The blockchain industry emerged in 2008 as a response to the lack of transparency around toxic assets and risk ratings. In DeFi, transactions are recorded in an open, tamper evident database. Rules of the game, such as the monetary supply are written in open source code which is publicly verifiable and can't be modified. All this enables enables radical transparency and real time auditabiliity.

Anybody can have immediate access to financial services and products, or even build and provide them, without a bank or an intermediary.  No access restrictions, no barriers to entry, no deplatforming. No need to reveal aspects of your identity that you prefer to keep private. It's the democratization of finance.

No single party can stop, control or manipulate the ledger. This is the true power of decentralized protocols, which don't have a central point of failure and are censorship resistant, virtually unstoppable. Transparency and neutrality generate trust and reliability in the ledger. There is no need to trust your counterparty. This makes it suitable for a global asset settlement ledger that could be used by competing companies or even countries. 

Financial applications can be combined together modularly to create new, novel ones. The platform provides full interoperability, in which applications interact and create synergies with each other, like "money legos".  The ability of connecting and combining premissionlessly financial services is revolutionary. The base currency, Ether, is itself a digital, fully programmable digital asset. 

Experience digital, internet native money. Addressable market: 4.5b people in the world with an Internet connection. A new, emerging permissionless reserve asset and a new digital cash. A global currency, accepted worldwide! Transferred around the globe in seconds and at a fraction of a cost that it takes in the current banking system. This is radical efficiency.

DeFi let us manage move and use money in a self-sovereign way. Due to its permissionlessness, we have open access to financial services and gain independence from financial institutions. It also enables the self custody our own funds. This is impossible in the current financial system, where funds can be frozen or even confiscated. Further, cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin are non-sovereign currencies not controlled by any Nation State and not inflatable by Central Banks.