In fact I'd go so far as to say all of finance is about managing risk because assets (all loans are assets)/financial positions generally fall on a line from <not risky, low-yield> to <risky, high-yield>. This is true for both aggressive speculative hedge fund managers and conservative banks. Everybody (who knows their shit) is following the Kelly Criterion in some way as a result, even if they may not know it. And your competitive advantage as a financial entity is generally to price risk better than other market participants.

This still benefits the public because by pooling, commodification of financial instruments, and accurately assessing risk financial entities are able to compete against each other in a mostly-open market leading to competitive and fair pricing.

I'd only add that assessing risk, that is, assigning a numeric and subsequently monetary value to the likelihood that a prediction will not happen in the future, enables this to occur. Without being able to move risk around you cannot move money through time.

- Your government can freeze your assets on a whim, because you criticised the wrong people or exposed some of their institution's crimes ( whistleblowers ).

- Destroy your business in an instant, by cutting you off from funding and other services for whatever reason they deem appropriate.

Every system has its pros and cons, but I totally understand why people are excited about defi.