Until the "Bridge" Holds—Why DeFi Can't Win Over Big Banks, and Traditional Finance's Counterattack

What the Panel Identified as the "Real Value"

At a panel during the "Proof of Talk" conference in Paris, executives from the asset-management and banking industries spoke about where DeFi's long-term value resides. In their view, that value lies not in offering an alternative trading venue, but in the capacity to transform the back-office operations of global banks. Incumbent financial institutions are willing to adopt blockchain, they said, but the on-chain security vulnerabilities of the "bridges" connecting different chains have become the single biggest obstacle to full-scale adoption. Maya Vujinovic, CEO of investment and advisory firm OGroup, declared that until the bridge problem is solved, DeFi "will not grow beyond the degen (speculative) community."

Statistics Confirm the "Worst Month"

This caution is backed by numbers. CertiK CEO Ronghui Gu described April 2026 as the worst month for DeFi in four years. By the firm's tally, April alone saw roughly $651 million in losses across about 29 incidents. Notably, the Solana-based derivatives exchange Drift Protocol lost about $285 million on April 1, and the restaking protocol KelpDAO lost about $292 million on April 18—roughly $577 million from these two alone. According to blockchain-analytics firm TRM Labs, these two incidents, both suspected to involve North Korea-linked actors, account for about 76% of all hacking losses in 2026. North Korea's share has risen consistently—from under 10% in 2020, to 64% in 2025, to 76% in 2026. Notably, the KelpDAO attack exploited a structural weakness of the bridge—a single-verifier (single-DVN) configuration—laying bare a critical flaw in technical design.

Traditional Finance's "Gap-Filling" Strategy

Traditional finance, meanwhile, is moving to close these structural gaps. Stéphanie Cabossioras, Chief Strategy Officer of Société Générale's specialized subsidiary SG-Forge, pointed to the firm's track record of tokenizing securities such as green bonds on public blockchains. But because "there was only the securities side on the blockchain and no cash side, we were stuck," the firm decided to issue its own self-regulated stablecoins (EURCV, USDCV). She noted that institutional investors prefer the safety and custody offered by regulated banks over open-source, non-custodial DeFi protocols. "In daily life, individuals and companies alike need a trusted third party. We don't want to keep our assets in a private wallet or a safe at home; we want to entrust that peace of mind to a third party. That's why custodians and banks still have a future," she said.

Context: "Another On-Chain" Where Banks Take the Lead

This dynamic is part of a larger trend. In fact, major US banks (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and others) are reportedly planning to launch a shared tokenized-deposit network via The Clearing House by the first half of 2027, to counter deposit outflows to stablecoins. The aim is to deliver the speed and efficiency of 24/7 blockchain settlement while keeping customer funds within the regulated banking system. While DeFi champions a "permissionless, non-custodial" ethos, traditional finance is advancing its own on-chain shift armed with "regulation, custody, and strict control." The axis of competition is shifting precisely toward the design of security and trust itself.

[Business Development Insights]

1. Identify the biggest barrier to entry—whoever solves it wins the market: This case shows that the bottleneck blocking institutional demand is not technological superiority but "the absence of trust in the form of security." In new ventures, more important than the size of the addressable market is discerning the true cause that keeps demand from moving (the critical obstacle) and breaking through there. Misidentify where the obstacle lies, and no amount of feature polish will drive adoption.
2. "Self-reliance" versus "third-party dependence" can be chosen by customer segment: Even if a non-custodial (self-managed) model is ideologically superior, many customers want to entrust their peace of mind to a trusted third party. In business design, distinguish between the segment that prizes autonomy and the segment that demands a guarantor and accountable party; for the latter, leading with "defensive value"—regulatory conformity, custody, recoverability—resonates more. The key is to design the value proposition around customers' anxieties rather than around ideology.
3. Incumbents enter by "complementing the weak points" and rewrite the definitions: Traditional finance did not reject the new technology wholesale; it entered by filling the missing pieces (the cash-settlement layer, custody, regulatory compliance) with its own strengths. Whether as a latecomer or an incumbent, by securing the counterpart's immature areas as complementary goods, a company can redefine the rules of competition in its own favor. When choosing which demand to pursue, it is effective to identify domains where the counterpart's weakness meshes with one's own strength.

[Sources]

• CoinDesk, "Executives say DeFi won't win over big banks until it fixes its hacking problem" https://www.coindesk.com/ja/business/2026/06/02/defi-won-t-win-over-big-banks-until-it-fixes-its-hacking-problem-executives-say
• CoinDesk, "DeFi vulnerabilities are TradFi's biggest blocker as protocols hit by near-daily exploits (CertiK)" https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/05/28/defi-vulnerabilities-are-tradfi-biggest-blocker-as-protocols-hit-by-near-daily-exploits-certik
• TRM Labs, "North Korea Stole 76% of All Crypto Hack Value in 2026 — With Just Two Attacks" https://www.trmlabs.com/resources/blog/north-korea-stole-76-of-all-crypto-hack-value-in-2026-with-just-two-attacks
• The Block, "North Korea accounts for 76% of 2026 crypto hack losses…" https://www.theblock.co/post/399569/north-korea-accounts-for-76-of-2026-crypto-hack-losses-with-theft-since-2017-topping-6-billion-trm-labs
• CoinDesk, "America's largest banks are building a new digital currency network to stop a massive deposit drain" https://www.coindesk.com/ja/business/2026/06/06/america-s-largest-banks-are-building-a-new-digital-currency-network-to-stop-a-massive-deposit-drain
• SG-Forge (Société Générale) official release https://www.sgforge.com/societe-generale-forge-launches-coinvertible-the-first-institutional-stablecoin-deployed-on-a-public-blockchain/