DeFi's Near-Death Moment | Mike Silagadze on Ether.fi, Security, and What Comes Next

About this episode

Camila Russo interviews Mike Silagadze about the recent challenges in DeFi security and the evolution of Ether.fi.

How close did DeFi come to a real systemic collapse?In this episode, Camila Russo sits down with Mike Silagadze, co-founder and CEO of Ether.fi, to break down the Kelp exploit, the DeFi United rescue effort, and why Mike believes the default path could have been far worse if nobody had stepped in. He explains why the bigger lesson is not just smart contract risk, but operational security, app-layer responsibility, and the need to move past "decentralization theater."They also get into why Ether.fi wants to be "the safest place to stake," why application-layer protocols should have emergency controls, and how Ether.fi is evolving from liquid staking into a vertically integrated DeFi bank with vaults, card rails, and real-world utility.If you want to understand where DeFi security is failing, what serious builders are changing, and what the next phase of crypto products could look like, this is the episode to watch.

People in this episode

Host: Camila Russo

Guest: Mike Silagadze

Topics covered

• DeFi
• security
• smart contracts
• operational security
• liquid staking
• crypto products

Keywords

• DeFi
• security
• Ether.fi
• Kelp exploit
• liquid staking
• crypto
• smart contracts

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Ether.fi, DeFi United

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