The game between the US and China has once again entered a substantial confrontation stage, with car tariffs suddenly raised to 125%. Such tariff wars are not new, but this "upgraded version" has indeed made the capital market feel the typical "global resonance" pressure.
Stocks, commodities, and bond markets have shown different degrees of risk-averse actions. Meanwhile, the performance of the crypto market has not been as intense. This made me start thinking about a question:
In such structural friction, is DeFi regaining its role as a "safe haven"?
I was reserved about this statement in the past, but my thoughts are slowly changing. Here are some of my observations and reflections:
Tax "loosening" has brought certainty to DeFi
In March, the US Senate passed a resolution that is very friendly to DeFi users:
Temporarily overturning the IRS requirement for on-chain protocols to report user transactions.
This is actually a quite important signal. Although it cannot be completely interpreted as "tax-free", it means that the tax compliance pressure for on-chain interactions has been alleviated in the short term.
This releases a subtle but critical window: users can rebuild confidence in on-chain asset allocation in an environment with less regulatory friction.
For me, this is like how international capital used offshore markets as a "low-friction channel" in the past, and DeFi is likely taking on the prototype of such a role.
Structural returns are the logic worth paying attention to in this phase
The greater the market uncertainty, the more funds tend to seek "structurally certain" paths—even if the returns are not that high.
This is why Staking products are starting to gain attention again. You stake your assets on the mainnet and receive protocol-level rewards, with a clear logic, predictable path, and relatively low volatility.
Especially in ecosystems like Avalanche, staked tokens on the chain (such as sAVAX) can continue to participate in other DeFi activities, such as lending or liquidity mining. This way, users retain Staking returns while not completely sacrificing liquidity.
This actually forms an on-chain logic closer to "structural financial management":
Returns come from the base protocol, risks are concentrated on mainnet security and DeFi contract layers, with reusable and traceable paths and expectations.
When compliance expectations are unclear, on-chain transparency becomes a moat
No one knows how taxes will be collected or regulated in the future, but one thing is certain: protocols with complete on-chain records and clear structures will definitely have more long-term survival than those with gray operations.
I've been paying attention to BENQI recently, which is not a blockbuster project, but its path is very standard:
Users stake AVAX → receive sAVAX → can be used for collateral, lending, liquidity pools, with the entire asset path traceable and contract behavior public, which is very friendly to future compliance.
This combination of "structure + transparency" is actually a moat in the current stage. You may not immediately earn super-high returns, but you can gain stability in the time dimension.
The way of structural combination is transforming from tool collage to asset allocation system
In the past, many people used DeFi to "find tools for arbitrage", but today more and more people are building "asset structures".
For example:
- You stake AVAX to get sAVAX;
- Use sAVAX as collateral to borrow stablecoins;
- Use stablecoins for liquidity mining or participate in on-chain RWA projects;
- Finally, automatically compound this entire structure.
The entire path is not complicated, but behind it is no longer a "speculative behavior", but an on-chain structural revenue model that can even be compared to "actively managed portfolio assets".
From this perspective, DeFi is slowly moving away from the impression of "high risk and high volatility" and evolving into more mature financial tools.
This is a stage worth seriously building an "on-chain structure"
My current attitude towards DeFi is:
It is not a window of high profits, but it might be the most worthwhile stage to build structures and accumulate positions before the next slow bull market starts.
If you believe macroeconomic uncertainty will continue;
If you don't want to put all your assets in high-volatility targets;
If you hope that future tax, compliance, and on-chain returns can gradually establish a system—
Then building an on-chain "structural return portfolio" might be an action worth starting.
BENQI and sAVAX may not be the optimal solution, but their paths and mechanisms do have the characteristics of "explainable, composable, and iterative", and can be part of such structural experiments.
I don't know when the next cycle will come, but starting to build structures now will certainly not be the wrong direction.
