DeFi Is Back — And This Time It Has Lawyers

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Currency March 25, 2026

DeFi Is Back — And This Time It Has Lawyers

Institutional DeFi is staging a quiet comeback. Why the new version looks nothing like 2021.

Tomás Rivera

March 25, 2026 · 7 min read

DeFi's return has not been announced with memes, impossible yields, or anonymous founders promising the future from a cartoon avatar. It has returned in tailored language: compliance wrappers, whitelisted pools, legal opinions, and treasury mandates that would have sounded absurd in 2021. The energy is lower, but the money is more serious.

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