Co-founder of Ethereum: 'DeFi today is in some cases already safer than tradfi'

Losses in DeFi remain significant but proportionate to Ethereum’s overall market size. CoinDesk reported that about $2.5 billion was lost to hacks and scams in the first half of 2025, while DeFi’s total value locked rebounded to $170 billion, with Ethereum accounting for roughly 59% of that figure. This places losses near 2.5% of Ethereum’s $100 billion total value locked share.

Crypto thefts in 2025 continue to be severe compared to traditional finance. Chainalysis reported $2.17 billion stolen by mid-year, led by the Bybit hack. In contrast, UK Finance data cited by the Financial Times showed £1.17 billion lost to consumer fraud in traditional banking in 2024. These figures highlight that security risks persist across both DeFi and traditional finance systems.

Vitalik Buterin is a Canadian programmer and co-founder of Ethereum who published the Ethereum whitepaper in 2013 after co-founding Bitcoin Magazine in 2011. According to Wikipedia, he launched Ethereum in 2015 with other developers and has since become a leading voice in blockchain, focusing on scaling solutions such as rollups and public-goods funding.

Ethereum, launched in July 2015, is a decentralized blockchain designed for smart contracts and decentralized applications. According to Ethereum.org, its mission is to enable an open, user-owned internet where value and applications can operate without centralized gatekeepers. Today, it powers much of DeFi, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and thousands of decentralized apps worldwide.