‘DeFi is dead’ as trillion dollar market awaits onchain finance, says Maple Finance CEO Powell

“DeFi is dead.” That’s how Maple Finance CEO and co-founder Sid Powell summarizes what he sees coming for crypto over the next few years.

However, this doesn’t mean the end of decentralized finance; rather, it is the end of treating DeFi as something separate from traditional markets.

“In a couple of years, institutions won’t distinguish between DeFi and TradFi at all,” Powell explained to CoinDesk in an interview. “Eventually, all capital markets activity will take place onchain.”

Think of it this way: before the internet, people would buy goods and services the traditional way — by going to merchants physically. After the internet and e-commerce revolution, people are still shopping, but the majority is done with just a click or two.

In Powell’s view, blockchains will play a similar role in the financial services sector. Onchain finance is simply the next technology layer on which global markets will settle, much like the internet changed how people shop.

Most people and businesses are now relying more on e-commerce platforms like Amazon or Alibaba to shop for their goods and services because it’s an easier, efficient and sometimes cost-effective way to find the best product or value.

Powell expects a similar shift in the legacy financial services sector, where crypto becomes the infrastructure for capital markets, with the majority of transactions clearing and settling using public ledgers rather than legacy systems. He also sees more debt capital markets adopting crypto-native structures, including BTC-backed mortgages and other asset-backed securities tied to crypto loans, as well as crypto card issuers whose receivables can be securitized and sold into the capital markets.

Of course, a proper regulatory framework will need to be established before this pivot occurs.

And who will use this new financial system? Sovereign wealth funds, pension managers, insurers and large asset managers, or “the managerial class that controls the world’s financial markets,” as Powell puts it, will be the primary holders of this new “onchain paper.”

This is what Powell means when he says, “DeFi is dead,” where the blockchain technology becomes the dominant infrastructure layer, without even thinking twice that people are using a new technology to conduct their everyday financial transactions

The $50 trillion reason

While the total overhaul could take time, signs of such change are already being felt across the system.

Take stablecoins, for example. Following the passage of the GENIUS Act, financial giants are adopting or considering their use en masse. PayPal has launched PYUSD, Société Générale has issued euro- and dollar-pegged stablecoins via its crypto unit, and Fiserv has introduced FIUSD for use across payment networks, while Wall Street giants including Bank of America (BAC), Citi and (C) Wells Fargo (WFC) have signaled interest in following suit.

Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) aren’t issuing coins, but are building stablecoin settlement rails that could accelerate adoption, and intensify competition with tokenized deposits and other bank-led digital money.

This is where Powell’s most aggressive prediction comes in about the new shift in the financial system: stablecoins could process $50 trillion in transactions in 2026, eclipsing major card networks.

He frames stablecoins as a powerful but still underappreciated tool for merchants and small businesses. Retailers already operate on thin margins and pay 2%-3% to Visa and Mastercard on card payments.

Using stablecoins for settlement can significantly reduce this cost, effectively returning several percentage points of revenue to merchants.

That economic incentive, Powell argues, will push small businesses to adopt stablecoins quickly, while neobanks and eventually traditional banks issue and support them directly.

He even went so far as to compare large stablecoin issuers to insurers like Berkshire Hathaway, as they enjoy a negative cost of capital. Users deposit dollars, and issuers park those funds in safe assets, such as Treasury bills, earning a yield while paying no interest on their liabilities. If they operate prudently, the spread between what they earn and what they owe becomes a powerful engine for compounding returns, similar to how Warren Buffett leveraged insurance float.

Trillion-dollar market

What does this mean for the DeFi market as it exists today?

It could hit as much as $1 trillion within the next couple of years, says Powell. The space is cyclical and macro-dependent, but he says it’s growing faster than traditional finance and is tightly linked to the trajectory of stablecoins and tokenized assets. Total DeFi market cap is currently around $69 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

As the circulating supply of stablecoins grows, and more real-world and crypto-native assets are tokenized, he expects the total value locked in DeFi to climb in tandem.

In his view, the growth of DeFi is ultimately “a function of the market cap of stablecoins and tokenized assets.”

Taken together, Powell’s vision is less about crypto versus traditional finance and more about how fully traditional finance becomes crypto-native. If he’s right, the “death of DeFi” won’t just blur the distinction between DeFi and TradFi; it will disappear into the plumbing of a new, blockchain-based market infrastructure.