These past few days, I’ve been reading some news, and the contrast is quite interesting.

What is the traditional financial sector up to? On the international political stage, the old tricks have reappeared—participating in high-level dialogues requires first paying real money. I heard someone wants a permanent seat on a high-level committee, offering 1 billion USD. This kind of play looks high-end, but it’s essentially a disguised form of interest exchange. Political games are still the same: information asymmetry, limited liquidity, and few participants.

What’s interesting is that while these traditional financial and political circles are showing off their grandeur, funds in the crypto world have quietly shifted to another path.

Take a leading DeFi protocol on the BNB Chain as an example. Its performance at the start of 2024 is quite impressive. Total locked value (TVL) has surpassed $43 billion, with a growth rate of over 520%. Without any political backing, it simply attracts capital through product design and user experience. The underlying logic is straightforward—replace trust endorsements with transparent code, and replace complex human relationships with efficient protocols.

What is its product logic? In short, it revolves around three directions:

**First, finding new outlets for traditional capital.** They launched a RWA (Real-World Asset Tokenization) market, with the core product allowing you to buy US Treasury yield rights using stablecoins. The annualized yield ranges from 3.65% to 4.71%, comparable to fixed-income products in traditional finance. In today’s uncertain environment, this stable safe-haven option has attracted cautious investors.

**Second, ambitions to expand.** There are plans to cross-chain to the Ethereum mainnet and develop on-chain credit lending systems. The ecosystem is expanding from single-chain to multi-chain, evolving from a single product to a complete financial matrix. This systematic expansion shows that the team isn’t just hyping concepts but building infrastructure.

**Third, leaving room for advanced players.** By combining different staking, lending, and re-investment strategies, there’s a chance to achieve an overall annualized return of around 30%. This isn’t a promise of outrageous profits but a realistic possibility based on protocol mechanisms. High risk correlates with high returns, but at least the logic is coherent.

The contrast is clear: on one side, the traditional world uses “billion-dollar tickets” to participate in decision-making, with only a few people involved; on the other side, the crypto world builds a relatively open and efficient financial system with code and protocols, where anyone with assets can participate.

As the global economy faces more uncertainties, DeFi protocols built on transparency and programmability are becoming important hubs of liquidity worldwide. Traditional finance still relies on the old tricks, while crypto finance continues to iterate. The future will be spoken by numbers.