Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has indicated that low-risk decentralized finance (DeFi) systems could provide the network with sustainable revenue. He compared their role to Google Search, which funds many of Google’s other projects through advertising income.
In a blog post on Saturday, Buterin explained that stable returns from blue-chip protocols could anchor Ethereum’s economy. He pointed to lending platforms such as Aave, where rates for stablecoins like USDT and USDC sit at around 5%. Higher-risk tokens, by contrast, offer yields above 10%. According to Buterin, these dependable income streams could support Ethereum’s broader ecosystem without undermining its principles.
Buterin suggested that Ethereum needed to strike a balance between economic sustainability and its values. However, he observed that speculative assets, such as NFTs and memecoins, pay high fees but do little to sustain the Ethereum cultural mission. Non-financial applications, in their turn, represent ideals of the community, though they are not always financially sufficient. This, he claimed, is low-risk DeFi that provides an interface between these two ends.