The Book of DeFi: Scroll of Yield

1:1 After the crash, a long cold winter endured. Many projects perished, and tokens returned to dust.

1:2 But in the shadows, builders remained. And they asked not, “When moon?” but, “What mechanism?”

1:3 And the protocols were reborn. Not to promise riches, but to replace banks.

1:4 They said, “Let us lend without lenders, borrow without bankers, and trade without trust.”

1:5 And so they built: pools without custodians, vaults without keys, exchanges without order books.

1:6 They were hungry, and a new ritual emerged — staking and farming, looping and locking.

1:7 And tokens begat tokens, and yield sprang from yield.

1:8 The faithful called it DeFi and declared, “This is the way.”

1:9 The stablecoins were minted, the vaults were opened, and the apes returned.

1:10 For where once there were bankers, now there were contracts.

1:11 And Uniswap rose among them, an altar of pure code.

1:12 The swaps were permissionless. The listings required no kings.

1:13 And tokens were born by the hour: dog tokens, food tokens, meme tokens, governance tokens.

1:14 And the fees were great, for the chain was burdened.

1:15 Yet still they farmed. They looped their loans and praised the yield.

1:16 And the oracles whispered prices, and DAOs cast votes in digital sanctuaries.

1:17 And some were anointed as blue chips — Aave, Maker, Curve — and their founders were praised as sages.

1:18 But others fell in a day, hacked or drained, their treasuries vanished into the mist.

1:19 And the regulators watched from the hilltops, confused and afraid.

1:20 And it was said: “The protocols do not break the law, for they are not men. They are code.”

1:21 Thus was the age of DeFi; sovereign, chaotic, and divine in its logic.

1:22 And many found freedom, and others found ruin. But none could deny: the age of intermediaries was ending.