Session 1: Opening Keynote DeFi Summit 2025 Speaker: James Kiernan (@vpabundance), Head of Impact at @OctantApp “We’ve proved that open systems can scale markets, liquidity layers, entire economies without anybody in the middle. Now comes the question of sustainability, governance, and purpose.” — James Kiernan James opened the #DeFiSummit2025 with a reflection on how far DeFi has come and what lies ahead: @OctantApp began as an experiment in 2023, asking: Can DeFi power sustainable grants? To date, over $12M has been distributed across hundreds of public good projects without touching the principal ETH capital. Octant v2 aims to make funding accessible to DAOs, protocols, and communities, enabling them to use DeFi yield to fund growth and innovation sustainably. He also introduced Yield Donating Vaults, a new way to channel DeFi yield from protocols like Lido, Spark, and Aave to fund public goods, builders, and ecosystem growth. James ended with a challenge for every builder and leader: We’ve built the plumbing. Now we must choose what flows through it, how capital gets directed, how value is measured, and how communities can sustain themselves without drifting back toward centralization. This opening set the tone for a day of deep DeFi discussions around governance, risk, stable assets, and sustainable ecosystem growth. NOTE: This is a 5hrs long panel discussion, for that I will be dropping clips, accordingly! #DeFiSummit2025 #OctantV2 #Ethereum #PublicGoods #DeFiInnovation