Is DeFi what we're officially calling cryptocurrencies now? A quick Google search looks like that's the case but I don't know if DeFi covers anything else that I haven't thought of.
As cryptocurrency replaces government-issued money, defi replaces traditional financial institutions/services.
So, for those who believe in decentralization, the reason may not be a valid justification. Of course, at that point, one also shouldn't be surprised that pushing back against centralization is criminalized by those who benefit from it. But even so, they don't need to comply - they can accept that what they're doing is illegal, but continue doing it because it's morally right.
There are instruments on instruments cross referencing each other creating entirely new instruments.
Maybe a defi ecosystem empowered by cryptocurrency but one doesn’t necessarily equal the other. The picture is much much larger now with the meta verse angle.