1/ Wall Street is finally embracing crypto… But the real payoff comes when it embraces DeFi. TradFi is a $30T global machine powering how value moves. DeFi? A $150B experiment with a future bigger than its current footprint. Here’s how they converge—and why it matters. 🧵

2/ DeFi isn’t a failure for being “small.” It’s a blueprint. It has already rebuilt banking on-chain: – Lending – Borrowing – Insurance – Trading – Asset mgmt – Structured products It works. It scales. It’s secure. But institutions aren’t fully in... yet.

3/ The problem? DeFi’s growth has been crypto-native. Builders, degens, DAOs, and coders led the way. Institutions watched from the sidelines—sometimes skeptical, sometimes dismissive. But that’s changing.

4/ BlackRock cracked the code. Its spot Bitcoin ETF ($87B) and ETH ETF ($10B) didn't just legitimize crypto—they unlocked institutional scale. Then came BUIDL: a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund on Ethereum via Securitize. Now holding $2.4B—10% of all tokenized assets.

5/ BlackRock is not alone. JPMorgan’s Kinexys unit is testing: – On-chain FX – Tokenized repo – Bond settlements via permissioned DeFi pools This isn’t just crypto-adjacent. It’s DeFi with compliance rails—built by TradFi, not against it.

6/ Then there’s Fidelity. They’re quietly building: – Custody – Staking – Tokenized financial products – Possibly permissioned DeFi vaults They already serve pension funds & family offices—DeFi's most likely early adopters if wrapped in familiar interfaces.

7/ Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon? Piloting tokenized money market funds with: – Instant settlement – Network interoperability – DeFi-style fund redemptions These aren’t experiments. They’re TradFi’s first steps into programmable finance.