How to rebuild credibility in DeFi? Stani Kulechov's vision from SmartCon

The decentralized finance sector faces a critical challenge: gaining and maintaining user trust in an environment where security incidents have left deep scars. During his speech at SmartCon, Chainlink’s event, Stani Kulechov shared his perspective on how protocols like Aave are working to address this fundamental issue.

Security as the Cornerstone

Kulechov emphasized that robust protective measures are not a luxury but an absolute necessity for DeFi to achieve mass adoption. The current landscape demands that platforms implement multi-layer defense systems that truly safeguard user capital. Aave, as one of the leading decentralized lending protocols, has prioritized exactly this: building infrastructures that withstand pressures and attacks.

Transparency: The Antidote to Speculation

Beyond technical security, Aave’s CEO highlighted the importance of radical transparency in protocols. Users need to understand exactly how systems work, where their capital is stored, and what risks they are taking. This openness is what differentiates genuine decentralized ecosystems from opaque proposals that disappear from the market.

The Current Context: A Sector in Transformation

As DeFi continues to expand and attract more capital, it is also receiving increased regulatory attention and public scrutiny. Protocols that manage to combine innovation with responsibility will lead this next phase of evolution. Stani Kulechov’s words reflect a maturing in the sector’s thinking: trust is not promised; it is built methodically, block by block.