Why I’m Learning DeFi for the Long Haul

A friend asked me why I decided to do DeFi. It wasn’t about chasing tokens; it was about career durability. I’m a software engineer staring at a saturated market, and I want a skill set that still feels scarce in ten or thirty years. DeFi is remote-first, which matches how I want to work, and it rewards people who understand how money actually moves—not just how to ship another backend API.

Career durability over hype

The software job market is getting crowded. New frameworks show up weekly, but they don’t create moats. Learning the mechanics of on-chain settlement, how bridges fail, and how wallets really sign is a different bet. It’s the kind of knowledge that’s usually out of books and off the beaten path, which makes it more defensible. If remote-first finance keeps growing, having those reps will differentiate me long after the next JavaScript trend fades.

How I’m learning without centralizing my money

I’m conservative with capital. My net worth will never live in crypto until regulations and consumer protections improve. I set aside only small amounts—as tuition—to test flows and build intuition. Everything else stays in safe, liquid places in Brazil where I can actually spend it without worrying about volatility or custody risk. When I do touch chains, I keep the plan simple:

• Use testnets first to rehearse bridges and approvals so mainnet isn’t guesswork.
• Cap any live funding to a few hundred dollars, sized to what I’m fully willing to lose.
• Prefer canonical bridges and direct custody paths so I can audit where value moves.
• Keep approvals tight and revoke quickly; practice makes that muscle memory, not a scramble.

What the work feels like day to day

Most of the progress is unglamorous. It’s labeling transactions in explorers, timing confirmations, and writing tiny scripts to sanity-check addresses before sending anything. It’s also planning for the next three decades: I want a career that’s portable across timezones, and DeFi’s remote nature lets me do that without relocating or betting on a single employer.

Practical takeaways

• Treat on-chain spend as tuition, not investment; cap it and expect it could go to zero.
• Build muscle memory on testnets so mainnet actions feel like repetition, not improvisation.
• Stay honest about local constraints: in Brazil, crypto is still hard to spend, so there’s no reason to park savings there.
• This is my contrarian bet: instead of chasing the next framework, I’m learning the parts of the stack people ignore—how value hops chains safely and what breaks when it doesn’t.