For years, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) has sold itself as the future of finance: transparent, decentralised, unstoppable. Now one of the most respected security figures in crypto is saying: get out whilst you still can.

Manuel Aráoz, co-founder of OpenZeppelin, believes AI has fundamentally changed the security equation in decentralised finance but his latest warning is brutal: AI coding agents are now becoming so powerful at discovering vulnerabilities that even the best DeFi protocols are no longer defensible.

That matters because OpenZeppelin is not some random critic throwing stones from outside the industry. They helped build the security standards the industry relies upon. When someone from inside the engine room starts warning…