Stick to protocols that have been around for even a year and you'll do much better than those listed in that article. How much has been lost via hacks from Uniswap, Aave or MakerDAO?
Most of those examples you linked are bridges that aren't considered Defi or half-baked protocols that scream "scam".
And yet decentralized exchanges exist that have been operating successfully for years. Survival of the fittest is a good thing in this case. I would trust a defi exchange that's had people trying to break it constantly for years much more than I would trust, for example, the security of my money in a local bank. People get their money stolen in confidence scams and other exploits every day and that money is just as gone.
I think that depends on the flavor of robustness. spectacular failures occur with systems that have high interdependence of parts, high centrality, and recursive effects. There's also a relationship between cascading failure modes and complexity.
Systems that are robust due to being simple, flexible, highly independent tend to peter out over the long haul, as their failure is often an effect of a changing environment rather than some internal fracture.
Anything that's made "robust" artificially (like propping up a bridge with a loose piece of lumber, or injecting bailout money to maintain bank's solvency) is now completely dependant on that artificial prop. if the bridge is allowed to carry more traffic after being propped up this way, you can expect a catastrophe equal to the one you averted + everything that's been added since.
> The decentralized aspects of crypto ("defi") has been operating just fine through this entire shit-show.
There's a reason that exchanges like FTX are central to "crypto" as a practical matter, regardless of the technical underpinnings of crypto itself. These things are required to facilitate speculation and attract users who otherwise would be capable of interacting with the actual distributed stuff.
Without the much needed fiat currency of this class of users, the pyramids couldn't have been built nearly so high.
To most people defi = blockchain-ized ponzi schemes. Programs that have you deposit assets in exchange for unsustainable 'yield' drawn from other deposits, collateralize by illiquid magic beans.
There were massive 'defi' failures earlier this year. FTX itself appears to have been primarily invested in varrious defi schemes while being short Bitcoin, resulting in the current insolvency.
https://beincrypto.com/top-ten-defi-hacks-2022-hackers-darin...