If you are not amazed by what's happening in DeFi you are not paying attention. Yes fees are high. Yes settlement time is long. Yes liquidity is low. Yes most of them are not even decentralized. BUT. No word can describe how amazing open and permissionless interfaces are.

You have a derivative exchange (dydx) that sits on top of a stablecoin exchange (curve). Such that anyone can use any stablecoin to automatically access the same liquidity pool.

Then the stablecoin exchange sits on top of various yield-producing protocols. Such that liquidity providers can earn yields while providing liquidity.

Then on top of these lending protocols you have an aggregator which allows the end user to automatically access the best yields.

Can you imagine doing this with Chase, LendingClub, and Interactive Brokers? No you can't. Because their APIs aren't open and permissionless. At least not by default. And not to everyone.

Yes this whole Defi thing still feels like a toy. But it enables fundamentally new and valuable behaviors. ETH 2.0 and L2 can't come earlier.