The Trustless DeFi Metaverse

Before banks and vaults, the wealth of a society used to be stored in Temple basements. They were extremely well guarded, but it was also because the holy men who managed the temples deemed to be the most trustworthy due to their religious piety.

The security of that wealth depending on that trust.

Today, we trust the money we have will retain its value. We trust banks to keep that money safe. We trust the legal system surrounding those banks to protect us against fraud. We trust the government overseeing that legal system to intervene if that legal system fails. Maybe we trust in a higher power to step in when governments fail in that duty?

Trust is a hierarchy. Trusting in one thing requires us to trust a complex, integrated, layered system. If trust in the very foundations of that system fails, it falls like a house of cards.

Blockchain—the first successful execution of distributed ledger technology—proved that a system could exist that did not require participants to trust anyone else. Blockchain was the first trustless system where instead of having to trust human beings, trust was placed in computer code and human nature.

Human beings want to make money, and if you put them into a system where the only way they can make money (thanks to the code) is by performing tasks that perpetuate the system, then that system will self-perpetuate autonomously.

Imagine a vault so secure it was impossible to break into. With an organisation managing it so trusted that Jesus himself couldn't improve on them. A vault in which you would trust every penny of your wealth, and sleep soundly every night.

This is the promise of distributed ledger technology.

We aren't there yet, though.

• Code vulnerabilities are routinely exploited by hackers and large amounts of money is stolen.

• Tokenomic or game theory vulnerabilities are exploited by coordinated attackers, and sometimes an entire project collapses—Terra LUNA being a recent example.

• Private key (the password to this perfect trustless vault) management and security is still very much in its infancy.

• The user interfaces and user experience in crypto is complex and difficult for non-technical people to understand.