From “one-click interaction” to “one-click liquidation”, the fatal trap brought by DeFi convenience

Author: 0xresearch

In the crypto world, there is a truth that is often overlooked: "The simpler, the more dangerous." DeFi has developed to this day and is heading towards "fool-proof operation": Don't know how to use contracts? Don't understand blockchain? It doesn't matter. Various SDKs, aggregators, and wallet plug-ins have encapsulated complex on-chain operations into "one-click interaction." For example, Shogun SDK can compress DeFi operations that originally required multiple steps of signatures, authorizations, and transfers into one click, and it was first launched in the Berachain ecosystem.

It sounds perfect: Who doesn’t want to complete on-chain operations as easily as scanning a QR code with Alipay? But the problem is that these “threshold-free tools” also hide the complex on-chain risks. Just like someone overdraws crazily after getting a credit card, it’s not that the credit card itself has a problem, but that he doesn’t know that he has to pay back the overdraft. In DeFi, once you authorize a contract to manage assets, it may permanently control the entire balance in your wallet; and for newcomers who lack knowledge, clicking “authorize all assets” may become the beginning of a “one-click explosion”.

Behind the convenience, there is a huge trap:

• Clicking "Authorize All Assets" is like handing your bank card and password to a stranger permanently;
• Behind the high-yield propaganda, there may be risks such as 100% slippage and hidden risks in the capital pool;
• Most users don’t know that certain contract authorizations can allow the other party to control your wallet indefinitely;

Why are all chains pursuing "fool-proof interaction"?

The reason is simple: on-chain interactions are too complicated and extremely unfriendly to newcomers. You need to download a wallet, manage mnemonics, understand gas fees, learn how to use cross-chain bridges, understand token conversions, understand contract risks, click authorization, complete signatures... Any mistake in any of these steps may result in asset loss. Even after the operation is completed, you still need to pay attention to whether the interaction is successful, whether the authorization needs to be revoked, and other subsequent operations.

For Web2 users without a technical background, such a learning cost is like learning a new language to pay with a mobile phone. In order for them to enter the on-chain world without feeling, this "technical mountain" must be flattened first. Therefore, interactive tools such as Shogun SDK came into being: it condenses the on-chain operation that originally required 100 steps into 1 step, and uses "one-click interaction" to reduce the user experience from "expert-level operation" to the simplicity of "Alipay code scanning".

From a broader ecological perspective, infrastructure such as RaaS (Rollup-as-a-Service) and one-click chain issuance are also becoming increasingly mature. In the past, to launch a chain, you needed to write the underlying code, deploy the consensus mechanism, build the browser, and make the front-end page, which often took several months to develop. Now, as long as you use services such as Conduit, Caldera, and AltLayer, you can deliver a usable EVM-compatible chain within a few weeks, and even help you with supporting governance tokens, economic models, and block browsers, which is as simple as opening a Taobao store. This allows any project party, community, and even individual hackathon teams to "start a chain business", truly realizing the "popularization" of on-chain entrepreneurship.

But low technical threshold does not mean easy cold start

Many people mistakenly believe that "the chain can be built quickly" means success. In fact, the biggest problem of cold start is not "whether it can be done" but "whether anyone will use it." Technology is just a stepping stone. Whether it can accumulate real and sustainable user behavior is the key to whether the chain can survive.

Subsidies and airdrops can indeed bring in a large number of users and TVL in the early stages, just like a milk tea shop holding a free event can make people line up across the street - but when the subsidies stop, just like the milk tea returns to its original price, if the product itself is not tasty and the service is poor, consumers will turn around and leave, and the line will disappear in an instant.

The same is true for on-chain: TVL of many new chains looks very high during the subsidy period, but most of the money of the project parties, foundations or institutions is pledged to each other to create false data, and the number of real users and transaction volume have not increased. Once the subsidy and high APY end, liquidity will recede like the tide, the on-chain transaction volume will drop sharply, and the TVL will evaporate.

What’s worse is that if there is a lack of real transaction demand on the chain, subsidy-driven funds will only form a short-term arbitrage cycle - the user’s goal is to "get it and leave", rather than use applications on the chain and form an ecological closed loop. The higher the subsidy, the more speculative funds there are; once the subsidy stops, the faster the withdrawal. What really determines whether a chain can successfully cold start is not the airdrop or subsidy scale, but whether there are projects that can attract users to continue to stay on the chain to consume, trade, and participate in the community - this is the starting point for the public chain to enter a virtuous cycle.

Taking PoL as an example: How chains incentivize real economy

Among many new chains, Berachain has made interesting explorations. It pioneered the PoL (Proof of Liquidity) mechanism. Unlike traditional PoS, which distributes rewards to nodes, PoL directly distributes the chain's inflation rewards to users who provide liquidity, using incentives to drive real economic behavior on the chain.

To give an example from daily life: the traditional PoS public chain is like rewarding company shares to the computer room (node) for server operation and maintenance; while Berachain distributes the shares directly to you - as long as you invest your assets in DEX, lending, LST and other protocols on Berachain and provide liquidity for the ecosystem, you can continue to receive rewards.

What is even more interesting is Berachain’s three-currency system design:

• BERA: The native token of the main network, responsible for paying gas fees and serving as the main carrier of PoL rewards;
• HONEY: A stable currency within the ecosystem, used for transactions, lending, etc.
• BGT: Governance token, which can be used to participate in voting or obtain additional income through locking.

The three currencies interact with each other to form a flywheel of "earning-using-governance", which drives funds to remain on the chain while enhancing governance participation.

According to the data, Berachain’s mainnet has been online for only 5 months, and its TVL has reached nearly 600 million US dollars, with more than 150 native projects active. Compared with popular L1s such as Solana, Sui, and Avalanche, its MC/TVL ratio is only 0.3x (the industry average is usually above 1), which means that the current market value has not yet reflected its on-chain economic value.

This data has caused community sentiment to split:

• Pessimists (FUD): They believe that PoL incentives are likely to lead to “mining, withdrawing and selling” and worry that the token price will be under pressure in the long term;
• Optimists (Bull): They believe that real transactions and ecological implementation driven by PoL will drive prices higher as the ecosystem develops.

The key lies in whether real transaction demand can be formed in the ecosystem, otherwise high APY subsidies may turn into a "capital circulation".

Fortunately, there are projects in this ecosystem that can generate real transaction income:

• PuffPaw: Uses "Vape-to-Earn" to motivate users to quit smoking, combines healthy behaviors with token rewards, and has cooperated with more than 50 medical institutions in 17 countries;
• DEX, lending, and LST projects such as Kodiak, Dolomite, and Infrared are driving real asset transactions and continuously growing TVL.

The activity and income-generating capacity of such projects are the key to solving the problem of "unsustainable subsidized liquidity".

Cold start exploration of other chains

When public chain deployment is as easy as opening an online store, the core of competition becomes: whether it can continue to generate real transaction demand and fees, rather than relying on subsidies to maintain TVL.

Different chains are looking for breakthroughs with different narratives:

• Pharos Network: Focuses on RWA (real world assets) and brings physical assets onto the chain;
• Initia: A new approach to cold start through sub-chain feedback and ecological fission;
• New ecosystems such as HyperEVM attract projects through multi-chain deployment to supplement their own transaction volumes.

These explorations all point to the same problem: for a chain without real transactions, subsidies will bottom out sooner or later; only when someone uses it, someone pays, and funds are willing to stay on the chain, can the chain truly start the flywheel.

Final Thoughts

DeFi simplifies operations and lowers barriers to entry, which is indeed the only way to get more people involved in blockchain. However, this path cannot rely solely on "one-click interaction" but must also be supplemented by user education, transparent risk control, and a sustainable economic model driven by real needs within the ecosystem.

Otherwise, the convenience of "allowing everyone to interact with one click" may only turn into a disaster of "losing everything with one click".

Just like everyone who runs an online store knows, sending red envelopes can attract new customers, but what really supports the business is retaining old customers who are willing to repurchase. The same is true for chain construction: to make users dare to use, be able to use, understand how to use, and continue to generate transactions, is the real start of the public chain cold start.