engine, replacing its reliance on ”embarrassing” meme coins, and NFTs.

Such DeFi protocols can fund the network while avoiding speculative, short-lived revenue sources, bringing it back into alignment with its founding goals, Buterin said in a blog post titled, “Low-risk DeFi can be for Ethereum what search was for Google.”

“It’s just not possible to say with a straight face you are excited about the ecosystem because it’s positively changing the world, if its single largest application is political memecoins,” Buterin said. “Low-risk DeFi, with a goal of enabling global permissionless access to payments and to the best savings opportunities, is a form of finance that is positively changing the world.”

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said “low-risk DeFi” could become Ethereum’s core application, similar to how search powers Google. He noted that DeFi protocols are now more secure, forming a stable core, and that low-risk DeFi (payments, savings, synthetic assets,…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) September 21, 2025

For a while now, the Ethereum Network has faced a divide between apps that generate revenue and apps that fulfill its founding ideals. High-fee activity like NFTs and meme coins brought in revenue, but with little long-term value.

Meanwhile, projects like ENS, Lens, or privacy protocols were innovative but could not sustain the broader $500 billion ecosystem.

“This disjointness created a lot of dissonance in the community,” Buterin said,

Such a gap left the community waiting for something that could fit perfectly, and low-risk DeFi could just be it, Buterin said.

“Ethereum has that application, something that can be for Ethereum what search was for Google: low-risk defi, with a goal of achieving global democratized access to payments and savings in valuable asset categories (eg. major currencies with competitive interest rates, stocks, bonds), he said.

Ethereum Has The Potential To Do Much Better Than Google

Buterin’s analogy to Google is deliberate. Most of Google’s innovation, from AI models to new programming languages, generates little revenue.

Its many ‘interesting and valuable’ innovations, including the Chromium browser family, Pixel phones, and its open-source AI Gemini models produce only a fraction of the revenue that Google earns from search and advertising.

Low-risk defi used to be constrained by regulatory barriers and smart contract safety risks. Both problems have greatly improved.

For many people worldwide, defi today is in some cases already safer than tradfi. pic.twitter.com/ZC9NKF2DbA

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 21, 2025

Ethereum Can Outperform Google

Ethereum even has the potential to outperform Google, Buterin said, not just financially, but ethically. Its decentralized structure enables low-risk DeFi to align profitability with positive social impact, creating a rare harmony between ”doing well” and ”being good.”

Once Ethereum has established a mature ecosystem of financial and non-financial activity on-chain, it can explore things like ”reputation-based undercollateralized lending, which is potentially an even more powerful engine of financial inclusion,” he said.

Over time, he added, Ethereum can start moving the ecosystem toward other stable forms of value: basket currencies, “flatcoins” based directly on consumer price indices, and “personal tokens,” he said.

Buterin criticized Google’s incentive model, noting that advertising revenue pushes the company to hoard user data, conflicting with its original open-source and positive-sum spirit.

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