Andrew Forson argues code exploits are localized, not systemic, as stablecoin volumes surge 20-30% monthly
Despite $1.1 billion in cumulative hacking losses and a $20 billion drop in total value locked, DeFi Technologies president Andrew Forson contends that critics are conflating isolated protocol failures with fundamental blockchain insolvency. “DeFi is way more than those protocols that have been hacked. Those who don’t know that, are suffering from deep ignorance,” Forson said.
The sector has faced high-profile breaches. The Kelp DAO bridge exploit alone resulted in $292 million in losses. Yet Forson points to an absence of core-layer compromise: “You haven’t heard of any core hacks to the Bitcoin or Ethereum networks. You haven’t heard of any core hacks to Circle’s USDC or Tether’s USDT.”
Stablecoin adoption tells a different story than headlines suggest. By end of 2025, stablecoins held over $150 billion in U.S. Treasuries. Forson benchmarked the scale: “That is more than Saudi Arabia. That is more than Germany in terms of their central banks and governments.” Month-over-month stablecoin volumes are expanding 20 to 30 percent, according to Forson’s framing of sector momentum.
The resilience argument hinges on a structural difference between DeFi and traditional finance. Traditional systems can obscure systemic errors in private buckets for years before breaches surface. DeFi operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a week, exposing protocol gaps faster. “One of the good things about the whole DeFi space is the transparency. When something goes wrong, everybody sees it, everybody talks about it and they fix it,” Forson said.
Not all voices align. Manuel Aráoz, former CTO and co-founder of OpenZeppelin, takes a darker view: “DeFi isn’t safe anymore because AI is becoming ‘superhuman’ at hacking.” Aráoz’s warning reflects genuine concern within security-focused segments of the ecosystem.
Wall Street’s entry into crypto suggests institutional confidence despite volatility. Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Charles Schwab have all rolled out crypto services. Forson frames this as inevitable: “if the Wall Street players don’t participate in this space now, they will lose market share, because someone else will.”
Chainalysis, the blockchain intelligence firm, estimated $35 trillion in stablecoin movement in the previous year. The firm projects stablecoin movement could reach $730 trillion to over $1 quadrillion by 2035. These figures suggest that despite security setbacks, the infrastructure underpinning DeFi is attracting capital at scale.
The blockchain space is roughly 16 years old. Forson’s analogy: “Toddlers learn to walk by falling.” The sector’s maturation, in his view, depends on surviving these exploits and shipping fixes transparently, not abandoning the experiment.
Market Structure
Stablecoins USDT and USDC are backed by U.S. Treasuries, anchoring them to traditional financial assets. This structural choice differentiates them from earlier, under-collateralized stablecoin designs. A Digital Money Summit was held in London where CBDCs were discussed, signaling continued institutional focus on digital money rails.
The $20 billion TVL decline and $1.1 billion in hacks represent real losses. But Forson’s argument rests on distinguishing between localized code exploits, which can be patched, and systemic failures that would undermine the networks themselves. Whether that distinction holds as AI-driven attack surfaces expand remains contested within the sector.
