Every cycle, the same thing happens. A narrative catches, capital follows, and roadmaps get rewritten around it. Then a year later, half of those bets look like wasted quarters. The hard part is deciding what’s actually worth building before everyone else figures out whether it was.
In DeFi, that decision is getting increasingly expensive. There’s more to build than any team can chase, more “inevitable” futures than any treasury can fund, and less patience in the market for narratives that don’t ship. For anyone allocating engineering hours or capital in DeFi right now, choosing wrong is a burned year.
So we’re putting the choices out in the open. On July 2 at 5PM CET, Changelly is hosting Build It or Kill It: DeFi Edition, a live debate where the people building DeFi argue, on the record, over which narratives deserve the next cycle’s attention and which ones are already out of road.
Discussion Highlights
Each one of these topics has real money and real conviction behind it, but also people in the industry betting against it:
- Will cross-chain bridges disappear completely? Users are done thinking about chains, gas tokens, and wrapped assets. Is the win going to be making bridges invisible through chain abstraction, or do they still earn their keep?
- Are AI agents a must-have, or a story ahead of the infrastructure? Autonomous protocols, hands-off yield, wallets that act for you. Is it real evolution or a premature narrative?
- Is it too late to build an exchange? With wallets turning into all-in-one super-apps and native cross-chain swaps, are DEXs and the wallets around them quietly replacing the exchange itself?
- Can stablecoins on DEXs match centralized order books? Is decentralized liquidity ready to do the heavy lifting, or not yet?
- Is self-custody the default future, or a niche? Does user-owned crypto cross the chasm to the mainstream, or stall short of it?
- Is regulated DeFi the only realistic path to mass adoption? Necessary compromise, or contradiction in terms?
Some of these get to survive the next cycle, and some get killed on stage, as the format is built on pushback. Builders and skeptics take opposing corners on each narrative and defend them live with no moderator to hide behind and no rehearsed consensus. For every trend, one verdict: build it, or kill it? A live audience Q&A also means the questions panels usually dodge get asked directly.
Who You’ll Hear From
Confirmed so far:
- John Adam Khandjian: Changelly
- Aram Mughalyan: A leading Web3 KOL
- Secret guests: A team that’s become one of the most respected names in self-custody, from a wallet trusted by millions of users and recognized as one of the most secure in the space. We’re keeping their identity under wraps for now.
More top founders, builders, and industry voices will round out the stage on the day.
Save Your Seat
Build It or Kill It: DeFi Edition will go live on July 2 at 5PM CET. Free to attend, live on YouTube and X.
Join us on LinkedIn, and register through our Telegram bot to lock in your spot and claim an exclusive attendee bonus.
Disclaimer: Please note that the contents of this article are not financial or investing advice. The information provided in this article is the author’s opinion only and should not be considered as offering trading or investing recommendations. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information. The cryptocurrency market suffers from high volatility and occasional arbitrary movements. Any investor, trader, or regular crypto users should research multiple viewpoints and be familiar with all local regulations before committing to an investment.