DeFi's hacking crisis is blocking big bank adoption,…

DeFi's path into global banking runs through back-office transformation, not speculative trading — but persistent security failures are keeping institutional capital on the sidelines, according to executives speaking at the Proof of Talk conference in Paris. April alone saw breaches on 27 out of 30 days, prompting CertiK CEO Ronghui Gu to call it DeFi's worst month in four years. North Korean cybercriminals drained nearly $600 million from Drift Protocol and Kelp DAO in that stretch.

Why it matters

The executives' message is structural: DeFi's security problem is not a speed bump but a hard ceiling on institutional adoption. OGroup CEO Maja Vujinovic put it bluntly — DeFi won't grow beyond its existing user base until bridges and the broader security stack are fixed. Solstice CEO Ben Nadereski echoed that view, arguing developers prioritise innovative code over the core responsibility of managing capital safely. Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson added another layer: even without the hacks, major financial firms are slow to move because public blockchains threaten the fee-based intermediary models that underpin their revenues.

Market impact

Societe Generale Forge is already attempting to bridge the gap, tokenizing structured products and green bonds on public blockchains and issuing its own regulated stablecoins — EURCV and USDCV — to solve the cash settlement layer. Chief strategy officer Stéphanie Cabossioras was direct: institutional clients want a trusted custodian, not a self-custody protocol. Until DeFi can offer that safety profile, or until regulated banks build compliant rails on top of it, the trillion-dollar institutional bid remains theoretical.