DeFi is Replicating the SaaS Playbook in Fintech

Blockbeats

Oct 02, 2025

Original Title: DeFi Is Following The SaaS And Fintech PlaybooksOriginal Author: Lorenzo Valente, ARK InvestOriginal Translation: Ismay, BlockBeatsEditor's Note: The development of the crypto industry...

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it often echoes past technological waves. This article delves into the \"splitting and reintegration\" cycle of SaaS and fintech, analyzing deeply how this logic is reproduced in DeFi and crypto applications. The author not only sets the stage with Web2 examples like Airbnb and Robinhood but also combines the evolution of Uniswap and Aave, revealing how crypto protocols have transitioned from single-point primitives to modular \"financial Legos,\" and further into today's gradual integration into super apps. For readers trying to understand the future landscape of DeFi, this is a framework to observe the future through history.As the crypto industry matures, investors are starting to look for clues from past technological waves to predict the next significant trend or inflection point. Historically, digital assets have struggled to directly compare with previous tech cycles, making it challenging for users, developers, and investors to anticipate its long-term development path.This situation is changing. According to our research, the crypto \"application layer\" is evolving, with its pattern closely resembling the \"splitting and recombination\" cycle experienced by SaaS (Software as a Service) and fintech platforms.In this article, I will explain how the splitting and recombination cycle in the SaaS and fintech fields is being replicated in DeFi and crypto applications. The evolutionary logic of this pattern is as follows:To understand the splitting and recombination cycle, the concept of \"composability\" is crucial. In the fintech and crypto communities, \"composability\" is a common analytical term, referring to the ability of financial or decentralized applications and services—especially at the application layer—to seamlessly interact, integrate, and further build on each other like Lego bricks. Based on this core concept, we will further analyze the evolution path of product structures in the following two subsections.From Vertical to Modular: The Great SplitIn 2010, Andrew Parker of Spark Capital published a blog post depicting how dozens of startups were leveraging Craigslist's \"splitting\" opportunity. At the time, Craigslist was a \"horizontal\" internet marketplace offering various services from rentals, part-time jobs to second-hand item transactions, as shown in the diagram below.Parker's conclusion is that many successful companies—Airbnb, Uber, GitHub, Lyft—have carved out an extremely narrow vertical from Craigslist's broad functionality and significantly improved upon it. This trend kicked off the first wave of \"market unbundling\": Craigslist, a large and general-purpose platform, is gradually being replaced by applications focused on a single purpose. These newcomers have not only enhanced Craigslist's user experience (UX) but have completely redefined the experience. In other words, \"unbundling\" breaks down a broad platform into narrower, independently functioning verticals that meet user needs in a unique way, thus disrupting Craigslist.So, what is driving this unbundling wave? Behind it is a shift in technological infrastructure. Advances in areas such as API (Application Programming Interface), cloud computing, mobile UX, and embedded payments have lowered the barrier to building focused applications, enabling developers to launch more precise services with a world-class user experience.A similar unbundling has also occurred in the banking industry. For decades, banks have offered a suite of financial services under the same brand and app—from savings and loans to insurance. However, over the past decade, fintech startups have gradually eroded this bundled model in a \"surgical\" manner, each focusing on a specific vertical.Traditional banking's \"bundled services\" include:Payments and TransfersChecking and Savings AccountsDeposit Value-Added ProductsBudgeting and Financial PlanningLending and CreditInvesting and Wealth ManagementInsuranceCredit Cards and Debit CardsOver the past decade, this \"banking bundle\" has been systematically unbundled, giving rise to a large number of venture-backed fintech companies, many of which have grown into unicorns, decacorns, and even hectocorns:Payments and Transfers: PayPal, Venmo, Revolut, StripeBank Accounts: Chime, N26, Monzo, SoFiSavings and Value-Added: Marcus, Ally BankPersonal Finance and Budgeting: Mint, Truebill, PlumLending and Credit: Klarna, Upstart, Cash App, AffirmInvesting and Wealth Management: Robinhood, eToro, CoinbaseInsurance: Lemonade, Root, HippoCard and Expense Management: Brex, Ramp, MarqetaThese companies each focus on a service area that they can do better than traditional banks, combining new technological leverage and distribution models to modularize growth-oriented niche financial services.In SaaS and fintech, unbundling has not only been an impact on the incumbents but has also created entirely new categories, ultimately expanding the entire Total Addressable Market (TAM) of services.From Unbundling Back to Bundling: The Great ReaggregationRecently, Airbnb launched the \"Services and Experiences\" section and redesigned its app. Now, users can not only book accommodations but also explore and purchase add-on items such as museum visits, food tours, dining experiences, gallery walks, fitness classes, and beauty treatments.Originally just a peer-to-peer lodging marketplace, Airbnb is gradually evolving into a vacation super app—it repackages travel, lifestyle, and local services into a unified, cohesive platform. Additionally, in the past two years, Airbnb's product has already transcended homestay rentals, gradually integrating payments, travel insurance, local guides, concierge tools, and curated experiences into its core booking service.Robinhood is also undergoing a similar transformation. Once disrupting the traditional brokerage industry with commission-free stock trading, it is now aggressively expanding into a full-stack financial platform, reaggregating many vertical services that had been unbundled by fintech startups.In the past two years, Robinhood has taken the following actions:Launched the Robinhood Cash Card for payments and cash management;Added cryptocurrency trading functionality;Introduced retirement accounts;Introduced margin investing and credit cards;Acquired Pluto, an AI-driven research and wealth advisory platform.These actions indicate that, like Airbnb, Robinhood is rebundling originally fragmented services to build a comprehensive financial super app. By controlling more of the financial stack—savings, investing, payments, borrowing, and financial advisory—Robinhood is reshaping itself from a brokerage into a holistic consumer finance platform.Our research shows that this \"unbundling-to-reaggregation\" dynamic is also impacting the crypto industry. Next, we will analyze Uniswap and Aave as case studies.The DeFi Unbundling and Reaggregation Cycle: Two Case StudiesCase Study One: Uniswap—From Monolithic AMM to Liquidity Lego and then to Trading Super AppIn 2018, Uniswap launched on Ethereum as a simple yet groundbreaking Automated Market Maker (AMM). Early Uniswap was a vertically integrated application: a small smart contract codebase coupled with an officially hosted frontend by the team. Its core AMM functionality—swapping ERC-20 tokens in a constant product pool—operated on-chain, existing as a standalone protocol. Users primarily accessed this functionality through Uniswap's native web interface. This design was highly successful, with Uniswap's on-chain trading volume surpassing $1.5 trillion by mid-2023. With a tightly controlled stack, Uniswap provided a seamless user experience for token swapping, laying the groundwork for DeFi's early growth.In the v1/v2 phases, Uniswap implemented all trading logic on-chain, without the need for external price oracles or off-chain order books. The protocol autonomously determined prices within a closed system through the liquidity pool reserve (x*y=k formula). The Uniswap team developed the primary user interface, interacting directly with the contract. In the early days, most users accessed the protocol through this frontend, which almost served as an exclusive decentralized trading gateway. Apart from Ethereum itself, Uniswap did not rely on other infrastructure. Liquidity providers and traders interacted directly with the contract, making the system concise yet relatively isolated.As DeFi expanded, Uniswap transformed from a single application into a composable \"liquidity Lego.\" Its open and permissionless nature allowed other projects to integrate with and extend its pools. Uniswap Labs gradually relinquished control of the stack, allowing external infrastructure and community-built features to play a larger role:Decentralized trading aggregator and wallet integration: Uniswap's significant trading volume began to flow through external aggregators (such as 0x API, 1inch) instead of its native interface. By the end of 2022, an estimated 85% of the volume was routed through aggregators like 1inch as users sought the best prices across platforms. Wallets such as MetaMask also embedded Uniswap's liquidity into their swap functions, enabling users to directly trade on Uniswap within the wallet. This made AMMs more like plug-and-play modules in the DeFi stack, no longer relying on a native frontend.Oracle and Data Indexing: Although the Uniswap contract itself does not require an oracle to execute trades, other protocols within its ecosystem use Uniswap's pool prices as on-chain price references. Its official frontend also relies on external indexing services, such as querying pool data through The Graph's subgraph to provide a smoother interface experience. Uniswap itself does not need to run indexing nodes but instead leverages community-driven data infrastructure — a modular approach that outsources the data processing burden to specialized indexing services.Multi-chain Deployment: In the modular phase, Uniswap is no longer limited to Ethereum but has expanded to multiple blockchains and Rollups such as Polygon, Arbitrum, BSC, and Optimism. Its governance mechanism empowers the core protocol to be deployed on these networks, treating each blockchain as a liquidity plug-in. This multi-chain strategy underscores its composability: Uniswap can exist on any EVM-compatible chain rather than being bound within a single vertical environment.However, recently Uniswap has reverted to vertical integration, seemingly aiming to regain control of the user journey and optimize the entire stack for its use case. Key reintegration efforts include:Native Mobile Wallet: In 2023, Uniswap launched its self-hosted mobile wallet, \"Uniswap Wallet,\" followed by a browser extension, allowing users to directly store tokens and interact with the product. This marks the beginning of reclaiming control over the user interface layer, rather than relying entirely on wallets like MetaMask. Through its proprietary wallet, Uniswap will re-incorporate token swaps, NFT browsing, and other activities under its control, potentially routing liquidity back to Uniswap.Built-in Aggregator (Uniswap X): To break free from reliance on third-party aggregators, Uniswap introduced an integrated aggregation and trade execution layer called Uniswap X. It fetches liquidity from multiple AMMs and market makers off-chain through a network of \"transaction submitters\" and settles on-chain. This transforms Uniswap's interface into an all-in-one trading portal, integrating the best prices for users like 1inch or Paraswap. However, this feature is operated by Uniswap's native protocol, eliminating the need for user redirection and internalizing the experience completely. Uniswap X is already embedded in its web app and may appear in wallets in the future.Exclusive Chain (Unichain): In 2024, Uniswap announced the launch of its proprietary Layer 2 blockchain called \"Unichain\" as part of the Optimism Superchain. By extending vertical integration to the infrastructure layer, Unichain is optimized for Uniswap and DeFi transactions, aiming to reduce fees by approximately 95% and shorten latency to 250 milliseconds. Uniswap is no longer just an application parasitic to others' chains but instead wholly controls a blockchain environment hosting its contracts. By operating Unichain, Uniswap can optimize every aspect from gas costs to MEV mitigation and introduce a native protocol fee split to UNI holders. This full-cycle transformation signifies that Uniswap has evolved from a decentralized application relying on Ethereum to a vertically integrated platform with a proprietary interface, aggregation layer, and dedicated blockchain.Case Study 2: Aave - From Peer-to-Peer Lending Market to Multi-Chain Deployment, and Towards a Credit Super-AppThe origins of Aave can be traced back to 2017 when it was known as ETHLend, an independent lending application. In 2018, ETHLend rebranded to Aave, evolving into a decentralized peer-to-peer lending market. The team developed lending smart contracts and provided an official web interface through which users could participate. During this phase, ETHLend/Aave operated similarly to an order book, responsible for all aspects of lending from interest rate logic to loan matching.As it gradually transitioned to a liquidity pool model (similar to Compound's pool lending), Aave achieved vertical integration. Its v1 and v2 contracts on Ethereum introduced innovations such as flash loans – allowing borrowing without collateral in the same transaction – and interest rate algorithms. Users primarily accessed the service through Aave's official web interface. The protocol internally handled key functions such as interest accrual and liquidation, with minimal reliance on third-party services. In essence, Aave's early design was that of a monolithic money market: a decentralized application with its own UI, handling deposits, loans, and liquidations on the same platform.Aave has also always been part of a broader DeFi symbiotic relationship. From the outset, it had MakerDAO's DAI stablecoin as a core collateral and borrowing asset. In fact, Aave almost simultaneously launched with Maker during the ETHLend phase and promptly supported DAI, meaning these vertical integration pioneers were closely intertwined and indicating the absence of \"protocol islands\" early on. Even in the \"vertical\" phase, Aave's operation depended on other protocol products – stablecoins.As DeFi expanded, Aave began to \"unbundle,\" embracing a modular architecture, outsourcing some infrastructure while encouraging others to build on top of its platform. Several key transitions toward composability and external dependencies include:External Oracle Networks: Aave no longer relies solely on in-house price feeds but instead uses Chainlink's decentralized oracles to provide reliable asset pricing for collateral valuation. Price oracles are crucial to lending protocols as they determine when a loan is undercollateralized. Aave's governance chose Chainlink as the primary price feed for most assets, thereby outsourcing pricing infrastructure to a professional third-party network. While this modular approach enhances security (e.g., Chainlink aggregates data from multiple sources), it also means that Aave's stability depends to some extent on external services.Wallet and App Integration: Aave's liquidity pool has gradually become a foundational module for many dApps. Portfolio management tools and dashboards (such as Zapper and Zerion), DeFi automation tools (such as DeFi Saver), yield optimizers, and more have integrated with Aave's open SDK to access its contracts. Users can even interact with Aave through third-party interfaces for deposits and borrowing, with the official interface being just one of many entry points. DEX aggregators also indirectly leverage Aave's flash loan functionality to execute complex multi-step transactions initiated by services like 1inch. Aave's open design has brought about composability: other protocols can incorporate its functionality into their own logic, such as calling Aave flash loans in a Uniswap arbitrage bot. This positioning as a liquidity module rather than a standalone application has expanded its reach further into the entire DeFi ecosystem.Multi-chain Deployment and Isolation Mode: Similar to Uniswap, Aave has expanded to multiple networks, including Polygon, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Optimism, etc., essentially achieving cross-chain modularity. Aave v3 introduced \"Isolated Markets\" to set separate risk parameters for specific assets, sometimes even operating independently outside the main liquidity pool. Furthermore, Aave has also introduced a \"permissioned\" version—Aave Arc—for institutionally compliant KYC clients, essentially being an independent modular instance of Aave.These examples illustrate that Aave has shown flexibility in its fragmentation phase, no longer confined to a single integration environment but leveraging a broader infrastructure: Chainlink provides data, The Graph provides indexing, wallets and dashboards provide user entry points, and other protocol tokens (such as DAI or Lido's stETH) act as collateral. Modularity has enhanced composability and avoided reinventing the wheel. However, the trade-off is that Aave's control over parts of the stack has decreased, increasing external dependency risks.In recent years, Aave has started to move back toward vertical integration, autonomously developing key components it previously relied on externally. In 2023, Aave launched its proprietary stablecoin, GHO. Historically, Aave primarily matched users borrowing other stablecoins, especially DAI, which had a significant presence on Aave. The introduction of GHO means that the Aave platform itself now has a native stablecoin and serves as a distribution channel for other protocol stablecoins. Similar to DAI, GHO is an overcollateralized, decentralized, USD-pegged stablecoin. Users can mint GHO by depositing assets on Aave v3, allowing Aave to take control of the \"stablecoin issuance\" phase in the lending stack.The result is:Aave is no longer just a place for borrowing stablecoins, but is the issuer of a stable asset, directly controlling the stablecoin's parameters and revenue. GHO competes with DAI, allowing Aave to recycle interest back into its own ecosystem, with GHO's returns directly benefiting AAVE token stakers, rather than indirectly increasing MakerDAO's revenue.Introducing GHO also requires dedicated infrastructure. Aave has established \"facilitators\" (including the main liquidity pool) to mint and burn GHO, and has established governance rules. With this new functional layer, Aave has essentially tailored a \"proprietary version\" of a MakerDAO product for its own community.Furthermore, Aave is also utilizing mechanisms such as Chainlink's Smart Value Routing (SVR) to help users capture MEV (Maximal Extractable Value, similar to payment for order flow in the stock market). Deeply integrated with the oracle layer, enabling arbitrage profits to flow back into the protocol, Aave is blurring the boundaries between itself and the underlying blockchain mechanism. This indicates that Aave is intentionally further customizing the underlying infrastructure, such as oracle behavior and MEV capture, to seek self-benefit.Although Aave has not yet launched its own wallet or chain like Uniswap, other projects initiated by its founders suggest that its goal is to build a self-sustaining ecosystem. For example, its launch of the Lens Protocol social network, which may integrate with Aave in the future, explores finance based on social reputation. Architecturally, Aave is gradually providing all core financial primitives: borrowing, stablecoins (GHO), and perhaps even decentralized identity (Lens), rather than relying on external protocols. At the core of its product strategy is \"deepening the platform,\" enhancing user stickiness and protocol revenue through services such as stablecoins and borrowing.In summary, Aave's evolution path is as follows: from a closed lending dApp to an open \"liquidity Lego,\" relying on external protocols such as Chainlink and Maker, and now recombining key functions to build a larger vertical financial suite. Particularly with the launch of GHO, Aave highlights its desire to regain control of the stablecoin layer that was once outsourced to MakerDAO.Our research indicates that the trajectories of projects such as Uniswap, Aave, MakerDAO, and Jito reveal broader cyclical patterns in the crypto industry. In the early days, vertical integration—building monolithic products around specific use cases—was crucial for pioneering new features such as automated trading, decentralized lending, stablecoins, or MEV capture. This self-contained design approach allowed projects to iterate quickly in the early market and maintain quality control. As the industry matures, modularity and composability become mainstream: protocols begin to disaggregate the stack, leverage external strengths to introduce new features, or create more value for external stakeholders, gradually becoming \"financial Legos.\"However, the success of modularity and composability has also brought new challenges. Relying on external modules increases risk and limits the protocol's ability to capture the value it creates. Today, top protocols with strong PMF (Product Market Fit) and revenue streams are shifting their strategic focus back to vertical integration. They are not abandoning decentralization and composability but are strategically re-integrating key components: custom chains, wallets, stablecoins, frontends, and other infrastructure. The goal is to provide a smoother user experience, capture additional revenue streams, and avoid being at the mercy of competitors.Uniswap is building a wallet and a custom chain; Aave is releasing GHO; MakerDAO is forking to Solana to launch NewChain; Jito is merging staking/re-staking with MEV. In our view, any sufficiently large DeFi application will eventually seek its own vertical integration solution.ConclusionHistory does not simply repeat itself, but it often rhymes. The crypto industry is playing a familiar tune. Just as the SaaS and e-commerce platform revolution of the past decade, DeFi and application layer protocols are following the trajectory of \"unbundling—re-bundling\" around new technical primitives, evolving user expectations, and a stronger desire for value capture.In the 2010s, a wave of startups focused on a single vertical within Craigslist's vast marketplace effectively unbundled it into separate companies. This \"unbundling\" gave birth to giants—Airbnb, Uber, Robinhood, Coinbase—that later embarked on their respective \"re-bundling\" journeys, integrating new vertical businesses and services into unified and sticky super-platforms.The crypto industry is rapidly heading down the same path at a revolutionary pace.The initial explorations were highly focused vertical experiments: Uniswap was an AMM, Aave was a money market, Maker was a stablecoin vault. With open and permissionless modular design, they evolved into \"financial Legos,\" unlocking liquidity, outsourcing key functions, and nurturing composability. Now, with growing scale and market fragmentation, the pendulum is swinging back towards integration.Today, Uniswap is evolving into a trading super-app, equipped with a proprietary wallet, custom chain, cross-chain standards, and routing logic; Aave has launched its own stablecoin and is repackaging lending, governance, and credit primitives; Maker is building a brand-new chain to optimize the governance of its monetary system; Jito unifies staking, MEV, and validation logic into a full-stack protocol; Hyperliquid integrates exchanges, L1 infrastructure, and EVM to create a seamless on-chain financial operating system.In the crypto world, primitives are naturally modular, but the best user experience—and the most defensible business models—often come from reaggregation. This is not a betrayal of composability but a fulfillment of it: constructing the optimal LEGO blocks and using them to build the most robust castle.DeFi is compressing this entire cycle into just a few short years. Why? Because DeFi is built on an entirely different track:Permissionless infrastructure: greatly reducing the friction of experimentation, any developer can fork, copy, or extend existing protocols in a matter of hours rather than months.Instant capital formation: through tokens, teams can fund new projects, new ideas, or incentive mechanisms at speeds never seen before.Highly liquid liquidity: total value locked migrates rapidly with incentives, making it easier for new experiments to gain traction, and successful projects to achieve exponential growth.Broader accessible markets: protocols are global and permissionless from day one, often achieving scale faster than Web2 counterparts restricted by geography, regulation, or distribution channels.DeFi's killer apps are rapidly expanding in real-time. In our view, the winners will not be the most modular projects, but those that can accurately assess which stacks must be proprietary, which can be shared, and when to flexibly switch between the two.Source: Original Article Link\nWelcome to join the official BlockBeats community:\nTelegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats\nTelegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App\nOfficial Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"}}}