Even Aave, with its strongest risk controls, has experienced bad debt—suggesting that the environment for the DeFi narrative may have changed. DAOs now appear to have more drawbacks than benefits, as no legal entity can be held accountable. The future may lie in corporate-led on-chain finance: permissionless in operation but backed by a legal entity responsible for liabilities, with most profits accruing to that entity—such as USDC entering DeFi. True decentralized finance may instead need to return to strong privacy, primarily serving users for whom privacy outweighs security concerns.